Mukesh Bhatt vs. Mukesh Bhatt and the business of entertainment

When we watch a movie or the latest episode of “Balika Vadhu” it is easy to forget the whole industry that is out there churning out these blockbusters. It is easy to get caught in the world of these fictitious characters and even forget that the people on the screen are actors who do this for a living. And sometimes reality hits us at unexpected moments

In the past twelve months this reality has struck Indians twice. First it was the stand off between the small screen actors and the producers. The artists were demanding better wages, working conditions and longer breaks. Producers on the other hand were just to greedy to share the increased revenues they were seeing as a result of higher penetration of television and the growing popularity of daily soaps that makes up a majority of the television viewing in India. Mukesh Bhatt who heads the producers’ association- who will feature again in this saga- even said that since TV was a “much smaller medium” than cinema the artists had no right to demand a hike in wages. But the deadlock was broken and the producers had to compromise because the actors held out and with no new shows being churned out, the producers had nothing to sell to the broadcasters.

The second showdown ended just a week ago and was between the multiplex owners and the producers from the film industry. This time Mukesh Bhatt was the one holding up the protest banners. He wanted his share of the revenues that the multiplex owners were getting from a whole new stream of audience that were open to watching off-beat films and a general increased spend on entertainment by an upwardly mobile population in an upbeat market. The seats reversed, Bhatt and his colleagues argued that their content was critical to the revenue stream that the multiplex owners were seeing, and therefore wanted a larger share of it. The standoff ended with a generally accepted compromise based on a sliding scale of revenue sharing. The producers got their fair share.

In all of this the main losers were perhaps the TV and cinema going audiences. Deprived for months from new content, many of us watched re-runs and dug up old DVDs. But really was this so bad? Aren’t these strikes a sign of the maturity of the industry and a necessary step in correcting the imbalance of power and money? In both cases the stronger party (the party that was closer to the audience and the source of money) were happy being selfish. In a traditionally unroganised industry it was easy for them to do so. Therefore this protests maybe actually a sign of growing awareness. The TV producers could no longer exploit young artists and continue to fill their coffers and as multiplexes saw growth, the producers also realized that they could leverage their control over content because the audience was more discerning. If the content wasn’t good enough people would go for alternative sources of entertainment and that would spell death for the multiplexes.

Strangely enough in all of this Mukesh Bhatt maybe the most paradoxical symbol of the chain effect of this new face of the media. As a producer of TV content he was at the receiving end of protests from those dependant on him and as producer of film content he was protesting against those who he depended upon for revenue.

All participants of the entertainment industry must understand that as the TV watching and Cinema going audience becomes more demanding, quality is of the essence. This means monopolies, and thus the ability to exploit and force down just about anything no longer exists. After all it is known that Big Cinemas and PVR made the first move to break the deadlock in the latest strike and other association members had to follow suit- something that would not have been possible in a monopoly. The loss of a few weeks of new movies or TV shows is worth the price to ensure that we continue to have an entertainment industry that is mature enough to always put the customer first and nurture all stake holders who will then do their best.