Ratings agency Crisil has said Indian media and entertainment (M&E) sector is expected to witness a strong 27 per cent growth in revenue to around Rs 1.37 lakh crore in 2021-22, after contracting 26 per cent this fiscal. Segments such as digital and television (TV) will have relatively shorter time to bounce-back to pre-pandemic levels while print, films, outdoor, and radio would take longer.
Crisil Ratings’ Director Nitesh Jain said advertisement and subscription revenues contribute nearly equally to the overall M&E sector's topline, but since the former correlates strongly with economic growth, the pandemic has had a bigger impact on it. Jain added next fiscal, with strong economic rebound on the cards, ad revenue should grow 31 per cent on-year and subscription revenue around 24 per cent.
Besides, the agency said the TV segment contributing around half of the sector's topline has recovered fully and will report healthy growth next fiscal. And revenue saw a sharp contraction initially, but recovered swiftly thereafter, aided by airing of new content, sports events such as the Indian Premier League and a buoyant festive season. It added as for subscriptions, TV was resilient even during the peak of pandemic as people remained indoors. It also said the print segment, which contributes a fifth of the M&E sector topline, is recovering, though at a much slower pace, and should be able to rebound fully only by the end of next fiscal.