The major bodies that manage the affairs of the Tamil film industry — the Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI), Tamil film producer’s Council, Nadigar Sangam and Tamil Film Director’s Union — have jointly proposed to restrict a few television channels, publications and websites from attending press conferences.
The reason behind this move, they say, is to cut down on the ballooning costs of organising media interactions.
The issue, which has been brewing for the last two days, has provoked the reporters of various film websites into launching spontaneous online protests condemning the decision.
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The online mediascape of websites and blogs reporting on cinema has grown exponentially in the last few years. Film events are usually packed with hundreds of reporters claiming to represent one or more media websites.
The secretary of the Tamil Film Producer’s Council, T. Siva, explained that there was no ban on websites carrying articles and publicity material would be provided as usual. However, he said, “For every film event, there are at least 200 people with cameras. It is becoming very difficult for us to entertain them all. We are trying to keep the costs of organising the press meet at a manageable level.”
Reacting to the developments, Shakthi Girish, CIO and editor of Galatta.com, said, “I trust that the council wouldn’t paint all of the websites with the same brush. I understand the need to cut down some of the huge costs incurred by producers on media interactions but I also hope that the producer’s council will not ostracise reputed media brands that genuinely have a huge reader base and long-standing, good relationships with both the movie industry and their readers.”
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Meanwhile, Sashikanth of YNOT Studios clarified that this should not be construed as an effort to restrict media, but an effort from the film industry to understand the space much better.
“The cost of publicity is skyrocketing and it is hurting the smaller producers. There is a lot of panic buying of ad space. We want to make sure we disseminate information in a focussed way. We don’t need 150 websites to get the information out on the internet; we just need to call the best five websites to get the information. This is a step in that direction,” he said.