A Corner of the Digital Bazaar: YouTube India

On May 7, 2008, YouTube announced the launch of another “localized” version - YouTube India. What’s the difference? According to press releases and reports, YouTube India is different in that it will: (a) feature a localized home page, and (b) discover and highlight videos popular and relevant in the Indian context. As Sakina Arsiwala, international manager of YouTube, put it, “this site contains all the videos found on YouTube’s global site, except we’ve applied an “Indian lens” to the content, meaning that the video charts you see reflect what Indians are watching now, the featured videos are programmed to cater to an Indian audience, and we’ve signed up dozens of local partners who are proud to distribute their content through YouTube.”

Further, given the popularity of YouTube’s global (read American) site - YouTube has 5 million unique users in India, and has added 200,000 news users every month from India last year - there is no doubt that other India-specific sites such as iShare, meravideo, videodubba, etc. will face stiff competition over the coming months. Given its cachet, YouTube has already managed to strike deals with a number of prominent film and television production companies in India and ensured that YouTube.co.in will be the site where sought-after content will be available.

At first glance, this seems rather familiar and in fact, brings to mind an earlier moment of “localization” - the mid-1990s when television channels like MTV and Channel [V] went about fashioning Indian avatars in order to make their content/programming more relevant to audiences and advertisers within India (Def Leppard and Guns ‘n Roses could not, at the end of the day, help MTV attract youth across the country). While this is a useful parallel to draw, there are some important differences to note. I would argue that the launch of YouTube India highlights two major struggles in the Indian digital bazaar and, more importantly, signals a shift in the way we think about localization and national communities.

1. YouTube.co.in: A “Trans-national community”

The idea of a “national community,” as we know, has always been central to the workings of film and television industries around the world. In the Indian context, the Bombay film industry has always positioned itself as speaking to and for a national community and so have several major television networks. Even today, emerging networks such as NDTV seek to position themselves as catering to a national community (albeit one that includes diasporic audiences - see this). We also know that this has always been a difficult task for film and television industries. Given that the Internet allows us to transgress local and national boundaries with even greater ease, how do we go about drawing national boundaries around YouTube or, more broadly, online communities that cohere around an astonishing range of videos? This is the problem that India-specific sites continue to struggle with. Sites like meravideo.com, aapkavideo.com, and videodubba.com defined themselves as national (and nationalist, in some cases) alternatives, in opposition to a global YouTube.

YouTube, however, has managed to position YouTube-India as a site where Indian audiences get to participate in the ongoing production of a global online video community and not just in a narrowly defined national space. In fact, when you visit youtube.co.in, there is nothing on the front page that suggests that the site is a “local” or “regional” version of a more global YouTube.

2. Making money in the bazaar

The second major problem that new media companies in India (and other comparable markets like Brazil) continue to struggle with is monetization. Internet use and broadband penetration remains low compared to other parts of the world and as a consequence, Internet advertising has not emerged as a key component of business models for new media initiatives (in 2007-08, Internet advertising in India was estimated at Rs. 225 crores/Rs. 2.25 billion). Here, the fact that YouTube’s India strategy is part of Google India’s larger ambitions represents a major advantage over competitors.

Instead of focusing on a short-term goal of generating advertising revenues, Google India executives have decided to perform the role of consultants who will, over the next 5-10 years, work closely with advertising and marketing agencies and advise media professionals on how online advertising can become a major element of their media planning. As Shailesh Rao, managing director of Google India, explained, the company has already set up five “verticals” (financial services, local and classifieds, travel, media & entertainment, and technology & health communication) with experts who will “educate, train and guide businesses to leverage the most out of online advertising.” It is this evangelizing mission that may, in the long run, prove to be the most important dimension of YouTube’s localization.

