Business Research Methods (2014)

Decreasing number of box office hits per year in Telugu film industry (Tollywood) - analysis and recommendations
Business Research Methods

Submitted to Dr Arun Abraham Elias Victoria Management School Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand

Submitted by M Rohit PGP/17/151 – Section C Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode India

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Abstract
This paper talks about the emergence of Telugu films and subsequent growth and development of Telugu film industry (Tollywood). Indian film industry on a whole is facing serious issue in the decrease in number of hits per year. An attempt has been made to study this trend in Tollywood. Entertainment industry is a major source of income in the Indian GDP. Hence this topic of research has been chosen. The industry has seen transformation from Puranas to mass folklore to technological breakthroughs in the form of colour films and many more innovations. Tollywood holds a special place in Indian film industry in terms of quality of films, number of films released, box office collections and cultural and political impacts on India. This paper approaches the industry with behaviour over time analysis and then identifies various stakeholders involved in this complex network. The paper gives a brief idea of the effects of various parties on the industry. An attempt has been made to address various issues relating to technology, piracy, viewership, etc., by taking into account the interests of all the stakeholders for a bright future of Tollywood. Stakeholder map is made and analysis of the problems of industry has been done. Causal loop diagrams have been constructed to analyse the situation, and certain limits of the research have been noted. Certain valid recommendations have also been made at the end of this paper to prevent the industry from doldrums and vicissitudes of external agents that affect in a negative way. Key words: Tollywood, stakeholder analysis, causal loop diagram, methodology, limitations

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Table of Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................. 2 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 4 Research Problem ................................................................................................ 5 Behaviour Over Time Graph ............................................................................... 5 Stakeholders’ Analysis ......................................................................................... 6
Chart of Specific Stakeholders............................................................................................................ 7 Stakes of Stakeholders ........................................................................................................................ 9

Literature Review ............................................................................................... 12 Research Objective ............................................................................................. 16 Research Questions ............................................................................................ 16 Methodology and Methods................................................................................. 16 Causal Loop diagram ......................................................................................... 17 Limitations of the research ................................................................................ 17 Analysis and Results .......................................................................................... 17 Conclusion and scope for further research ...................................................... 18 References .......................................................................................................... 19

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Introduction
Telugu film industry can be said to have its origins in the pre-independence era, 1909 when late Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu, considered as father of Indian Telugu cinema made contributions on the form of producing short films, plays and travelling throughout Asia promoting art and culture of Telugu people. Film industry in its nascent stages focussed on Indian epics like Ramanyana, Mahabharata and then on prominent emperors and kings like King Asoka, King Akbar, King Sri Krihnadevarayulu etc., which the people could easily associate themselves to. The efforts of many film directors, producers and art directors were welcomed by Telugu speaking people in a grand fashion. By 1936, film industry transgressed from religious and mythologies to mass genre. Slowly, but steadily there have been improvements in technology and way of film making in Tollywood. The 1951 movie Pathala Bhairavi was the first South Indian movie to be showcased at the first India International Film Festival in 1952. Film studious like Vijaya Vauhini studios, Prasad studios, Ramoji Film studios, Annapurna Film studios and many more have been created to facilitate the industry an enthral the audience of Andhra Pradesh. Then slowly the industry spread to other regions of India. Movie dubbing and remakes were at done at a high rate. Other language people have accepted Telugu films in a grand way and Tollywood made a mark with its technology, plot, characterisations, songs, dances and video making. Nandi awards, considered as Oscars of Tollywood are given by Andhra Pradesh State Government in many categories for the beat performances and artists. Tollywood has many noted film critics like Vasiraju Prakasam and K T N Sastry. Many Telugu films have received innumerable awards and prizes in International film festivals. Artists like Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Brahmanandam, Savitri, A Nageshwara Rao etc., have contributed to the industry and made a place in the hearts of Telugu speaking people. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Late Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao came from

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Telugu film industry. This shows the respect and fame that these artists are given by the people. Of late, Tollywood is facing several problems like piracy, decrease in number of box office hits, increase in number of other language movies, copying from other languages and so on. In this paper, an effort is made to address the stakeholders and problems of Tollywood. Certain recommendations for the betterment of Telugu film industry have been suggested to combat these problems.

