Media and Entertainment sector grows Rs 1.26 lakh crore in 2016: Report

The media and entertainment (M&E) industry grew by 9.1% in 2016, to reach Rs 1,26,210 lakh crore, according to the FICCI-KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2017. The India M&E industry maintained a growth rate of 11.6% over the past five years on the back of strong economic fundamentals, coupled with the growth in domestic consumption has helped despite the slowdown in the global economy.

The report said that though demonetisation has adversely impacted the media and entertainment sector performance in Q3 and Q4 in 2016, the impact is likely to be short-lived and normalcy is expected to return by Q2 of calendar year 2017.

The long-term factors driving the future growth are expected to remain positive with rural demand growing, increasing digital access and consumption, and the expected culmination of digitisation process of television disruption over the next two to three years.

Digital advertising continued to be the fastest growing sector at 28% partly because of the small base it and also due to a rapid adoption of digital innovations in advertising and marketing by all brands. Films saw the slowest growth rate of 3%, followed by print 7% and television 8.5%.

Television saw the slowest growth in 2016 at 8.5% to reach Rs 58,830 crore. This was due to a slow growth in subscription revenues and demonetisation impacting advertising revenue growth.

Print revenue growth rates continued to register a slowdown after it clocked in a 7% growth at Rs 30,330 crore in 2016. Like earlier years, regional language newspapers continued to grow, while English newspapers came under pressure.

Digital advertising continued its growth to reach Rs 7,690 crore in 2016, which is a 15% share in the overall advertising revenues pie. It saw a marginal impact due to demonetisation. Advertisers' interest has been captured by the continuing shift in consumption towards digital media on the back of rapid growth in internet penetration, falling prices of smartphones and the launch of Reliance Jio.