This year’s [tag]FICCI Frames[/tag] is the first one that we have attended as a Company. Met old friends. Started new conversations. Met potential collaborators and allies. Figured who was doing what and where (and sometimes to whom). All in all not a bad day’s work. FICCI Frames is the annual ‘Entertainment Industry’ event that covers Film, TV, Radio, Print, Gaming, Web and its fixed venue seems to be Renaissance, Powai. This year the partner country is Italy and its presence at the event is fairly evident. I went there as much to network as to hear views, policy discussions, and market understanding. How was the first day – chaotic (apart from registration that was really well organised)…. like most things in the media industry, but like most things in the media industry. .. things righted themselves without too many hiccups. Presentations regularly failed, AV equipment failed (which is quite ironic given that everyone was talking about convergence and technology enabled experiences ), panels started late and ended late, lunch arrangements were prettly much a disaster. But, the mood was good & upbeat, the industry seemed to vibe that it was on the cusp of something big and solid, and there was a general sense of bonhomie. The day began with registration, and that was fairly well organised. None of the chaos that one sees at the first day of an event. The [tag]PWC[/tag] report on the Indian Entertainment & Media Industry looks impressive – and i will probably sink my teeth into it next week. Also interesting is the Entertainment Law book. The key highlights of the inaugural session:

• Concert by Rahul Sharma – invigorating and truly upbeat.
• Highlights of the previous year

• The Indian Entertainment Industry clocked a healthy Rs.437 billion, a 20% growth on the previous eyar
• Diversification of traditional media
• The importance of ‘content’ rights
• Foreign Investments & interest in Indian Media

Estiamtes for 2011 – The Indian entertaiment industry would be worth Rs.1 trillion. a 18% CAGR – which most present believed was a conservative estimate.

Growth of "Lifestyle Media" – which is consumers demanding content anytime, anywhere. (havent’ we all been at this party before !!!)

Yash Chopara’s called for all producers, distributors and exhibitors to join hands and create a bigger market

Kunal Das Gupta made some very salient points on the nature of technology and the business. He said "Power in the value chain keeps shifting all the time….. and eventually it will shift to the consumer" but…. this will impact on pricing and sharing between various components of the value chain. And therefore there is going to be some amount of friction between the different entities in the value chain.

SK Arora – Secretary, I&B was very articulate whle describing the role of regulation & Government in the industry. He saw it primarily as being ‘supportive and facilitating growth’ (whether the industry sees it that way in light of maximum pricing policies on DTH channes and the must carry clauses is a different matter)

Priyaranjan Das Munshi, Minister I&B spoke about the power of Indian films abroad. The Government was looking at more ways of combatting the issues of piracy. He also talked about the Governement – as a part of its commitment to media accessibility – taking steps that would encourage Digital Theatres. Also spoke about NFDC to be revitalised. On moral policing the minister said that the Government – in a Democracy – is bound to enforce the "Rule of Law"

Following the inauguration the various tracks began. I mostly stayed with the TV tracks, SK picked the Film tracks. But, more on those later. Hopefully, i should catch the user generated content session today. More on the individual sessions later.