Media and Entertainment Sector in the era of Covid-19 Pandemic

Although the gradually reopening of the Indian economy has begun, the impact of COVID-19 on businesses has been severe. The coronavirus outbreak and its associated lockdowns have affected all sectors to varying degrees. The lockdown caused significant disruptions in the M&E industry, as it forced all forms of outdoor entertainment, mainly cinemas and events, to close and content supply chains to dry up.

Content supply appears to be resuming with the lockdown lifting, albeit slowly. However, cinemas and events remain closed, and the return to normalcy in the near term remains uncertain. Advertisement spending appears to be recovering, and with a solid festive quarter expected in Q3FY21, marketing spending is likely to recover faster budgets. As a result, the overall reduction in advertising expenditures may be less than the contraction in economic activity.

The only solace was the connectivity through digital media, which had matured enough to keep life going in this tough and challenging time. 

 

Impact on Box office

The covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the Box Office of the Indian Film Industry. With shootings on hold, total closure of the cinema halls all over the country, theatre releases postponed for various films, and absolutely nothing left so sure. Theatres were unable to screen movies due to the lockdown. 

With the enormous budget films seen to have been competing for their release dates, smaller productions may be losing out. The ripple effect of the covid-19 pandemic was felt when various film bodies, including the Federation of Western India Cine Employees(FWICE) and the Indian Film and Television Directors Association(IFTDA), had mutually decided to halt the shooting of serials, movies, and web series. 

Major production houses such as Balaji Motion Pictures, Yash Raj Films, and Dharma Productions were also promptly called off their production activities. These brought a massive loss to the Indian Box Office. 

Impact on TV Shows: The Covid-19 Pandemic substantially affected the television industry. Despite the channels seen to have been exhausting their banks of the episodes, the overall consumption of the tv media during the lockdown period grew by over 60%, as per research done by Nielsen. 

During that period, Doordarshan had planned to re-air the iconic shows such as Ramayana and Mahabharata, and also Byomkesh Bakshi was received very well by the Indian audience. This led to the prompting of other Indian Media Channels to re-air shows such as CID etc. Doordarshan grew about 650% of its viewership in about a week, making it one of the most-watched television channels for two weeks consecutively.

The trouble faced was that the advertising had shot down drastically as companies providing the revenues to the channels were themself in trouble in the lockdown period. The decline in the ad revenues and a slower decline in the subscription revenues were seen in 2021. 

 

Impact on Events

The year 2020 saw the cancellation of many sporting events in the country. One of those was the IPL which was suspended or cancelled. The event management company has seen an estimated loss of about (INR 3000 Crores) till March 2021. Naturally, the event industry was one of the worst affected sectors amid the covid-19 pandemic. 

Many other events such as award shows, meetings, conferences, concerts, and music festivals were cancelled due to the pandemic. Events are entirely based on gatherings of people, which was strictly prohibited during the pandemic. A survey conducted by the Events and Entertainment Management Association(EEMA) with about 170 companies found that more than 50 percent of the companies had 90 percent of their business seen to have been cancelled during the lockdown. 

The event Industry is seen to be providing livelihoods to about 10 million people in the country directly and about 50 million people indirectly. They had to face callous times during the era of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Impact on OTT Platforms

If there was any beneficiary during the lockdown, it was the OTT platforms. There was a considerable rise in the consumption level of the OTT platforms. OTT platforms include Netflix, amazon prime video, etc. 

To meet the level of demand, the OTT platforms shifted to Standard Definition from that High Definition video quality. This helped them to reduce their load on the bandwidth. Also, with the launch of the Disney+Hotstar, the audience was getting spoiled for their choices.