To develop and improve the mind set of citizens it was of utmost importance that children were exposed to responsible entertainment and education. Right kind of education was more important than Right to Education. Children consists one-third of India’s population, hence it becomes critical for broadcasters and content creators to develop content which adds value and balances education and entertainment. Therefore, India needs an Act that regulates and monitors the content viewed by children as they are the future citizens of the country. The Act should also provide parenting guidelines.
This was stated by eminent media and entertainment industry veterans at a session on ‘India needs a kids content Act’ on the second day of FICCI FRAMES. The kids programming in India needs customization and original content. An effective Act will ensure the largest kids population that India has gets the right content, education through entertainment and save the Indian cultural values and ethos by bringing in the right balance between the foreign content and Indian content.
Subhash Ghai, Film Maker, said for children to grow as real architects of the nation it was essential that they received extensive and in-depth knowledge about their culture and values. He pointed out that the state of education in India was mediocre and there were many great Indian stories that could be explored for creating content for kids.
M Srinivasan, Founder, GEAR Education, said that the personality of child develops in the first 10 years and it becomes essential that they were exposed to quality content. Hence, some regulations were needed to ensure that kids received quality exposure. He added that a comprehensive guideline for parents was also needed as the ambience of a child created his/her character.
Rajiv Chilaka, Creator of Chhota Bheem, said that there were 630 million kids below the age of 16 years in India and kids’ content creators needed to add value to their properties. He suggested that to reach kids in the rural areas, there was a need for a dedicated channel like Doordarshan Kids as these regions may not have access to cable TV.
Mukesh Khanna, Chairman, CFSI, said that non-Indian content was being viewed by children as producers were scared to make products for kids as they were bound to lose money. Therefore, a regulation was needed that could encourage producers to develop original content for kids.
Citing the example of the film Baahubali, Nishith Takia, Producer, Delhi Safari, said that Indian content can be successful. Today children have lost respect for their own culture and the need was to promote kids content which was rich in Indian values. He added that kids must be taught to value their heritage and they should not be ashamed of their roots.
In another panel discussion M K anand, CEO Times network, Bibhu Prasad Rath, CEO, Ortel Communications Ltd, Anthony D Silva, MD-CEO of Indusind Media and Communications Ltd, Tony, Microsoft Azure discussedissues relating to TV distribution. Avnindra Mohan, President Legal and Regulatory, Zee Network moderated the discussion.
Indian Pay TV is now over two decades old and in this period, it has grown from single digit channel number to more than 800 channels, and also made leap from analogue to digital and traveled from single to multi- platforms. Indian TV viewers are thus privileged lot with so much choice and there is more to come. But if you look at the providers’ point of view, the government is taking away 45% to 50% as taxation on distribution but did much less to improve the quality. Providers need lot of investment to upgrade technology but always fear that with any single legislation they will be out of business, said Anothy D’ Silva. He further said that digitization is national objective and setup box is only a starting point for distribution. In US most of the viewers are watching TV Channels through IP. There are bigger issues like sharing of infrastructure and creating level playing field.
M K Anand said that major investment on TV platform coming from USA and there investment climate is not just right because of economic stress. He made another point that linear .
To develop and improve the mind set of citizens it was of utmost importance that children were exposed to responsible entertainment and education. Right kind of education was more important than Right to Education. Children consists one-third of India’s population, hence it becomes critical for broadcasters and content creators to develop content which adds value and balances education and entertainment. Therefore, India needs an Act that regulates and monitors the content viewed by children as they are the future citizens of the country. The Act should also provide parenting guidelines.
This was stated by eminent media and entertainment industry veterans at a session on ‘India needs a kids content Act’ on the second day of FICCI FRAMES. The kids programming in India needs customization and original content. An effective Act will ensure the largest kids population that India has gets the right content, education through entertainment and save the Indian cultural values and ethos by bringing in the right balance between the foreign content and Indian content.
Subhash Ghai, Film Maker, said for children to grow as real architects of the nation it was essential that they received extensive and in-depth knowledge about their culture and values. He pointed out that the state of education in India was mediocre and there were many great Indian stories that could be explored for creating content for kids.
