Old people are fond of reading, young like to play games, watch cartoons, etc. Some indulge in going to circus, while many adults entertain themselves by watching movies. The curious ones entertain themselves in magic and mountain climbing. Entertainment is extremely subjective and has many a nuances to it. What may be entertaining to one need not be for others.

Readers very well know that even Gods enjoy entertainment. Mythological stories show Indra the king of Gods having all kinds of entertainment in his courts. So, were the historical kings. Akbar the great mughal king and Krishna Deva Raya of Vijayanagar empire were known to have many famous musicians, magicians, poets in their courts, etc. During the olden days, folks used to entertain themselves by street plays and snake charming.

Entertainment today has changed from its halcyon days. In today’s age, people simply do not have time or luxury to go through long sessions of entertainment, be it viewing a cinema or witnessing a cricket match. The shortening of attention spans of people has forced the cricket administrators to introduce the concept of 20-20 cricket recently in England and Australia. The popularity of football and basketball shows that people can have one hour of rapid and engrossing entertainment.

Radio was the first medium of modern entertainment as it provided news, music and plays. Television soon replaced it due to its obvious advantage of viewing capabilities as compared to radio. Cinema provided and continues to provide entertainment during the weekends but people enjoy television the most. Internet in the last decade seems to have changed this trend, as more and more people are logging in and enjoying the vast scope of entertainment and gathering unlimited information from it.

Media mughals have realized that collaboration would benefit everyone and thus convergence is the new buzzword, which has changed the way people enjoy themselves.

The current book discusses the various forms and means of entertainment. The articles discuss the various aspects of the different sectors of the entertainment industry like films, Music, TV and live shows. The cases touch upon the different companies in different fields of entertainment.

The first article in the section, “Indian Entertainment Sector”, gives a brief overview of the changes taking place in the Indian entertainment sector. The emergence of FM radio, video on demand, DTH, etc., has given the much needed impetus to the industry. Problems remain, as visible with the menace of piracy. The good news of course is that corporates such as Tatas, Birlas, Sahara are entering the film industry and making concerted efforts to institutionalize the same.

The second article, “Entertainment and Media Outsourcing”, discusses the increasing interest of the global players to outsource their post production works to India. Animation is one key area where the activity has picked up in a big way. Some of the key players are Pentamedia Graphics in Chennai, CD India in Chandigrah, UTV Toons in Mumbai, Moving picture company in Film city, Jadoo works in Bangalore. In a span of six years (1998-2003) Ramoji film city in Hyderabad was involved in making 7 Hollywood motion movies by providing equipment, crew, sets and post-production facilities. Big players like Disney have created a good presence in televised programs in major channels.

The third article, “The Reality-TV”, discusses the growing popularity of reality based television shows. In the early 1990’s, the reality based TV shows focused mainly on tabloid news shows and reality based entertainment news programs. The main growth sectors constituted syndicated talk shows and network news magazines (including reality based police shows and tabloid shows). Genres of reality-TV programming are relationships, court room battles, animal shows, mystery shows, video and hidden camera, gossip and news, and law enforcement and rescue. Due to the popularity of reality-based shows, innovative programs like “Who Wants to be Millionaire”, “The Weakest Link”, “Survivor” and “Big Brother” were introduced on different themes. The reality- TV attracted a lot of critics. Concerns were raised on the moral and ethical implications of the shows. The latest controversy being, that of “Temptation Island” a voyeuristic program that was not allowed to be screened in conservative countries like Taiwan and Japan. In India the program was quickly taken of the air after lot of protests.

The fourth article, “Film Industry: Some Perspectives”, takes a comprehensive view of the film industry. Starting with a brief historical background, the article explores the various facets of the film industry such as production, distribution, marketing and finance. It also touches upon the various bottlenecks that the industry has been facing such as piracy, entertainment taxes, lack of technical training institutions, infrastructure, etc. A major portion of the article is devoted to the latest trends of corporatisation, institutional financing and revenue streams for the Indian film industry.

The next article, “The Changing Face of Music Industry”, discusses the brief history of music industry and the current scenario. From LP player, to the current Internet based music downloads(mp3), music has come a long way. Phonograph invented in 1887 started the music industry.

The penultimate article, “Music Piracy and iTunes”, discusses the menace of piracy in music industry. Pirated Compact Discs (CDs), mass manufactured across the world are being marketed at lower prices than the originals. The industry bodies like the IFPI and Recording Industries Association of America retaliated by suing the online services that provided free downloads. They set up an online anti-piracy software called ‘Songbird’. Despite these measures, piracy continued, with sites like ‘KaZaA’ and ‘Grokster’ replacing Napster. In 2002, the number of music files available for free downloads soared from 500 million to 900 million. The iTunes Music Store which has been recently developed by Apple computers provides music downloads at a rate of 99 cents for a single song and $9.95 for an entire album. It also features a collection of more than 400,000 songs.

