A truncated edition

Good afternoon! Welcome to The Impression, your weekly primer on the business of media, entertainment, and content.

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Mumbai has been under the weather (quite literally!) and so have I, so I don’t have a feature story this week. Instead, take a look at the top media & entertainment headlines from the week gone by. I also have a short note on the (never-ending) Ambani wedding.

Also, this week’s recommendation: do read this column by Vanita Kohli-Khandekar in Business Standard. Vanita argues that Indian filmmakers are struggling with picking the right window to release their film so that it can have a decent opening weekend. Already, many weekends of the first half of this year were occupied with the elections, the IPL, and then the Men’s T20 World Cup. The Indian audience is spoilt for choice. 

Vanita also points out that live events like the Ed Sheeran concert and the relentless supply of OTT originals like the latest seasons of Mirzapur and Panchayat are also getting the audience’s attention. What are we going to do with all this content? 

I’ve also explored some of these themes in this and this edition of The Impression. 

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Scan the big media headlines from the week gone by

Done deal: Finally, Paramount Global has a new owner. David Ellison’s Skydance Media is taking over the storied Hollywood studio for more than $8 billion. New CEO Ellison has promised to cut $2 billion in costs and reduce the company’s debt which may be downgraded to ‘junk’ despite the deal. In all, the deal emphasises Hollywood’s diminishing might. 

Cord, cut: India’s top four direct-to-home satellite TV companies collectively lost 3.28 million active subscribers in FY24 as streaming companies offered cricket for free online, The Economic Times reports. 

(Some) respite: Streaming platform Spotify’s India arm cut losses by 26% to Rs344 crore in FY23, while its revenue grew by 86% to Rs167 crore, company financials show. 

Don’t say that: News wire service Asian News International (ANI) has sued the Press Trust of India for copyright infringement and plagiarism in the Delhi High Court; separately, it has also sued Wikipedia for defamation. 

Don’t do that: India’s Supreme Court has fixed guidelines for depicting people with disabilities in the media in passing an order a petition filed by disability rights activist Nipun Malhotra against the film Aankh Micholi. 

Bot com boom: The Washington Post has debuted its own chat bot to answer readers’ queries based on its own reporting. For now, it only answers questions about climate. Several US publishers and social media companies have signed content sharing deals with OpenAI and other AI platforms. 

When will Mukesh and Nita Ambani’s youngest son Anant finally marry? Since the first pre-wedding event in Jamnagar in March this year, we are getting served endless content from the Ambani scion’s seemingly never-ending pre-wedding festivities. 

The Jamnagar event raised questions about the way the Ambanis set up Vantara, a private animal rescue shelter run by Anant who is reportedly passionate about animal rights. Then, European media reported Italian locals were annoyed by several ‘loud’ guests of the Ambanis hopping off their party cruise last month. 

Now, as we get snippets of the Ambani family’s sangeet featuring Justin Bieber and an army of Bollywood stars, public reaction seems to be bordering on fatigue. It’s odd to see the usually serious Mukesh Ambani recreating an old classic song in a vintage car with his wife and grandchildren (as in the tweet above). There are endless posts breaking down the super-expensive couture outfits worn by the bride Radhika Merchant and speculation around an outfit chosen by the Ambani groom as well. 

Good news for media organisations though: trend desks of all major news organisations have used this sea of Ambani content to publish analyses and ‘netizens react’ stories (me included). The only questions now are: a) can the actual wedding surpass these over-the-top events? b) is the Ambani family at all worried about the impact of all this over-exposure? 

That’s all this week. If you enjoyed reading The Impression, please share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. And please write to me anytime at [email protected] with thoughts, feedback, criticism or anything you’d like to see discussed in this space. I'd love to hear from you. 

Thanks for reading, and see you again next Wednesday!