The trouble with “ethnic” television

I’ve written about MTV-Desi in previous posts, but here’s a story that points very clearly to a shift in the way American media execs are now thinking about “ethnic” programming (link). According to this story, we will soon see a bouquet of STAR-owned channels (Star Plus, Star One, Vijay, and so on) on Comcast’s International line-up. Comcast owned International Networks has just signed a deal with the Star Group (owned by Newscorp). Good news, for the most part. But I also think that such relationships between U.S.-media companies and transnational entities like Star point to an important shift in how “ethnic” programming and the very notion of an “ethnic” audience community is being imagined.

Take a look at this statement from David Wisnia, senior VP of distribution and sales of Star North America and Europe:

International Networks is the leading aggregator of ethnic language programming in the U.S. and we are thrilled to have them represent five of our Indian channels to MSOs across the country. We look forward to increasing our distribution to cable homes across the U.S. so that more South Asian viewers can enjoy top-rated entertainment from back home.

It is abundantly clear that this exec, and arguably those at Comcast, conceive of South Asian viewers as remaining connected to their “home,” as viewers who can speak Hindi, Tamil or some other Indian language. Why are South Asian-Americans being defined primarily in South Asian terms? I would argue that there are three elements at work here.

First, we need to acknowledge the limits that marketing discourse imposes on distribution and programming decisions. The failures of MTV-Desi and AZN, one would imagine, have added to industry lore that such niche channels simply do not work. Besides, there is a very well-etablished tradition of marketing and advertising executives (including many who are of South Asian descent) who work hard to define ethnic difference.

Second, and perhaps the biggest challenge for the industry, is the problem of content. Why would a company seek to invest in original program production when it is clear that audiences are already watching programs from various television channels via YouTube and even by borrowing tapes of saas-bahu serials from a local desi grocery store. It is, without a doubt, financially more prudent to enter into a deal that brings in top quality content.

Third, and more broadly, this new definition of “ethnic” television that ties migrant populations to their “home” (the where are you really from question) completely ignores second and third-generation desis. South Asian Americans are now caught between two powerful nationalist imaginaries: an American television/marketing industry that is struggling to think beyond old notions of “community,” and an “Indian” television industry that includes desis but doesn’t need to worry about those desis who do not understand Hindi or Tamil or, for that matter, might not be “desi” in these very limiting ways.

Of Chai and Samosas: Indian cinema and exhibition in the U.S.

Distribution and exhibition of Indian films (mostly Hindi language Bollywood films) in North America have been un-organized sectors for nearly five decades now. In cities/regions with a large concentration of South Asians - New York/NJ, California, Toronto, and so on - a desi family would often run a weekend business that involved screening films at university halls or by renting a screen (for one weekend) at a local cinema theatre. While things have changed in larger cities - from dedicated screens to entire multiplexes (Naz8 in California, for e.g.) for Indian films - there has been no concerted effort to organize distribution and exhibition across the continent.

However, given the ways in which the “NRI market” has been targeted in increasingly sophisticated ways by the film industry in Mumbai, perhaps it is not a surprise that a Bollywood company has decided to launch a major exhibition venture. According to a story in India West, Adlabs is in the process of acquiring close to 200 cinemas in cities across the U.S. (link):

The new theater chain will likely be branded as Big Cinemas and will program a mix of Hindi, South Indian, and first-run and second-run Hollywood movies.

It has already begun a quiet rollout: the company’s first West Coast property to open is the Norwalk 8 Theaters in Southern California, which will screen the subtitled Hindi thriller “Tashan” and the unsubtitled Tamil romance “Santhosh Subramaniam” starting April 25, along with a mix of second-run features such as “Fool’s Gold” and “The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

If Adlabs does succeed in establishing a chain of theatres across the U.S., I have no doubt it will change the way Bollywood imagines and mobilizes an “overseas market.” In addition to bringing about a shift in distribution and marketing practices, this will also allow filmmakers to track revenues in a more organized and reliable fashion.

Family Matters - two takes

On the one hand, a story in the Washington Post about lower class/caste men and women trying to break into the film industry (go here):

Today, a trickle of actors, dancers and screenwriters from India’s lower and middle castes are trying to break into a formerly impenetrable star system, full of actors from Bollywood royalty and other insiders hailing from high-caste families. New drama schools are training Indians from all castes. And Bollywood is starting to tackle more serious plots that could potentially star low-caste actors.

