Rewind 2022: How the M&E industry thrived during the year

The Indian Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry is considered as an industry with an immense potential for further growth within the economy and is witnessing significant developments and trends, including in the East markets. One of the key characteristics of the Indian M&E industry is the increasing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and the exceptionally high volumes. The major factors contributing to its growth are the digital revolution and increasing digital adoption supported by cheaper and high speed internet, increasing consumer incomes and demand for content consumption, cost friendly subscription offers as well as growing advertising revenues.

The industry is expected to reach $53.99 billion (Rs 430,401 crore) by the year 2026, according to a report by PwC. By the year 2024, the advertising revenues from it are estimated to reach $5.42 billion (Rs 394 billion). By 2024, Television would contribute to around 40% of the Indian media market, followed by print media at around 13%, digital advertising at around 12%, cinema at around 9% and the OTT and gaming industries at around 8%.

Television

Regarding the trends in the Indian television industry in the year 2022, Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP Network, said, “In 2022, the television and news broadcast industry was characterized by several key trends, developments, and issues. Firstly, the convergence of media and technology allowed for a more seamless experience across multiple platforms. This allowed the industry to become more focused on the delivery of content to reach a larger audience. Secondly, the rise of streaming services drastically changed the way people access media content. Thirdly, the development of 5G networks enabled faster streaming of content and increased the quality of the experience for users. Fourthly, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology were used to better target and personalize advertisements. Finally, personalisation of user experience and data privacy were two major issues in the industry.”

Sharing his views about how the year 2022 was different for the television industry in comparison to the past three-four years, Pandey pointed out, “The year 2022 saw a dramatic change in the industry. New technology allowed for the creation of immersive, interactive television experiences. Virtual reality was incorporated into many news broadcasts, allowing the viewer to be fully immersed in the story. Augmented reality was also used to bring additional depth to the stories being broadcast. This allowed viewers to better understand the content, as well as gain a better understanding of the context.”

He further added, “In addition, new forms of interactive streaming were being introduced. This allowed news channels to be streamed directly to the viewer's device, allowing them to watch news as it happens in real time. This was an important step forward in keeping news viewers up to date with current events. The year 2022 was a major shift in the television industry, and news channels in particular, as technology allowed traditional news broadcasters to stay relevant in the modern world. The industry continues to evolve, and the future of news is looking brighter than ever.”

OTT

The Indian OTT market is predicted to record a CAGR of 29.52% for reaching $5.12 billion by the year 2026. Speaking about the current OTT scenario in India and the developments in the company in 2022 as well as the plans for the year 2023, Soumya Mukherjee, COO, hoichoi, said, “One thing that has seemed to dominate the OTT industry at present is the audience’s inclination towards content rather than a platform. Courtesy of OTT bundling and partnerships, a lot of platforms are available to audiences at a much lesser rate and more conveniently, exposing them to an extremely large bank of content. Hence, audiences are loyal to quality content over platforms, which is why hoichoi focuses more on onboarding creators to create high quality content. 2022 marks a momentous year for hoichoi, as not only does the platform complete 5 years in its journey of entertaining Bengalis across the globe and being the leading vernacular OTT in the country, but also creating and curating 100+ originals within this time span, making it the only Indian OTT platform to have a library of 100+ originals in a single language. This number is all set to take a leap as hoichoi announces 25 more originals (3 titles from Bangladesh + 22 titles from India) that are slated to release in the coming year.”

Speaking about the audience behaviour towards content on OTT platforms and on hoichoi, Mukherjee noted, “It is a little difficult to segregate the OTT scenario in India based on region in particular, while language plays a significant role at present; the overlap of content across regions be it within the country or outside is significant. When it comes to the key trends, hoichoi audiences or the bengali speaking audiences have shown a specific liking towards family dramas and social dramas. Titles of these genres have been followed by a substantial rise in subscriptions. Another thing that has performed really well are our Bangladesh and experimental titles (content that tell stories that aren’t stereotypical). Especially when it comes to our audiences based in the east, Bangladeshi content and the love for the actors in these shows is also on a significant rise.”

Speaking about hochoi’s performance during the year, he said, “Over the past year, hoichoi has seen a 50% growth in direct subscriptions with a 20% increase in streams in the post lockdown period. There has been a 31% rise in watch time, 40% rise in monthly active users, 30% rise in international subscriber base and hoichoi continues to have one of the highest refresh rates in India for a single language. Besides experiencing the aforementioned growth, hoichoi, is now a PnL profitable business as of August 2022. This month has been momentous in another regard as well, as it is the highest direct subscription revenue month for the platform across all three of its user base regions, namely – India, Bangladesh and International markets, all of which contributing over 100% increase in growth.”

