Create, but don't own it

There are few markets in the world where television is already a $3.4-billion business and where advertising spend on TV is clipping at 21 per cent. India is one. So, content producers must be making a killing, right? They are making money for sure, but they are also getting stiffed in some sense. Unlike those in the US, the networks in India (apart from some like DD and Sun) believe in owning the creative rights of the programmes created for them by production houses.

All IPR rests with the channels, as a result of which there are hardly any big production houses in the country (barring a few like Sri Adhikari Brothers and Balaji Telefilms), who can benefit from any of their programmes in the long term. "It has mainly been a buyer's market," says Siddhartha Basu, Chairman and Managing Director, Synergy Adlabs. Interestingly enough, western content producers aren't subject to the same rule by Indian networks.

Understandably, production houses want stronger intellectual property rights protection from the newly-drafted Broadcasting Bill. Anuradha Prasad, Managing Director, bag Films, says there should be a middle path where both the creator and the channel can own the content jointly for future use. "End of the day, my show is my only asset but I don't get to own that too," she says.

The situation in the case of smaller production houses is worse for obvious reasons. "Research-based Indian content has tremendous recycle value and both the channel and the production house stand to gain from such an understanding," says Dheeraj Kumar, CMD, Creative Eye. "There is a huge potential to sell stuff (recycled content) in other forms like mobisodes, CDs or on the net, but no one's discussing that in India," complains Niret Alva, President, Miditech. "The new broadcasting bill should look into it." Will it? Wait and watch.