THE global strides of Indian industry seem unstoppable. After leaving a mark on the global I-T and IT enabled services, now it is the turn of Indian entertainment industry to move on to a bigger stage. No wonder the opportunities are exciting since most of the global entertainment giants are now keen to join the race. The Indian entertainment industry is now estimated to be worth a staggering $1.5 billion (Rs.55,000 crores). The key to the growth of Indian media and entertainment industry is the growth in the quality and quantity of media audiences. Only in the last four years, media audience in India has grown by 86 million people. The high growth in television: cable and satellite subscribers and FM radio listeners is driving the growth in media audience. Even the countryside and small towns of India are witnessing higher growth in literacy rates and higher incomes.

Over the last few years, there has been emergence of media conglomerates besides those that have already been growing beyond in metro cities. The Indian TV industry has grown at 21% annually in the last five years, and pegged to grow at 22% rate in the next five years, projected to reach an estimated $1.7 billion by 2012, which is larger than the entire media and entertainment industry size today.

Emergence of various new revenue streams beyond the traditional box-office collections is de-risking the business of filmmaking and making it attractive for Indian corporates and Hollywood studios.

Till mid-2009, there is expected to be an investment of nearly $1 billion in films alone. There are some 12 film production companies which have gone public since 2000 and have raised $250 million through their IPOs. Prints per film released are also at an all time high: from 1600 prints for Race worldwide to 2000 prints to be released for Ghajini and Singh is Kinng in 2008.

Bollywood is growing fast because more people are watching films. If admissions in 2001 were 2.8 billion, in 2006 it crossed 3.9 billion (compared to 1.7 billion for the US films).