Entertainment at your fingertips

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: A rapid device evolution is knocking at our doors and consumers are willingly welcoming the age of Internet and mobile downloads. The fact that the media and entertainment industry is going digital is an inevitable change and with film and television content being dished out to consumers through innovative formats, downloaded content is gaining tremendous popularity.

The entertainment industry has undergone tremendous changes from what it was between 30 and 40 years ago. Technological revolution resulted in new streams of revenue and the main concept was to aggregate a lot of people towards a particular content. Over the years, the home video market grew exponentially.

In Hollywood, the home video business pegged at $20 billion is now almost twice the size of the theatrical business that is about $9.5 billion. In India, with the advent of 2.5G technology and broadband connections, consumers are lapping up the benefits of technology aimed as potential media vehicles. Entertainment is now available at your fingertips.

So how exactly does the entertainment industry benefit from the business of downloads? As Neeraj Roy, managing director and chief executive officer, Hungama Mobile puts it, “It is a seven-letter word called revenue. Firstly, placing content on the Internet surmounts to an eternal shelf life of the media property. Mobiles offer a variant since a lot of the content accessed through handsets are for ‘snacking’ and personalisation. Secondly, downloads help in marketing content and creating a consumer connect.”

He explains that the power of the digital medium lends affinity to cinema or television content and creates a greater inclination towards box office, ticket sales. The mobile market recorded a high growth rate in 2007, where there were close to 80 million subscribers.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) has fallen dramatically and with a global business of $29 billion, mobile downloads are catching the pulse of the audiences who are eager to personalise film content and this phenomenon is growing four-fold every quarter. The domestic market is equally busy as far as mobile or Internet is concerned.

Properties that are available for download via Internet, mobile phones, IPTV and DTH are broadly classified into four categories of music, imagery, videos and games.