“Will you get more attention if you have the right surname and are part of an entrenched star family? Of course,” said Anupama Chopra, a film critic and author of several best-selling books on Bollywood. “But there is increasing space now for a booming Bollywood film industry, and there’s a feeling that if you are talented enough, well, maybe you will get noticed, no matter what your family ties are.”

And on the other hand, Time Out Mumbai offers a map of the film industry to illustrate how important family ties are (subscription required, link):

Despite enormous changes in recent years, the Hindi film industry is still influenced tremendously by society’s most basic unit. A snap survey of today’s noteworthy actors reveals that many of them were either born into a film family or married into one. Hrithik Roshan? The son of actor-turned-filmmaker Rakesh Roshan and the grandson of filmmaker J Om Prakash. Salman Khan? The son of scriptwriter Salim Khan. Aamir Khan? The son of filmmaker Tahir Hussain, the nephew of producer Nasir Hussain, and the cousin of director Mansoor Khan. Abhishek Bachchan? The son of Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri. Saif Ali Khan? The son of Sharmila Tagore. Kareena Kapoor? A member of the Kapoor clan. Kajol? The daughter of actor Tanuja and director Shomu Mukherjee. Rani Mukerji? A member of the Mukherjee clan and the niece of Bengali actor Debashree Roy. The only outsider to have made it in recent times without family connections is Shah Rukh Khan. Akshay Kumar qualified too until he married Twinkle Khanna, herself an actor and the daughter of actors Dimple Kapadia and Rajesh Khanna.

Many more DNA matches can be found among directors, producers, and distributors as well as among second-rung actors. These include Karan Johar, Rohan Sippy, Goldie Behl, Aditya Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Sidharth Anand, Sajid Nadiadwala, Anil Thadani, Meghna Gulzar, Amrita Arora, Zayed Khan, Esha Deol, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Ravi Chopra, Shaad Ali, Pooja Bhatt, Bobby Deol, Farah Khan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Workers and Unions in Bollywood Inc.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (link) pays attention to an aspect of film production we don’t think about very often - who gets to be an extra in contemporary Bollywood films. Pointing out that directors these days look for “extras who fit the scene,” the reporter Amol Sharma documents the emergence of entrepreneurs who work closely with directors to help cast extras. And what’s more, these entrepreneurs, who carry CDs with images of potential extras and broker deals with directors and producers, are proving to be a threat to a well-established institution in the film industry - the Junior Artists Union.

Indian directors say they need to be picky about extras as they try to go global and appeal to the United Kingdom and the U.S. markets, where higher production values are expected. “You can’t keep using the same faces every time,” says Sudhir Mishra, director of the recently released “Khoya Khoya Chand” (Lost Moon), a love story set in the 1950s. Mr. Mishra bypassed the union to hire actors he felt could more authentically portray prostitutes, bouncers and pimps in a brothel scene.

Directors also try to boost the international appeal of their films by using foreign extras, often European or American vacationers rounded up at Mumbai tourist spots — a tactic that is particularly galling to unionized extras. Film producers “give excuses, like ‘We’re shooting in a pub, so we want to have some foreigners there,’” says Firoz Khan, a 25-year-old member of the Junior Artistes Association, the union for male extras. “It’s just excuses.”

The Junior Artists’ Union is fighting back valiantly, trying to figure out how they can renegotiate their place in an industry that is currently besotted by the language of “corporatization.” Read the whole article here, and here’s a video that accompanies the article:

It’s important to note that this isn’t an isolated domain of the industry that is under siege. In an article in Anthropological Quarterly, Clare Wilkinson-Weber maps the changing world of costume design and the growing marginalization of “dressmen:”

Dressmen have always employed informal methods and techniques in their work, and they now find their skills, knowledge, as well as their privilege of maleness in a male-dominated industry being eroded as Hindi filmmaking is transforming itself aesthetically and organizationally in response to global forces.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with a number of such “dressmen,” Wilkinson-Weber explains how the “de-skilling” of dressmens’ jobs has to be understood in relation to changing industry logics and specifically, the entry of a number of young, urban women who “claim superior knowledge of filmmaking techniques and of the fashion world that informs film costume” [The Dressman's Line: Transforming the Work of Costumers in Popular Hindi Film, Anthropological Quarterly, 79(4), 2006].