The last article, “New Waves in Live Entertainment”, talks about the live entertainment industry, the reasons for its growth in India, the growth trends, the challenges for the live entertainment sector as well as the processes involved in the complete Event Management process. The sector is expected to outperform the economy by offering a growth rate of around 30%. Live entertainment, thus, is going to be a huge wealth creator in the Indian economy as well as provide a host of opportunities to the budding entrepreneurs who will venture into this industry, which is more idea-intensive than capital-intensive.

The second section is on Cases and the first case, “News Corp”, discusses the growth of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation into a global media conglomerate. News Corp dominates the newspaper industry in Australia and owns approximately one-third of newspapers and satellite television in Britain. News Corp owns 80.6% of the Fox Entertainment Group. News Corp also owns HarperCollins publishing, The New York Post and many more. The various strategies undertaken, the mergers and acquisitions, and the broadcast programming are discussed in the case.

The second case, “MTV”, discusses the growth of MTV in India. MTV made its debut in 1991 when its distributor in India was the Hong Kong-based Star Network. Its India-specific operations started only in 1996 with the launch of ‘MTV India’. MTV is a 24-hour music channel that primarily caters to viewers in the age group of 15 to 34 years. MTV India features 70% Indian music and 30% international music. MTV India has consistently positioned itself as a youth channel, catering to the Indian youth with its mixed offerings of music, humor and fashion. MTV India has largely localized its programming content by showing more India-based programmes, which is a major departure from MTV’s earlier avatar in 1991.

The third case, “TiVo: Pioneering the Interactive Television”, discusses the growth of California based TiVo which pioneered the personal television industry with its product TiVo, a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).The company was founded with a vision “to create and continually enhance a new, easy – and much better – way to watch television”.

The fourth case, “DreamWorks SKG”, discusses the problems faced by the studio DreamWorks. Since 1995, DreamWorks had made 44 movies. In a business where film libraries were a treasure to be diced and digitized and resold again and again, that was what a big studio made in two years. DreamWorks had not built long-lived, James Bond-style franchises that could spawn success sequel after sequel. Moreover, high hopes for TV shows and videogames had faded, and its music business was an uneven success.

Though DreamWorks has delivered many high quality movies, it is facing rough weather due to various reasons. The article examines the performances of the studio and the liquidity crunch it is facing.

The fifth case, “New Commandments of Movie Marketing”, discusses Mel Gibson’s unconventional marketing strategies to promote his movie “Passion of Christ”. The movie had one of the biggest openings ever throughout the US and continued its lead for a long time. Gibson used the images of violence in the movie to catch the attention of the viewers. This was marketed to generate controversy and get public attention. He preferred screening the movie at end in some movie festivals and also included Q & A session. This case describes the unconventional approach – grass roots marketing campaign – Mel Gibson adopted to market his movie. It also shows the rise in popularity and box office performance of controversy-fuelled movies.

The sixth case, “Regal Entertainment Group”, discusses the turnaround strategy followed by the Regal entertainment group vis-a-vis the movie theater business. In the early 2000, most of the movie theatres were uneconomical and were on the verge of bankruptcy. Taking advantage of the situation, Philip Anschutz acquired the three struggling theatre chains – United Artists Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Edwards Cinemas – at a very low price. He combined the assets of the three companies to form a single entity – Regal Entertainment Group. This case study details the strategies taken up by Philip to revive a chain of bankrupt theatres into the largest theatre chain in the US.

The seventh case, “T-Series”, traces the history and growth of T-Series the largest music company of India. T-Series had allegedly built an empire on music piracy and plagiarism by exploiting the loopholes in India’s anti-piracy regulations. It completely changed the way Indian music industry functioned. By the mid-1980s, T-Series had reportedly stopped the pirated recording business and ‘shifted’ completely to the legitimate businesses.

The eighth case, “Cirque du Soleil”, details how the Cirque managed different elements of the shows – the theme, the music, the ambience, the costumes of the artists, etc., to create a strong brand and thereby attract huge crowds. Unlike traditional circuses, Cirque shows did not include ringmasters or animals. By combining traditional elements of circus and the stage, Cirque created a product that helped it to differentiate itself from any other live show and circus.
The ninth case, “PlayStation vs Xbox”, discusses the rise of PlayStation, launch of Xbox and their battle for supremacy. With the launch of the PlayStation, the video game market became the fastest-growing segment in the entertainment industry. The booming industry also caught the sights of Microsoft, which launched its Xbox console in the late 2001.