Indian animated content within the entertainment space is undeniably an important future growth market of the world. 'Made for India' is a term most animation production companies shun as they want their content to appeal to the world, but for that to happen, our production quality should meet world standards and our stories, distribution and marketing should truly go global. Often the 'Made for World' content produced in India ignores or confuses our own audience and misses the pulse completely. We are also the largest youth population with every 4.5th human in the world an Indian, hence the term 'Made for India' is a realistic one to begin with any ways.
Taking a holistic view, the overall Home Entertainment (HE) business in India is plagued with many challenges viz. piracy, low perceived values, abundant and cheap CATV, fragmented market, low hardware penetration, etc. Within it the animation content (a product for keeps) has often been a catalyst for growth for the Home Video Industry. Data from large-format retailers suggest that 55 per cent of the total HE business is contributed by international content whereas animation contributes a whopping 35 per cent of the overall home video business. With great entertainment and educational values for children, animation often gets purchased by consumers for its repeat viewing appeal.
In the past two to three years, the performance of feature length animation or theatrically released animation films on home videos has improved dramatically in the country. This could be attributed to the marketing of such films, shorter windows and also since local content as produced for cinema screens being superior in quality and storytelling. Also, the recent explosion of the medium has opened new doors to captive consumption of DVDs.
The the spin-offs in gaming and merchandising are quite integral to overall growth of a property and it particularly assists the Home Entertainment stream as the most convenient storyteller after Cinema and Satellite TV. The retail space being common, it only helps further build the fastest growing segments in the country - Home Videos, Consumer Products and Video Games; as all of these are such natural extensions of any animation blueprint.
With so many new players and productions, sophistication of the business is the key to continued growth, and as newer content evolves from monolith to multi-tiered products where there are consumers available for all ideas, stories, creations, imaginations and formats - I am certain that Home Entertainment will become one of the most critical revenue streams for Indian animation!
No comments:
Post a Comment