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Quoting a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, Lim said that of the $1.1
trillion media & entertainment market globally, Asia commands $215
million or 20 per cent, "The Asian markets are growing especially
fuelled by demand from India and China. Fundamentally, media demand
is driven by how much time, each one of us sets aside to catch up
on the news, watch TV listen to the radio or go to the movies. There
are a lot of people in Asia, it commands half the world’s population,
with the rising affluence of the middle class, there is great potential
in the Asian media markets."
"Second Asia is producing a lot of local content. Audiences
here are showing a lot of preference for films," he said.
Lim showed himself to be an admirer of Bollywood. "Today ‘Bollywood
alone has an output of 1,000 films in a year, which exceed their
illustrous counterpart Hollywood. Last year Bollywood sold more
than $3.6 billion tickets worldwide and earned $108 million in overseas
sales. South Korea has grown from nothing in export sales of film
and TV to $20 million today. Asian and Hollywood can cooperate for
mutual benefit."
Thirdly, he said Asia is quickly migrating to digital technology
in media productions. "These three trends growing markets,
demand for local content and migration to digital technologies present
Asia with growth opportunities."
"Asia has a lot of local talent... John Woo with Mission
Impossible... Mira Nair with her Monsoon Wedding... Jackie
Chan in Rush Hour... Michelle Yeoh in Touch and Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon... Apart from talent, Asia also offers many
exotic shooting locations for movies."
Asia however needs a stronger regime to protect intellectual property,
it has to put in place the supporting infrastructure to fund, produce,
edit and deliver media content, legal and financial frameworks to
support production agreements," he pointed out.
He also sounded a warning that Singapore was going get more aggressive
on media.
"Despite it’s phenomenal success and output, Bollywood’s global
revenues amount to just $1.3 billion or two per cent of that of
Hollywood. We should not be discouraged by this low number, we should
focus on the 98 per cent as unrealised value of Asian media. In
Singapore we are thinking of this. We have identified the creative
industry as a new source of economic vitality and growth. And we
see media as a cornerstone of our creative industry."
Lim pointed out that Singapore had announced the Media21 plan to
leverage on media and generate new growth in the 21st Century. "Through
this plan we hope to attract the creative talent and investors from
all over the world to develop content, train people, build production
capabilities and manage their intellectual properties and distribution
channels for the Asian markets."
He added that the Media Development Authority which was mandated
by a bill last month to help develop and regulate the media industry
will become active in January 2003. "Singapore may be small
we are confident we can play a significant role in developing the
Asian market. We want to play host to media companies and talents."
Maybe there are lessons that India’s information & broadcasting
ministry can learn from the steely courage and passion and vision
that its counterpart in Singapore has. India missed out on the opportunity
of being an uplinking hub for Asia, thanks to sheer ignorance, disinterest
and lethargy. Singapore captured that slot. It’s quite likely it
may do the same in the media sector courtesy its aggressive stance.
Shushmaji are you listening?
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