Soon a platform to aggregate the content will be needed, says Shah Rukh Khan

“Media and entertainment sector is content generator and there will be major influx of content generators from all walks of the life. Soon a platform to aggregate the content will be needed. The Government should help the industry in aggregating this content which will catalyse the growth,” said Shah Rukh Khan. He was speaking at panel discussion on Media – Shaping the future and entertainment, at the ongoing Magnetic Maharashtra: Convergence 2018 at Mumbai. The panel included Arnab Goswami, Anchor and MD, Republic TV; Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18; Ritesh Sidhwani, Co-Founder, Excel Entertainment; Vikram Oza, Consulting Editor, BTVI; Vijay Subramaniam, Director, Content for Prime Video India; and Rishi Darda, Editorial Director, Lokmat Media.

Khan said that many business aspects in entertainment industry have been ignored and its strength to boost the national as well as state economy has been neglected for years. “We need to learn from China that how entertainment industry can play a pivotal role in the economy of the country. And also from the USA where the entertainment sector is well organised. With emergence of new platforms such as Amazon and Netflix, the entertainment industry is poised for a giant leap,” he said.

Goswami said, “The electronic media has undergone paradigm change over last three – four years. The news today is far more integrated than what it used to be. According to an estimate, currently 450 million people in India use smart phones and the number is likely to go up to 1.4 billion soon. People will have easy access to information and will watch whatever they want, whenever they want and wherever they want. This brings huge opportunity for media and entertainment industry and for Mumbai to become the media hub of the country.”

Vats said, “We need to understand that media and entertainment is a business. It has potential to grow more rapidly than any other sector. It has the unmatched potential to create jobs. In fact, millions of ancillary jobs are created in entertainment industry whenever a movie or a TV serial is being produced.” He said that with the growth of television, comes tremendous opportunities for regional growth, for the entertainment industry.

Sidhwani feels that film production involves lot of challenges in terms of permissions and approvals. “There is enormous potential of growth and job creation in the entertainment industry. Our only expectation is that the government takes care of procedural hurdles.”

“Digitisation is the most talked about topic in every board room today. Despite digitisation, newspapers continue to grow, though it is a bit stagnated in metro cities. High level of convenience with digital media has taken toll on newspaper readership in metro cities. However, the future of regional newspapers is bright,” said Darda. He said that every media house is expanding in electronic spectrum. “At Lokmat, we have presence in print as well as electronic media. We produce around 2500 videos a month which have considerable viewership. With the current growth rate of electronic media, we look at producing around 10000 videos a month.”

The Summit, Magnetic Maharashtra: Convergence 2018 is conceptualised and organised by The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is the national partner and KPMG is the knowledge partner to the summit.

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