Three-Day FICCI-FRAMES 2008 Opens in Mumbai

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

The Government does not favour the recommendations of the draft optical disk policy on combating piracy as the suggestions by industry would lead to the creation of a regime of inspectors that would go against the grain of the policy of liberalization.

This was stated here on Tuesday by Ms. Asha Swarup, Secretary, Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting while addressing the inaugural session of FICCI-FRAMES 2008.

Ms. Swarup, while acknowledging that the menace of piracy in the entertainment and media industry was huge, said the problem had to be tackled by closing the supply side gaps. A possible way, she said, was to release films and 'C' and 'D' class towns on digtial formats.

The Secretary noted the observations by Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & President, FICCI; Mr. Yash Chopra, Chairman, FICCI Entertainment Committee & Yashraj Films Pvt. Ltd.; and Mr. Kunal Dasgupta, Co-Chairman, FICCI Entertainment Committee & CEO, Sony Entertainment Television. To the concern expressed on piracy and banning of films, she pointed out that it was unfortunate that recent films like 'Jodha Akbar' and 'Aaa Jaa Nach Le' have met with this fate after having been cleared by the Censor Board of India. "The I & B Ministry, in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, will see how best we can tackle the issue," she assured the delegates.

Over 2500 Indian and foreign delegates from 17 countries are attending the three-day FICCI-FRAMES 2008. Foreign representation is from Australia, Canada, France Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, UAE, the UK, USA, Korea, Switzerland, and New Zealand.

With nearly 30 sessions on topical themes, FRAMES 2008 seeks to capture the essence of where the industry is positioned today and show the way forward. The topics being discussed include: Changing face of TV news, Resurgence of the language media, Developing animation content, New age technology and emerging production pipelines in animation, Raising capital, Linguistic diversity in Indian cinema, Radio for the masses, Scope of international co-productions, Talent crunch in the industry, Film marketing & distribution, Importance of digital cinema, Animation, IP creation, protection and life cycle, Visual effects, Mobile entertainment, Sports as entertainment, and Revenue streams in multiplexes.

FRAMES 2008 unfolds against the backdrop of a 17% growth in the Indian Entertainment & Media (E&M) industry in 2007 over the previous year. The industry reached an estimated size of Rs. 513 billion (Rs. 51, 300 crore) in 2007, up from Rs. 438 billion in 2006. In the last four years 2004-2007, the industry recorded a cumulative growth of 19% on an overall basis, according to the FICCI- PwC Report on Indian Entertainment and Media Industry 2008.

The inaugural session was also addressed by Ms Viviane Reding, European Commissioner, Information Society & Media, European Commission; Mr. Stewart Beck, Assistant Deputy Minister, Investment, Innovation and Sectors, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada; Mr. Dominique Dreyer, Ambassador of Switzerland to India; and Mr. Amit Khanna, Chairman, Reliance Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. And Chairman, FICCI Convergence Committee.

Ms. Swarup expressed satisfaction on Pakistani films were being released in India and Indian films like 'Taare Zamin Par' were getting an entry into Pakistan.

She hoped that with a new democratic government in place in Pakistan, the situation will further improve and more Indian films would be screened in that country.

The Secretary emphasized the need for development of content for TV viewers, especially for children. Currently, TV content was focused on just a small section of the viewers, she said, and called for innovative content for all sections of the viewers.

The inaugural session also saw the release of the FICCI-PwC Report on Indian Entertainment Industry and the FICCI Amarchand Mangaldas Law Book on legal aspects of the industry.

Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, in his address, noted that the Entertainment Industry today had a reached a point of critical mass from the early goals of 9 years ago. "I believe that this Industry is poised to achieve the scale and size required to be global in terms of its value and presence," he said.

The challenge for the Entertainment industry over the next few years, he said, was to scale up and becoming globally relevant - relevant to the capital markets and investors, relevant to consumers of Entertainment all over the world and to producers of Entertainment all over the world. "Scaling up for entrepreneurial companies is not a trivial task - It requires a mind set and approach that's quite different from the proprietary approach to running companies. I look forward to the day where just like we have names like Infosys and TCS in InfoTech and Software services, Reliance and Airtel in Telecom services, we can also have Entertainment Industry names and brands that are globally relevant," he said.

Mr. Chandrasekhar said the biggest challenge to scaling up Entertainment Industry was the issue of human assets. The government, he said, must look into this issue as a critical focus area and look at rapidly creating capacity in terms of either new institutes in the country or partnerships with neighboring institutions.

Source: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Business Wire India)

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