The year-end is usually the time to take stock of the year gone by. For us in the Entertainment Industry, especially the film and TV segment, it has been quite an eventful year, for the GUILD even more so.
We celebrated our 50th anniversary with the launch of the Apsara Awards and added TV to Film in our very name. I feel this does not signify a paradigm shift in our activities but underscores the converging environment in the audio-visual sector. The year that was had the GUILD members win several encomiums and accolades at home and abroad. Cheers to all of them.
Of course with the joys came the sorrow as we lost some of our loved and esteemed colleagues including Vijay Anand, Yash Johar, Gulshan Rai, Pramod Chakravorty and Homi Wadia. We will miss them.
Now to think of the coming year. What are we going to be listening to and watching in 2005 and beyond? This is not just a question about your likes and dislikes alone. It's about the Rs 20000 crore Indian Media & Entertainment industry.
There has been much talk in the last few years about the impending change in entertainment in this new digital age. Yet, not much change is discernible. Is it that some visionaries got carried away to a never land of technological hype? Well, actually no. The fact is that a lot has changed in the last 100 years and an awful lot has changed in the last 10 years.
Imagine that 100 years (almost) ago there was no cinema, no radio, no TV. Audiocassettes appeared only in the sixties. Video only in the seventies, PCs in the eighties. Cell phones in the nineties. And so on. Satellite Broadcasting, which we take for granted, is just about 30 years old worldwide and just a decade old in India. From a solitary Doordashan channel to over 200 channels in less than 10 years - all this has altered the way we are informed and entertained.
The idiot box has become the greatest leveler of our lives and a relentless arbiter of our times. The information age, the third wave is truly upon us. For us, and specially those who are associated with creation of content, this is a huge opportunity.
But, what the next decade is about to unfold will make the decade gone by appear as a cop-out from a long forgotten past.
Welcome to the digital decade. The digitalization of all information, communication and entertainment should be complete and absolute in the next 10 years. It is estimated that currently all existing written and recorded work amounts to 1.5 exabytes of digital data. This will treble in the next decade implying that we would have access to three times more of newspapers, books, movies, music, TV shows and all other forms of expression than what we have had in the entire recorded human history. This of course is a simplistic way of looking at change. And this is the problem. We tend to gaze at future with an outlook of yesterday or at best today. There are enough examples of great inventions (Telephone, Computer, Cell Phones etc) being dismissed as quirky dreams of wacky scientists.
Similarly many of the devices still on the drawing boards of engineers across the world in the next few years will completely alter the way we perceive entertainment. From swanky new multiplexes to sophisticated hand helds, entertainment content will become more pervasive interactive and immerse.
Advances in digital compression technology will make it possible to pack in more and more voice, video and data in less and less bandwidth. Simultaneously progress in delivery and access of this will change dramatically. It is almost certain that within a couple of years last mile connectivity will be wireless. This could be through geo-stationary satellites beaming in KA band or even through multi-array floating transmitters, fiber-to the-home or wireless broadband or even Digital
Terrestrial Television (DTT). Each of these will have hundreds of pencil beams capable of being picked up by a saucer antenna unleashing telephony, television, education and commerce all in the interactive mode.
On the ground and under the sea many terabit optic-fiber grids already criss-cross Planet Earth offering another alternative of similar services. In fact the much talked about Broadband with very High-speed (up to of 100mbps) with an always-on Internet will finally become available to Indians. Screen size will not be a constraint, in fact the home theatre systems will give way to Home Media Rooms where entire walls (LCD and plasma displays) will be your screens. True convergence will allow you tap one gateway provider who will link you to the outside world at minimum speeds of 100 mbps. All audio, video and data will be available on demand and most users will pay per use. Needless to say all production and post-production will be in the digital mode.
There will be two kinds of access devices, one an updated version of a cell-phone cum PDA cum TV cum Music Player with a personalized security system, which will be the individual communication, entertainment cum transactional device. The second would be a home entertainment box which will hook up to service networks and storage area networks and application service providers tapping Movies, Music, News, Games, Learning et al on your remote. The big debate on lean back (TV) and lean forward (PC) mode of communication is just an intellectual exercise. The division between the two will diffuse to create a new zone of future entertainment. Life would clearly divide itself into 3 time periods, work, rest and leisure and within
leisure segment broadcasting (actually micro casting) will be the most dominant- e-entertainment is the catch phrase of this decade. Addressability and better regulatory framework will mean lesser copyright theft and optimized revenues.
As we move towards a completely digital world all analogue content will get converted. This is an awesome task and will spawn an entire cottage Industry in itself. CDs, DVDs will give way to memory sticks or even access cards which will allow you to watch and listen to programmes of your choice. Language dubs will be common. Most of film production will switch to digital in 10 years times. The great challenge is to create, in this new seamless universe where geographical boundaries may have no meaning but where virtual communities will mean a lot.
There will be programming for an entire world but customized enough for each neighbourhood. International formats will be more commonplace but they will fine tuned to local sensitivities. From passive viewing the audience will move on to more participatory watching. News and Information will be far more interactive than today. Reality TV would be the standard rather than the exception. Drama and fiction series will offer more than one choice of a story line. There will be several large production houses but gradually most micro casting will move towards in-house production with high-value inputs from creative boutiques.
In 05, watch out for blockbuster films. More acclaim and audiences for our movies. And more of TV Channels. More International exposure to Indian films. More of K-soaps. More changing in the Bollywood pecking order. More grist to the gossip mill. More applause to the GUILD members!
Generally more fun and games and entertainment in the New Year!
- Amit Khanna
President, Film & Television Producers Guild of India
29th December 2004