On whether hoichoi is thinking on the lines of an AVOD model, he said, “hoichoi adheres to and plans to continue with SVOD model moving forward as well. However, we do have certain freemium content available on the platform, as well as our Youtube channels also have  a number of IPs that are available to the audiences for viewing, while these are independent of any titles it brings out the Bengali culture and relatability as well.”

Radio

For Radio, there was a recovery of ad volumes of around 29% over the year 2020 and ad rates fell by around 13% on an average with recovery to be seen completely once there is a resumption of daily travel and the recovery of the retail sector. Sharing his views on the way forward for the radio industry, Ashit Kukian, CEO, Radio City, said, “We have left COVID behind us and businesses across industries are steadily recuperating from the effects of the pandemic. The radio industry is also recovering from the economic dearth caused by the pandemic and has grown to become more resilient in 2022. As radio is essentially an audio platform, we have integrated digital formats to augment the growth of our business. The amalgamation of radio plus digital solutions termed ‘Radigitalization’ is a strategic way forward for us. Upon closer inspection, the radio industry is built on a culture of innovation and sustenance as it strives to be relevant and engaging.”

Speaking about the overall trends in the radio landscape in East in 2022, he said, “Radio has taken off well in eastern India especially in North Bengal and the Northeast areas. Business wise these areas are doing reasonably well and the listenership has grown over the years thereby giving a rise to the engagement level too. Apart from Airwave, currently all the major FM radio Stations have moved to Digital. Promotions & engagement are happening mainly across digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. There is an increased focus on Posts, Polls, video content and reels as audiences have become digitally inclined. Few of the stations have started audio podcasts to increase the stickiness of the listeners. Video content is being developed by integrating products for digital platforms with the objective of monetisation. As stated earlier, a combination of radio plus digital solutions will play a pivotal role in augmenting the growth of the radio industry across the country.”

The AVGC sector

According to Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs & Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, the Animation, Visual effects, Gaming and Comic (AVGC) sector is predicted to reach around $43.93 billion by the year 2024. Moreover, according to data sources, the mobile gaming market is predicted to reach $7 billion by the year 2025 and the online gaming sector is estimated to reach around  $2.12 billion within the year 2023. The music industry is predicted to reach around $366 million by the year 2024. The number of connected smart televisions are predicted to reach around 40-50 million by the year 2025. Around 600-650 million Indians will be consuming short form videos within the year 2025 with users who are active, spending around 55 to 60 minutes in a day on the same.

Key developments in overall M&E industry

Among the key developments in the Indian M&E industry in the year 2022, is the acquisition of the exclusive rights for the television broadcast of IPL from the year 2023 to 2027 by Disney Star. The GOI has entered into an agreement for the set up of the National centre of Excellence for Animation, Gaming, Visual Effects and Comics industry in Mumbai. Moreover an audio-visual co-production deal has been signed by the Canadian and the Indian governments in order for the producers from both the countries to exchange and explore their creativity and culture for further strengthening of ties.

According to the EY-FCCI report, the media and entertainment industry has grown around 17% in the year 2022, reaching nearly $25.2 billion (Rs 1.89 trillion), recovering its pre pandemic levels of 2019 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11% for reaching $30.9 billion (Rs 2.32 trillion) by the year 2024. In the year 2021, digital media has grown by Rs 68 billion. By the year 2024, India’s advertising market will reach Rs 1 trillion. India currently has more than 500 million smartphones, 795 million broadband connections, 10 million connected TVs, with the consumption of 150 billion streams of online music, and 40 million Indian households paying for 80 million online video subscriptions, and 400 million consumers consuming bundled content. In the post-Covid times, the traditional media is making a comeback after a temporary decline. In the future as in the present scenario, both traditional and digital media will proliferate and co-exist in the Indian media landscape.

“The pandemic has taught us many things. But honestly we media people, we all journalists did not feel the sadness, the monotony of pandemic because we worked hard during that period just to make people aware what was the phase and what to do. So pandemic was a lesson to us also. We learnt and we worked for that. Post pandemic era is very significant and important for us because now we are going online mostly, which we have experienced during pandemic. Apart from going online we have learnt that any decision we take now keeping in mind the risks, the factors of the pandemic which we have experienced in that time frame, specially when we are planning for some outdoor jobs, or go out to cover Ukraine-Russia war or something big like that, we always have to keep in mind that what could be the consequences. It could be fatal for us. But these are part of our job. My suggestion to all the journalists is to love their job as much as they used to before the pandemic, but being cautious because if one is there, then their reporting will be there and their mindblowing work will be there as well, therefore one should spread the awareness and pandemic has taught us to think globally. Because this is the thing that affected the whole world, people of every strata” said Pew Roy, Senior Assistant Editor, TV9 Bangla.

About the trends dominating the media landscape in 2023, Roy said, “I think nationwide its politics. Indian people love to talk about politics, specially people from Bengal. Because the life and fate of each Indian depends on politics, people have started believing in this and the second thing is religion and religious barriers which is also an important part of politics nowadays.”