M Srinivasan, Founder, GEAR Education, said that the personality of child develops in the first 10 years and it becomes essential that they were exposed to quality content. Hence, some regulations were needed to ensure that kids received quality exposure. He added that a comprehensive guideline for parents was also needed as the ambience of a child created his/her character.
Rajiv Chilaka, Creator of Chhota Bheem, said that there were 630 million kids below the age of 16 years in India and kids’ content creators needed to add value to their properties. He suggested that to reach kids in the rural areas, there was a need for a dedicated channel like Doordarshan Kids as these regions may not have access to cable TV.
Mukesh Khanna, Chairman, CFSI, said that non-Indian content was being viewed by children as producers were scared to make products for kids as they were bound to lose money. Therefore, a regulation was needed that could encourage producers to develop original content for kids.
Citing the example of the film Baahubali, Nishith Takia, Producer, Delhi Safari, said that Indian content can be successful. Today children have lost respect for their own culture and the need was to promote kids content which was rich in Indian values. He added that kids must be taught to value their heritage and they should not be ashamed of their roots.
In another panel discussion M K anand, CEO Times network, Bibhu Prasad rath, CEO, Ortel Communications Ltd, Anthony D Silva, MD-CEO of Indusind Media and Communications Ltd, Tony, Microsoft Azure discussedissues relating to TV distribution. Avnindra Mohan, President Legal and Regulatory, Zee Network moderated the discussion.
Indian Pay TV is now over two decades old and in this period, it has grown from single digit channel number to more than 800 channels, and also made leap from analogue to digital and traveled from single to multi- platforms. Indian TV viewers are thus privileged lot with so much choice and there is more to come. But if you look at the providers’ point of view, the government is taking away 45% to 50% as taxation on distribution but did much less to improve the quality. Providers need lot of investment to upgrade technology but always fear that with any single legislation they will be out of business, said Anothy D’ Silva. He further said that digitization is national objective and setup box is only a starting point for distribution. In US most of the viewers are watching TV Channels through IP. There are bigger issues like sharing of infrastructure and creating level playing field.
M K Anand said that major investment on TV platform coming from USA and there investment climate is not just right because of economic stress. He made another point that linear broadcasting is here to say. But yes, on demand market is going to grow as people want to see their choicest programmes as per their convenience not as per the broadcast time. He also felt that even print will also stay for at least another 50 years. But yes monetization will be a big challenge in future.
Tony of Microsoft azure said that the cloud technology is making life much easier as it is providing cheaper solution to the providers, new emerging platform to watch TV like mobile and tab are just complimentary to TV, TV can not be replaced by these devices.
Another interesting discussion of the day was ‘Who moved my News’, the panel consisted of Anant Goenka, Director Indian Express, Ros Atkin, Presenter BBC News, Umeed Kothawala, CEO, Extentia, Azhar Iqbal, Founder, Inshorts, Sidharth Vardarajan, Founding Editor, The Wire, Bhaskar Das, Group CEO, Zee Media and Ravi Agarwal, Chief CNN International, Delhi Bureau and this discussion was moderated by Pradyuman Maheshwari, CEO, MxM India.
The bombardment of news in digital space and with fast growing number of television news channels has changed the way we consume news. So the point is that print is going to become irrelevant. There are innovator on digital space like Inshorts who provides all relevant new in short and crisp manners updated on minute to minute basis quite contrary to print which update the news only on daily basis.
To combat growing competition from digital space, most of the newspapers as well as TV channels have their own sites. Some of them are doing in much better way than the print version. One of such site is run by Indian Express. Anant Goenka, the owner says that their site is doing much much better than so call number one, no two or no three newspapers, in his opinion the main reason is contents. Bhaskar Das also echoed the same. He was asked how digital players will survive what will be their revenue model. Bhaskar said the top players of digital are making huge money, but you have to innovate, over dependence on conventional advertising has to be avoided, in his opinion there are multiple ways are there including e-commerce. Sidharth said that money is available through cross selling also.
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