I know very little about the history of workers’ unions in Mumbai, but this story points to the importance of industry-focuses studies that can provide nuanced understandings of production culture in “Bollywood Inc.”

From Culver City to Chennai

Via Cartoon Brew (thanks, Amrita), a rather funny short that has two Sony Imageworks artists imagining their life in the event of their jobs getting moved to Chennai. And here’s what inspired them.

NDTV Lumiere

Over at MediaCommons, two comments pointed to the importance of situating initiatives like NDTV Imagine in relation to the network as a whole. I couldn’t agree more, and as I’ve pointed out in earlier posts, transitions in the television industry are central to the film industry as well. It would be a mistake to continue to examine film and TV in isolation, especially given the importance of television rights to producers in Bollywood. Films aside, we are yet to map, in any systematic fashion, the workings of numerous filmy shows on television - song and dance talent/game shows of various kinds have been part of television for nearly two decades now (ZEE TV’s Antakshari began in 1993).

And now, NDTV has added another dimension to TV’s relationship with film with the launch of NDTV Lumiere.

Led by Sameer Nair, former CEO of Star Entertainment India, NDTV Lumiere has roped in Manmohan Shetty, founder of Adlabs, and Sunil Doshi, a film producer. The goal, as the video above suggests, is to develop NDTV Lumiere as a niche space for audiences interested in cinema from around the world. Instead of competing with Zee Cafe and Star World for “elite audiences” (see this), this seems like a smart differentiating tactic.

More broadly, I think this initiative signals the working out of a radically new set of relationship between two screens in India - at the level of industry logics, productions cultures, and audiences’ viewing practices. More on this in posts to come.

Essential Afternoons and Elite Weekends: Changing face of “Elite TV”

I’ve begun paying closer attention to the rapidly changing landscape of television in India - like I said in earlier posts on TV, it is difficult to not pay attention to the astonishing pace and extent of changes taking place. Ownership, production logics, marketing and advertising, program formats/genres, audience categories, policy and regulation - every aspect of TV is in a state of transition and it will be interesting to observe these and other shifts over the next few years.

As someone who grew up with Doordarshan and later, with early cable & satellite TV (when there were all of four channels), I am struck by the many ways in which audiences have been carved up into identifiable and marketable units - youth, children, women, and so on. This logic isn’t surprising at all. What is surprising is how quickly this structure of TV has been normalized. So much so that now, TV channels are scrambling to figure out further levels of differentiation.

So how do english language “general entertainment channels” like AXN, ZEE Cafe, and Star World compete? By creating “essential afternoons,” “elite weekdays,” and “elite weekends” when these viewers can catch up on their favorite shows - everything from Aliens in America to Lost. According to this story on the trade site indiantelevision.com:

To hook viewers to its fare, two timeslots were created. “The Reality Stash” slot showcases reality content from 9 - 10 pm. This is followed by “Elite Weekdays,” showcasing international drama series at 11 pm.

“Elite Weekends” which is the non-primetime slot on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 pm. The aim is to allow the dedicated fan base to sit back and enjoy catching up on their favourite international series which they have missed out over the week. “We have, therefore, ensured they get to watch all the series back to back and have clearly positioned the band as - ‘Catch all the week’s action on AXN Elite Weekends’.”

…Clients find English entertainment a very important differentiator in the content arena and a strong association for their brands with evolved audiences.

