India’s M&E sector back to pre-pandemic levels in 2022

India’s Media and Entertainment (M&E) sector made a strong recovery in 2021, growing 16.4%, but at INR1.61 trillion (US$21.5 billion) its overall value remains 11% short of its pre-pandemic figure. 

That’s according to the annual M&E report from consultancy EY and industry body FICCI. It expects further growth of 17% in 2022 that will take the sector past its 2019 total (INR1.8 trillion) to hit INR1.9 trillion.

Key statistics

• Except for in-cinema advertising and TV subscription, all M&E segments grew in 2021. 
• Digital media grew the most at INR68 billion; its contribution to the M&E sector has risen from 16% in 2019 to 19% in 2021.

• The share of traditional media (television, print, filmed entertainment, OOH, music, radio) stood at 68% of M&E sector revenues in 2021, down from 75% in 2019.

• At INR746 billion, advertising recovered to just 6% below 2019 levels; its 25% growth was faster than GDP growth or M&E growth. 
• TV remained the largest earner of ad revenues in 2021, contributing 42% to the total; digital advertising increased to 33% from 24% in 2019 (excluding SME and long-tail advertising), print share fell from 26% to 20%.

• Overall, subscription grew INR15 billion with film, print and digital showing a combined growth of INR42 billion while television saw a drop of INR27 billion. 
• Overall, subscription revenues were 18% below 2019 levels and subscription share of total revenues reduced from 51.5% in 2020 to 46.5% in 2021.

Takeaway

“The creator market has exploded, we have hyper-local content meeting cross-border collaborations, all of it being leveraged by India’s unique ‘and’ market where the TV, Digital, Print, Radio and OOH not only coexist but complement each other” – Jyoti Deshpande, co-chair, FICCI Media and Entertainment Committee. 

Sourced from EY [Image: EY]