English Entertainment
Foreigners’ mantra: Build contacts, create awareness
MUMBAI: Apart from getting ‘gyan’ at the various sessions at Frames 2005, the event also provides an opportunity for overseas firms to build contacts and learn about the Indian market. Companies from Australia, Canada, Wales, Germany and the US have set up stalls at Frames.
There is an Australian Enclave which is an initiative of the South Australia government. Mason Films’ Mason Curtis tells Indiantelevision.com that the aim is to educate the Indian film industry about the facilities that South Australia provides.
“We want to capitalise on the fact that Indian locales and European ones have been exhausted. The response has been mixed. So our aim is to educate them. Frames is a great forum for reaching outgun South Australia we design cash paybacks and rebates for firms whose shooting generates employment,” he said.
Wales is another country that has a stall with the purpose of enticing filmmakers to shoot in the country. A representative of Wales Film says that Frames has helped provide valuable contacts, which can be developed for the future.
The hope is that when a filmmakers’ schedule is free and production will start on a new film, Wales should be a top of the mind recall locale.
Another factor that attracts visitors to Frames is intimacy. That is not the case with, say, MipTV in Cannes where there are 10,000 visitors. So if you get even half an hour with a client you are lucky.
Imax, meanwhile, sees Frames as an opportunity to network and meet clients. Last month the company had announced plans to set up shop in Chennai. So Frames serves as a vehicle to create awareness about the service Imax provides.
Six months ago Vancouver Film School set up a place in Mumbai. The aim is to provide an avenue for media students who are interested in studying abroad. International admissions advisor Dorothy Mathias says that at Frames the response has been fantastic from both students and working professionals who wish to upgrade their skills. In particular, there have been enquiries about the animation and sound designing courses as well as scriptwriting.
Then there are companies who are looking to study the Indian market and learning. This will give them an idea of what Indian firms are looking for as well as what India can provide for the international market.
A case in point is World Wide Entertainment. This is an Australian firm that makes and distributes TV content. It sells around 400 hours of content globally. In India, its clients include India TV, DD and NDTV. It is using Frames to increase the number of Indian clients. According to World Wide Entertainment international business manager Rana Vassi, “At Frames you get to meet key local players that are not listed in guides. We have lined up several meetings.
“We also look at shows in India that might work for clients overseas. We have been talking to Sony about this. India is coming out with lifestyle shows and travel shows. So we want to see if any of these will be of interest to clients abroad. It is a two way process.” He added, “We also represent other producers of TV content. We sell films, documentaries and animation. So, at Frames we learn about what the local Indian players require. We will form alliances with other foreign producers to distribute their content depending on what Indian firms need. The bottomline is that it is always good to interact with players in their backyard.”
Goto Bavaria, a German government organisation, is here to learn about the Indian market. The aim is to identify opportunities for German companies in the Indian market such as in the post-production arena. This is in the short term is the strategy for Goto Bavaria. In the long term, Indian companies like Zee and Star will go global. So, they will do some of their shooting abroad. Then the interactions between Bavaria and the Indian entertainment industry will pay off.
The one firm that showed some disappointment is Filmpur. This is an online destination for Indian filmmakers. It helps producers and directors scout for suitable locations globally as well as to help them secure financing. However, the big guns were in short supply at Frames.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
