Linguistic Diversity and Changing Technology in India's Regional Film Markets
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LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY AND CHANGING TECHNOLOGY IN INDIA’S REGIONAL FILM MARKETS Sunitha Chitrapu Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Telecommunications Indiana University December 2008 Appendix D DOCTORAL ACCEPTANCE PAGE Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee (DAVID WATERMAN, Ph.D.) (HARMEET SAWHNEY) (HERB TERRY) (JEFFREY HART) (Date of Dissertation Defense – December 8th, 2008) ii © (2009) (Sunitha Chitrapu) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, Ashwyn Balsaver. iv Acknowledgements It truly took a village to complete my dissertation. So many people contributed in so many ways, both big and small, that I will never be able to adequately thank them all for their support. I am indebted to Professor David Waterman, the chair of my committee, for his guidance. Despite his overwhelmingly busy schedule, he made the time to read my drafts and comment on them. His style of sending detailed and timely written comments is a part of the arsenal of teaching tools that I hope to take to my own students. His patient insistence ensured that I did not lose momentum through the writing process. I am grateful to the members of my committee, Professors Harmeet Sawhney and Herb Terry from Telecommunications and Professor Jeffery Hart from Political Science, for their time and comments. Their comments have helped me see the big picture within which this dissertation is situated. Professors Walter Gantz and Maria Grabe (Betsi) provided much needed motivation when my spirit was flagging. I will forever be grateful to Professor Grabe for the pep talks, for modeling persistence and for bringing an element of fun to the process. I also thank Professor Radhika Parmeswaran for being a mentor and guide (and especially for the home cooked South Indian food). I am deeply grateful to the many kind professionals who helped me compile the data for this dissertation. I thank Kalpana Rao, President of the Advertising Club of Mumbai, Sabina Solomon at the Media Research Users Council, Raj Gupta at Lintas, Venugopal Iyengar at Disney India, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar at Ernst & Young, and Vijaya Chavak at the Central Board of Film Certification for their efforts in helping me track down data on the Indian film and v television industries. Karishma Tandan helped by sharing elusive reports. I am grateful to Eliza Lewis for sharing her knowledge of the language dubbing industry in Mumbai. I also thank Susan Newman-Baudais at the European Audiovisual Observatory, Wilfried Berauer at SPIO-Germany, and Sean Perkins at the UK Film Council for their help and advice on locating historical data relating to the film and television industries in Europe. Andrea Singer, the India studies librarian at Indiana University and Sandra Archer at the Margaret Herrick Library also provided invaluable support in the data collection effort. I thank Nancy Schwartz for her editing inputs and her interest in keeping me focused. Po Ju Wu from the IU Stat Math Center provided statistics advice for which I am grateful. This dissertation would not have been completed without the support of the following wonderful people. Dr Paul Toth, Ilene Buck and my friends at the dissertation support group – Aaron, Ashley, Aysegul, Jenn, Kate, Katie, Kim, Manjari, and Sarah – provided a community of critical friends who prevented me from procrastinating and pushed me to stay focused. Sudha Suresh encouraged me to resume work on the dissertation. I am grateful to her for her friendship and enthusiasm. I thank my brother Schunder Tezaswii for his sustained support and for always being available for telephonic pep talks. Nanu and Poornima Iyer’s welcoming home was a rejuvenating getaway to periodically escape the routine of writing. Neeta Balsaver, Manu Khare and Padma Mocherla were patient listeners who encouraged me with their affectionate attention and strategic advice as did my room-mates Liz Gensler, Lisa Braverman and Manjari Singh. Trish St John provided a comfortable living environment which greatly helped the dissertation writing process. Barb and Rex Hillery treated me like a family vi member and made me feel at home in Bloomington. I have no adequate words to thank them for their affection. I am grateful to the warm support provided by my fellow Telecommunications graduate students – Hyang Sun Lee, Sung Kyoung Lee, Xiaofei Wang, and Satoko Kurita. I will always treasure the memories of the meals and conversation we shared in this last year. I also thank my parents and parents-in-law for understanding my long absences from home. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the pivotal role played by my mentors –Shyam Benegal, Jeroo Mulla, Dilshad Master, and Annie Lang – in encouraging me to pursue graduate study. They inspired a spirit of inquiry that sustained me though the dissertation process. And of course many, many, thanks are due to my husband, Ashwyn Balsaver, for his unfailing support, encouragement and cheerleading. vii Appendix G ABSTRACT Sunitha Chitrapu Linguistic Diversity and Changing Technology in India's Regional Film Markets Theoretical frameworks of the home market model of international media trade and market size theories from the economics literature were applied to empirical data from multiple Indian language film markets to estimate the effect of market size on product quality and variety in Indian language film markets. Cross sectional and panel regressions revealed that market size measured by number of language speakers and gross state domestic product had a significant positive effect on the number of films produced in a language market as predicted. Anecdotal evidence shows that films produced in larger Indian language markets have higher film production investment, greater variety of genre elements, and are exported more, providing supplemental evidence. The contrary trend of persistent film admissions in the face of growing television penetration in India was also examined, in the context of five major film producing countries such as US, UK, France, Germany and Japan. Econometric estimation of time series data from the introduction of television in each of these markets till 2005 relating to two measures of the annual number of theatrical admissions ─ aggregate admissions, and admissions per capita ─ and two additional measures, i.e., the annual number of films produced, and the number of screens at the individual country level as well as at the group level reveals that India fits the international pattern of the significant negative effect of television penetration on aggregate and per capita admissions. India was similar to the US and France where television penetration did not have a viii statistically significant effect on the number of films produced rather than the UK and Japan where television penetration had a significant negative effect. Television penetration had a statistically non- significant effect on the number of screens in India unlike in the US where it had a significant negative effect on the number of screens. Since the major share of Indian film industry revenues (78%) comes from theatrical admissions, television penetration poses a serious threat to Indian film industry revenues unless premium services can be used to add revenues. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ix Table of Contents Chapter 1- Introduction.......……………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 2 – Literature Review…………..………………………………………………….……..6 2.1. The home market model…………………………………………….…………………….6 2.2. Market size and product attributes…………………………………………………….....10 2.3. The effects of television diffusion on the film industry in the US and Europe……….....11 2.4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….............17 Chapter 3 ─ Overview of Indian Film Markets: History, Market Structure, Policy, and the Introduction of Television......……………………………………………………………………19 3.1. Historical development of Indian film markets………………………………………….20 3.2. Film market structure…………………………………………………………………….24 3.3. Genre……………………………………………………………………………………..27 3.4. Film policy……………………………………...………………………..………………30 3.5. Past research on the economics of the Indian film industry……………………………..35 3.6. The Introduction of television……………………………………………………………37 3.7. Conclusion………………………………………...……………………………………..43 Chapter 4 ─ A regional mosaic: The effect of linguistic diversity on Indian film production…..45 4.1. The home market model of media trade…………………………………........................45 4.2. Variables and measures ……………………………………………………………47 4.3. Data collection…………………………..……………………………………………….48 4.4. Descriptive Data Analysis……………………………………………………………….50 4.5. Econometric models……………………………………………………………………...53 4.6. Further evidence for the home market model……………………………………………57 4.7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….75 Chapter 5 ─Effects of the diffusion of television in the six largest national theatrical markets...78 x 5.1. Variables and measures…………………………………………………………………..79 5.2. Data collection…………………………………………………………………………...80 5.3. Time trends………………………………………………………………………………81 5.4. Models and estimation…………………………………………………………………...85 5.5. Variable definitions………………………………………………………………………85 5.6. Econometric Estimation