Sounds like Vir Sanghvi’s prayers for television that speaks to People Like Him are being answered - only the best that American television has to offer and none of the shows that “middle India” watches Snark aside, this domain of english language “general entertainment” will be an important space to watch as powerful players like NBC Universal and Disney consolidate their position in the Indian TV market over the next few years.

On being desi in post 9/11 America

After a session on Goodness Gracious Me, I usually get students to watch Hanif Kureishi’s My Son the Fanatic in an attempt to talk about cultural citizenship and the ways in which religion has become an increasingly important fault line. And until now, I’ve never found a film like My Son the Fanatic that might help us talk through these issues in the context of South Asian-Americans. Mississippi Masala only gets us so far. Last night, I learned about “Punching at the Sun,” a film that takes on the question of what race, nationalism, and citizenship mean for South Asian muslim youth in post-9/11 Queens, NY. Here’s the trailer, and you can watch the entire film on Jaman:

Links to reviews and interviews with the filmmaker Tanuj Chopra here.

It’s all about TV

Over the past few years, both popular and academic writing on the changing mediascape in India has focused mostly on Bollywood - take one look on Amazon and you’ll see for yourself. To be sure, there are countless topics to explore and a growing group of scholars and graduate students are mapping and analyzing the substantial changes in the film industry (mostly Bollywood). My own research is very much a part of this space, and I decided to focus on relationships between film, TV, advertising, and the “new media” sector for my dissertation.

But now that I’ve had some time away from the dissertation, and as I begin to think about turning the diss into a book, I find myself looking more closely at developments in the TV sector and wondering about how much more dynamic the TV industry has been this past decade. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that all the experimentation going on in the film industry is largely being underwritten by TV - be it through the entry of TV companies like UTV into the film business, the fact that TV rights allow producers to recover half or more than half of a film’s production costs (link), or the countless film-based shows on TV that serve as promotional vehicles and much more.

It did not come as a surprise, then, to hear about NBC’s decision to acquire 26% share in NDTV Networks (link) and the possibility that NBC will raise this number to 50% in the near future. NDTV has expanded beyond news and launched NDTV Imagine (a general entertainment channel), NDTV Good Times (supposedly India’s first lifestyle channel), NDTV Emerging Markets (a consulting unit), and NDTV Convergence (a digital media business that controls all Web/mobile content). And NBC isn’t alone here - both Sony and News Corp. have been involved in the TV market in India for much longer, and just last year, Viacom and Disney entered the picture as well (Viacom teamed up with the TV-18 group and Disney bought a 15% stake in UTV). It’s becoming increasingly clear that all the buzz surrounding the growth of the Internet and gaming sectors has been a distraction at best (mobile phones are a different story). It’s time we paid closer attention to developments in the TV sector - not only in terms of mapping changing ownership patterns but also re-assessing TV’s role as a cultural center for every imaginable audience demographic.

Yizo Yizo (The Way It Is) and Wetin Dey (What’s Up?): Revisiting “Development TV”

Thanks to my colleague leo africanus, I could include Yizo Yizo, a groundbreaking and gritty TV show from South Africa, in my course on Global Media. Yizo Yizo is a terrific text with which to invite students to think about the question of “development communication” and the central role that this strand of communications research (carried out, for the most part, in mass communication departments in the U.S.) has played in shaping media policy in much of Africa and Asia. But what sets Yizo Yizo and Wetin Dey apart from other “pro-development” Miguel Sabido-inspired dramas developed in places like India during the 80s is the socio-cultural and political context - post apartheid South Africa.

Where radio and television in India were imagined and controlled by the state as a means for integrating the “nation,” in South Africa, radio and television were central to the project of racial and ethnic separation. Yizo Yizo, however, is in many ways emblematic of “post-apartheid” TV in South Africa - by which I mean not just the re-structuring of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the growing influence of transnational formats and genres on TV in South Africa (Big Brother Africa, for e.g.), but also the ways in which TV has emerged as a key site for the re-articulation of cultural citizenship. And Yizo Yizo is a brilliant text to work with for the simple reason that it is so uncompromising - it lays bare the many issues troubling township life in South Africa (violence, drug abuse, sexual harassment, and so on) in unprecedented ways. And needless to say, the show generated tremendous controversy and attracted considerable public discussion. TV done right.

