Sandalwood, you have a Missing Link!

Sandalwood: Missing a key link!

Mr Prakash Belawadi, a renowned name in Kannada cinema and among social think tanks yesterday critiqued a recent Bangalore Mirror article titled The Economics of Dubbing. A critique well done, no doubt. But if this has to help anyone at all, that better be the end consumer of entertainment content in the Kannada Film Market (KFM).

The statistics Mr Belawadi cites is pretty straight, in that the entire Indian film market is soon going to be worth 5 billion USD and that KFI's share in that is fast dwindling. He goes on to quote that -

The Kannada film industry needs to tune in to the new age or be politely requested to drop out.

While his observations are true, the perspective in Mr Belawadi's analysis is limited to the making half in a film ecosystem. KFI, in need for an overhaul, needs to focus on the consuming half and critics such as Mr Belawadi would be better off addressing that perspective. Mr Belawadi notes that -

The average Kannadiga avoids our commercial cinema not because she lacks self-esteem but rather that she has too much of it. It is only because we love our culture so much that we shun our cinema.

but fails to elaborate the subtle need for a consumer of Kannada cinema to not shun Kannada cinema but choose various degrees of participation in the feedback mechanism. The critique misses to mention the urgent need to establish feedback mechanisms in the KFM, which could actually serve a great deal in ensuring the KFI produces what the KFM has been craving for! Outcomes of such mechanisms stand as solid proofs of concept for innovative entertainment business models, like dubbing, and also as attractive presentation of KFI as a profitable destination for investors. Expert analysts and thinkers like Mr Belawadi are expected to advocate proliferation of such market survey engines in the KFM.

Apart from deriving meaning out of what audiences are thinking, such survey systems will also add to the volume of people speaking about Kannada cinema, which is less heard if not muted today. If consumers are shunning commercial Kannada movies, that's a feedback no doubt, but that's not sufficient feedback, especially when some seniors in the industry use a flopped film to blame their audiences! The Kannadiga cine-goer needs to be heard. The cine-goers' demand for better entertainment in their own language must be met, agnostic of its maker. 

With a tough customer around, any industry will correct itself if it wants to remain worthy of business. The contemporary rowdy voices rising repeatedly against a legal market innovation called dubbing (in Kannada) will be forced to face the reality with such surveys and this will pave way for a cleaner KFM and thereby a more profitable KFI. We have to find this missing link, and we need everyone to look for it.

(Related read: The Gumma-nomics of Dubbing)

Wrong Statistics and The Gumma-nomics of Dubbing

This article in yesterday's Bangalore Mirror laid out a laundry list of so-called deterrents to dubbing in Kannada. Owing to the nature and presentation of its contents, this article sent out two messages - One that Sandalwood (KFI i.e.), as it stands today, is pure crap and people who'd like to come and invest & innovate in this industry had rather stay away or brace for super-losses. Another, that regardless of its lossy-by-design nature, the dubbing industry seems to be a threat to KFI! Seems like a big gumma (ghost in children's parlance) is running the KFI, not its talent or business acumen.

What this article does is take media rights beyond imaginable boundaries and use statistics, however unsupported, to project a notion that is deeply embedded in the minds of a few people in the KFI, and perhaps another few programmed souls in other quarters. In saying that -

The film industry has steeled itself against the onslaught of a ‘consumer group’ which is demanding dubbed content in Kannada, especially films.

and from the way it is said, the this article seems to be a mouthpiece of the anti-dubbing squad within KFI. But this very statement is so irrational with respect to the functioning of an industry. If a consumer group has been demanding dubbed film content in Kannada, is it wise for the film industry to consider it as onslaught and 'steel' itself against it?


Even if one were to momentarily accept the statistics presented in this article, isn't this 'steeling' of the industry against a consumer group (among its audiences) enough evidence for the claimed minuscule share of Kannada movies in the film market in a Kannada state? Here're some interesting anti-statistics:

1. If 9 out of 27 lakh theater-goers in Karnataka watch Kannada movies, and the other 18 lakh watch non-Kannada movies, market wisdom lies in figuring ways to attract those people towards Kannada movies again, not in blindly disowning those 18 lakh cine-goers as non-Kannadigas and mentally shrink one's own Total Available Market. 
2. It is also a true businessman's interest to see why, among 6-crore people that live in this state, only 27 lakh people (a disappointing 5%) are being captured in the film market. A careful observation reveals that a good portion of contemporary movies of KFI are remakes of movies people have already watched in other languages, and another portion of KFI made movies are deprived of screens because those theaters have very little Kannada movie choice to choose from, or yield to immense pressure from a deluge of non-Kannada movies ready to fill the gap created because of a dysfunctional image of KFI projected by itself.
3. That 50 lakh Rupees is what dubbing rights of a non-Kannada movie costs, and that 5 crore Rupees is the minimal expense of making an original Kannada movie (or even a remake), and given that the current annual revenue of the latter is just 100 crores with at least 100 movies made every year, makes dubbing of films into Kannada surely more profitable to investors than movies being Made in KFI today. Besides, it is what the people from 'consumer groups' are demanding.
4. If movies of other languages can grab 120 screens across Karnataka on the first day of their global release, and corner nearly 66% of Kannada audience, it only goes to show the command non-Kannada movies have come to hold over an otherwise Kannada movie-going audience. The reasons for such success is a shameful combination of KFI's lackluster market behavior and a daring act of entrepreneurship performed by non-Kannada film businessmen.
5. The general expectation of movie audiences always follows the best entertainer, and hence the expectation of Kannada cine-goers has outgrown the KFI itself. The time-warped KFI standards is perhaps the reason for this. But the steeling of KFI against consumer demand is portrayal of its inability to meet growing audience expectations, and display of arrogance in the form a cold-ban on dubbing. 

At this juncture, the non-Kannada movie revenue model is worth imitating for KFI, with revenues from multiple platforms like Internet, TV, Mobile and other conventional media like CD/DVD being exploited to their limits. The best way to react is to mimic, yet compete. The way to handle the evolving consumer need would have been to not oppose dubbing but embrace it in this liberal market and derive the same benefits that film industries of neighboring states have been deriving.


Lets not make belittling of ourselves the way of existence, and our ray of hope in the market. If actress Tara, the current head of KCA (Kannada Chalanachitra Academy), had to reserve her stage-seat during the recently concluded GIM 2012 with a reason, the film industry that she belongs to must show some mettle and prove its business sense. If dubbing of movies into Kannada is such a loss making business, why fear the gumma; just mind your business.

(Related read: A Dubbed audience and the suspicion around Dubbing)