India’s Rs. 1,094 billion M&E industry is poised to grow at 13.9 per cent over the next five years to reach Rs. 1,964 billion by 2019, according to a report by KPMG in India for FICCI.
Speaking at FICCI-Frames 2015, the annual summit organized by FICCI, J.S.Mathur, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B), said the government had rolled out several initiatives for the industry as part of its ‘Digital India’ campaign.
“After phase 1 and 2, the I&B ministry has extended the deadlines for phases 3 and 4 of the Digital Addressable System (DAS) implementation for the TV sector to December 2015 and December 2016,” Mr. Mathur said, adding that the cable digitization process was step forward for all major stakeholders.
He said there could be a revision to the Cinematograph Act soon and the government was keen on making India a global filming destination. The growth in popularity of digital media continued to surge in 2014 with a significant growth in digital advertising of 44.5 per cent. Critical tax and regulatory interventions were key for enabling growth, it said.
The report said advertising will continue to show robust growth over the next five years as economic growth returns and categories like e-commerce and telecom increase spending. “However, the real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is subscription revenue — if new pricing structures take hold within the industry, then Average Revenue per User (ARPU) will rise, benefiting the entire TV value chain,” said Jehil Thakkar, head, M&E at KPMG in India.
The print industry is expected to grow in coming years on the back of growth in Tier II and Tier III cities. “Print still commands the largest share of advertising in India. While the English market may see some challenges from digital in the years ahead, regional print continues to grow in low double digits — a rate that is the envy of most of the print world,” Mr. Thakkar said.
The Government has started proceedings on the auction of FM radio channels of 135 channels in 69 cities in the third phase. “We hope to auction a total of 1,000 new FM radio channels by 2016,” Mr. Mathur said.
