Business of Telling & Selling Stories:

Business of Telling & Selling  Stories:

 "Creating Marketable Content and Being Able to Market it is one of the Key Mantras of the Media and Communication Industry'. A sector that revolves around  the creation, marketing and distribution of content across mediums like TV, Radio and Digital to name the main ones.

Entertainment is multi-mode activity or task across formats - Text, Graphic, Audio and Audio Visual. It is a subtle emotional gratification where in audience feel something - Joy, Sorrow, Torture, Love, Pain., what ever the intended emotion the content creator wants the audience to feel. 

Each of these emotions are called genres or appeals. Content is based on appeals  like Rom - Com (Romance - Comedy) Crime, Sci-Fi (Science - Fiction), Noir and Epic amongst others.

Content can be both acquired or produced. Acquired means when content is sold to a media vehicle. 

For example, an independent producer makes a short film and Netflix buys it. Produced content is when an EsselVision creates a show for ZEE to air. 

Content copy rights are also officially purchased from the content producer. For instance, a 'Hum Aapke hai Kaun' being aired on Zee Cinema. Some times show formats are purchased like  Big Boss is actually an international show format acquired by Endemol India and the format is used in Big Boss.

Let us now understand some of the mediums:

Television, with a universe of 85 crore and a heavy duty reach of 65% in a population of 130 crore, television still remains as one of the major vehicles of entertainment. Actually its not only Entertainment , but information at large. 

We still have families watching television while at the dinner table and that will probably never change. TV is hence a very important source of family entertainment.

From a career perspective media aspirants need to understand the two ends that complete the cycle of TV content.

One is the production house, which actually creates concepts into stories, gets them screen ready and the other is the channel that airs the story for us to view. But it's not as simple as it sounds. This is an entire process followed, with a series of selections and rejections before we see what we do.

In media time is money. It obviously means that there is a huge cost involved in producing a show. It therefore makes show viewership a very important criteria.

There are bodies like Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) which give us close to current statistics of content consumption - Genere Wise, Channel Wise, Audience Wise and Show wise.

Television has a variety of career opportunities mainly in Content & Creative, Production, Programing and Marketing.

There is a vast segment of content categories and  functions in television. I will discuss it through an independent blog ahead. 

Now a days production houses have rightfully become more business driven, consumer and client focused. 

They no longer produce medium specific content. A lot of television production houses have and are moving to create ad film's or for that matter web series. Infact couple of them have introduced new business verticals.

Even channels have their OTT (Over the Top) platforms like SonyLIV, Zee5  and Hotstar. These not only have the shows run by the channel on Television but also a lot of differential content and original series for their OTT platforms. Infact independent platforms like Netflix  have been very popular in today's day and age

The most powerful  personalized format of entertainment, information and news today is through Digital, with a reach of 35% and a 46 crore universe. 

OTT give the fast paced human lives today an  On-The- Go access news, utilities and recreation. Watching a show on your mobile is when you can feel what you want without bothering about any one being arround, unlike watching the same content on television or in a mass entertainment medium like a cinema house where you need to feel and have a restricted reaction.

Audio Visual Content has lived  METamorphosis, right from Doordarshans to Discovery and from Discovery to a VOOT or an Amazon Prime. The changing trends of audiences consuming content have also undergone change.

Radio is comparatively a niche medium with just a reach of 11% and a universe of  15 crore in our 130 crore population. But the 'Mumbai Geli Khadyats' are equally powerful to impact the audiences.

A common and  important crux here is that if the audience is not able to identify & relate him or herself with the story being narrated , the consumer index ratio will neither build up nor sustain. That's exactly why it is crucial to understand the Demo-Psychographics  of the audience being catered to. 

There was an instance where one of the IPL's witnessed a soap opera - 'Naagin' have a higher rating. Suprising it was ! It doesnot imply that IPL is not important.  But the fact that more than 60 percent of India stays in rural's  and audiences there identify with the 'Naagins' more than the  IPL's. 

The  promotional and packaging element of any content is extremely crucial and choosing the correct vehicle for it, whether ATL or BTL is the name of the game.

Media & Entertainment is dynamic vertical with huge number and variety of opportunities as the business functions with more than one media at any given time, 

To make an informed career choice in the field of mass media,  write to me at aditig_imm@met.edu