MUMBAI: The censorship of OTT content in today’s dynamic world will not help much, according to Deviprasad Goenka Management College of Media Studies dean Mukesh Sharma.

Sharma, who has also worked with national broadcaster Doordarshan in various capacities in the past and had an illustrious career, said, “What happens today is that with technology if you block one thing, something else pops up. Who knew about OTT five years ago? The government had censored films, TV and everything else, but this medium came up with new challenges. Tomorrow, if OTT is censored, some other platform will crop up.”

He is of the view that the government needs to have faith in its people and can only caution them about the right use of the media instead of blocking content. Sharma contended that the onus also lies on the content creators who should be more sensible and alert towards public sentiments.

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Also present at the event was director and producer Anil Sharma, who echoed the same thoughts about censorship. He said, “The censorship of OTT is not in place today, but who knows it might be there in future. I believe that the first censorship comes from self, from within the people. That’s why proper education tools should be there to help people understand the just use of media, be it OTT or any other form.”

Mukesh Sharma also briefed about the massive growth that the media industry is seeing these days. He noted that the M&E industry in India is going to worth around Rs 2.26 lakh crores in 2020. While all the media are growing simultaneously, digital is seeing a huge leap of 30 per cent year-on-year and it is only bound to grow. He feels that OTT definitely has an upper hand on content now.

“At the moment, I do not find anybody going back to television. TV viewing has gone down considerably; film and digital are two platforms which are neck to neck now. But if good films are not made people will stop going to the theatres as well,” he said.

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Stating that the industry is getting smarter in terms of content generation, Sharma quipped, “I feel now there is a lot of scope to express oneself, in a way one wants to, in the creative industry. Look at how the movies are performing now. The Khans are tanking at the box office while movies made in tier 2 or tier 3 towns are earning well. Young filmmakers, young actors, people who nobody knew about are now household names. OTT is already making waves in the content sphere and other media are catching up.”

But he feels that there is still a long way to go when it comes to creating good public service and science-related content. He noted that earlier Doordarshan used to broadcast public service announcements and that helped in creating awareness, but today the viewership of Doordarshan has gone down and no other medium has taken the responsibility of sharing these messages. “Earlier the brands were also very creative. For example, the ‘Jaago Re!’ campaign by Tata Tea was a great initiative. While a few brands today as well are trying to work in that space, they are not as extensive as earlier,” he said.

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