While I’ve planned to screen an episode or two of Yizo Yizo in class, it looks like I now have to make time for another show - Wetin Dey, from Nigeria. A story in the BBC says that this show, produced by group of international TV, film and advertising producers, is designed to raise HIV and AIDS awareness across Nigeria (here). Nigeria, as we know, gets talked about in both popular and academic settings in relation to Nollywood and the enduring popularity of Bollywood. I’m hoping this show (clips available on BBC) will help add another dimension to our understanding of media production in Nigeria and force us to think anew about TV and the question of “development” in an age of global flows - Wetin Dey is, after all, funded in large measure by the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID) and produced in collaboration with a number of NGOs.

[Pic from BBC]

Radio and the creation of an “Indian public”

One of the most striking gaps in both popular and academic writing on media in South Asia relates to the question of relationships between media institutions. And this is especially relevant in the Indian context given the extent and range of film content that shapes radio, TV, the Internet, mobile, and increasingly, video games. This question shapes my research in important ways, and I am particularly interested in mapping the film industry’s relationship with radio during the first decade of independence.

While waiting for inter-library loan materials (such as “Indian Listener,” an All India Radio publication) to arrive, I decided to look into newspaper coverage and came across a number of interesting articles and advertisements that provide glimpses not just into how the airwaves became a key site for elites to define “national culture,” but also some sense of the rhythms of everyday life during the 1950s.

I will post images and snippets of articles as I work through them over the next few weeks, but to begin with, here is an excerpt from October 3, 1957 (The Hindu) that caught my attention right away.

I could not have asked for anything better - the juxtaposition of All India Radio’s broadcast schedule with an ad from Radio Ceylon (run from Colombo) speaks very directly to the ways in which the commercially operated radio station from Colombo challenged the nationalist elites at All India Radio who, after nearly a decade of obstinacy, relented and allowed the broadcast of film music and other “light music” on All India Radio.

As the story goes, All India Radio had banned “vulgar” film music arguing that it was critical to cultivate the tastes of the Indian “masses” by exposing them to classical music from both south and north India. Radio Ceylon, run on a commercial basis, spotted an opportunity and launched a number of programmes that revolved around film and film music, the most famous one being a countdown show sponsored by Binaca and hosted by Ameen Sayani (Binaca Geet Mala). If you click on the excerpt above and look a bit closer at the broadcast schedule on All India Radio, you will notice that listeners in Madras (now Chennai) who tuned into All India Radio could listen to a violin concert followed by Russian orchestra music. However, if they had purchased a radio set that was equipped to receive shortwave signals, they could tune into Radio Ceylon and listen to Shakeel Badayuni, a renowned poet and film lyricist (more here), and famous playback singers like Mukesh and Talat Mahmood.

And this is precisely what listeners in India did - for nearly a decade, each evening, they gathered around radio sets to listen to film music from Bombay being broadcast from Ceylon. An “Indian public/audience” was forged, to the surprise of bureaucrats at All India Radio, by a small overseas programming division of a broadcasting station from a neighboring country with the help of the film industry in Bombay. Moreoever, many of these shows were sponsored by companies based in Bombay and other cities in India that could not advertise on the state-controlled, non-commercial All India Radio (in this instance, the company sponsoring the show is Sanforized - Sanforized ke Mehmaan translates to Sanforized’s Guests). And these shows served as a template for producers at Vividh Bharati as they launched their programmes in October 1957.

Needless to say, I’ve only scratched the surface here. Over the next few weeks, I will return to this moment of media convergence and transnational flows (Radio Ceylon could be picked up in Southeast Asia and as far west as the east coast of Africa) with, of course, fascinating archival material. Stay tuned!

Re-booting for the new year

Apologies for disappearing for over a month now - inexcusable, especially given I can make no claims whatsoever about a large readership. But grading and other end-of-semester craziness, a vacation, and a brutal January 3 start to the winter semester has kept me busy.

That said, I have bookmarked a number of interesting stories in the south asian-mediascape and will get to them over the next few days. I have also spent a lot of time browsing through The Hindu from 1953 onwards in an attempt to map relationships between the film industry and radio in post-independence India, so expect a post or two with some terrific images from the early 1950s. This preliminary look at film-radio connections will be part of a paper I will be presenting at the Cinema South Asia conference to be held at UPenn this coming weekend (line up here) - more on this tomorrow.

But I wanted to kick things off with a bit of self-promotion - my first book, a co-edited anthology of essays on Bollywood, will be out this August from NYU Press!

I’ve spent a good week of the past month poring over the copyedited manuscript, and I have to say it is exciting but also nerve-wracking to think about how the book will be received (and maybe even reviewed). And of course, it is quite the thrill to see the book listed on Amazon (link)!

p.s. I’m not sure I dig the cover, but I’ve heard from a couple of people who thought it was ok.

Animation in India - 3 part series on NPR

This morning, NPR ran the first of a 3-part series on cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad emerging as major centers of animation production. Profiling Rhythm & Hues, an L.A-based company that has opened an office in bombay, the reporter Laura Sydell explains clearly why the de-centered nature of contemporary animation production needs to be understood not in terms of outsourcing but rather, as a function of concerted efforts by a number of media capitals to compete for this work (Vancouver, London, etc.).

Listen to the NPR story here, and go here to read more.

p.s. I was also intrigued by a comment that a Mumbai-based Rhythm & Hues employee made about the experience she was gaining, and that she eventually hopes to produce high-quality animation within India. When I heard that, I was reminded of Roadside Romeo, a feature-length animation co-produced by Yashraj Films and Walt Disney Pictures (trailer here). This will arguably be the first “Bollywood” animation that is not being marketed as a children’s film.

Newsweek on Bollywood: 2000-2007

Way back in 2000, when Bollywood meant little to American audiences, Newsweek did a feature trying to explain why they needed to pay attention. It was a deeply problematic piece, with the writers making a number of terrible assumptions - here’s an excerpt from that article:

The West have the biggest stalls in the world’s media bazaar, but it’s not the only player. Globalization isn’t merely another word for Americanization–and the recent expansion of the Indian entertainment industry proves it. For hundreds of millions of fans around the world, it is Bollywood–India’s film industry–not Hollywood, that spins their screen fantasies. Bollywood, based in Mumbai, has become a global industry. India’s entertainment moguls don’t merely target the billion South Asians, or desis, at home; they make slick movies, songs and TV shows for export. Attracted by a growing Indian middle class and a more welcoming investment environment, foreign companies are flocking to Bollywood, funding films and musicians. The foreign money is already helping India’s pop culture to reach even greater audiences. And it may have a benign side effect–cleaning up an Indian movie business long haunted by links to the underworld.

The “Indian” film industry isn’t just based in Mumbai. At the time, foreign companies weren’t exactly flocking to Mumbai, and as several others have pointed out, Newsweek’s assumptions about “clean” money are questionable.

Now, 7 years later, Newsweek has revisited Bollywood in an attempt to take stock of changes sweeping through the industry. “Hooray for Bollywood” focuses attention on Ronnie Screwvala, CEO of UTV Software Communications, as a way to map the “corporatization” of the industry.

Over the past five years Screwvala has led the transformation of India’s prolific but chaotic film industry…professionalizing the business, bringing in outside investors and accounting standards as well as aggressively marketing films with novel plots. His production company has cut the old three-and-a-half-hour marathons to between 90 and 120 minutes and has hired Hollywood scriptwriters to make its features more watchable.

Read the whole thing here. And while you’re at it, take a look at this video:

If things don’t work out well in Iowa over the next few weeks, Obama can call Ronnie Screwvala, no?