Research Problem
General area - Decrease in the number of box office hits in Indian Film Industry. Specific area - Reduction in the number of box office hits in Telugu film industry (Tollywood) - reasons and recommendations.

Behaviour Over Time Graph
The behaviour over time graphs (BOT) captures the problem. It uses main variables affecting the situation and captures the counter intuitive nature of the problem. In this case, the main variables are Viewership of films - 1 Movie budget - 2 Technological advancement - 3 Number of film releases - 4 Number of dubbed movie releases – 5 International releases - 6 Releases in number of theatres - 7 M Rohit (PGP/17/151) Page 5

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Number of box office hits per year

We can observe that over a period of time, all the main variables have been increasing at a steady rate, but the overall number of box office hits is decreasing. Next, a stakeholders’ analysis has been done to know the effects of decrease in box office hits.

Stakeholders’ Analysis

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Chart of Specific Stakeholders  Economy Andhra Pradesh economy Indian economy World economy  Government State government Politicians  Audience Parents Children Friends Relatives  Competitors Other regional languages Dubbed movies  Artists Actors/actresses Junior artists  Technicians Animation artists Web developers

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

Movie owners Directors Producers Art/music directors

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Community Local bodies Caste groups Press

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Money lenders Banks Private lenders

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Clients Advertisers Theatre owners Distributers

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Other industry competitors Television programs Radio programs Internet

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Overseas market Overseas distributors Overseas theatre owners

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Stakes of Stakeholders Economy: Telugu film industry has been largely affected by the changing national and global economies. During 1950s to 80s, the growth rate of the nation was normal and this has not affected the rates of purchases of film equipment. But later on, due to liberalisation of Indian economy, there has been a huge amount of imports of film equipment, technology, artists and global culture which affected the Indian as well as Telugu film industry. The rates have increased due to inflation and there has been more employment in this sector. Government: The local government has vastly influenced the making of Telugu films since many decades. Movies based on local leaders, national leaders, naxalism and terrorism have been under strict scrutiny by the censor and film board of India. Government in India has always been averse to the idea of promoting movies on leaders and sensitive issues like freedom movement, Indo-China wars, Indo-Pak wars, etc. This led to decrease in the quality of films and the directors have resorted to routine plots and twists. Audience: When Tollywood is considered, impressing the audience is a major factor for the box office hits. Initially, mythological movies were encouraged by the audience but lately, with modernisation and globalisation of culture, audience began to encourage action movies, romantic and youth movies. Art movies are rarely welcomed by the audience. There is a need to make movies to cater to the needs of all the audience segments.

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Competitors: Since last decade, Tollywood has witnessed a rise in the budget of movies and increase in the viewership of audience. This led to many outside language movie makers to dub their movies to Telugu. Also, many producers are interested in remaking hit movies in other regional regions as Telugu audience are encouraging new cultures and ideas. This led to decrease in actual Telugu movie box office hits recently and this has become a serious issue. Artists: Number of artists in film industry has increased manifold which can be attributed to many reasons. In the initial stages of cinema, majority of the artists came from drama and theatre, where as now, people with no formal training in acting have entered the industry and they are making and acting in the films. This led to an increase in the number of films made and released but then the quality has decreased in terms of emulating the emotions required. Technicians: It can be said that the role and future growth prospects of technicians in Telugu film industry is very bright. Many young engineers, animation graduates, MBA graduates are entering into the field grasping the need for technical innovation. Many graphics oriented movies are being released and animation movies are the future of the industry. Movie owners: Hero of a movie is the director and then comes the producer, music director, art director and so on. Hero comes at the end when success of a movie is to be evaluated. But since last decade, there has been a change in this pattern and there is a growing demand for heroes rather than for directors. This led to the heroes selecting the script and locations and other aspects for the movie, rather than the director and producer doing them.

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Community: Tollywood has been influenced by local caste and sub-groups since decades. Though initially this did not hamper the hit ratio and quality of the movies made, but these days, one can see the influence of community groups in the movies. Press also plays a very predominant role than can be argued as being both a positive and a negative effect on the industry. Money lenders: During the 1960s and 70s, the budget of the movies was very limited and remuneration of the artists was not much. But, owing to globalization, technical advancements, inflation and competition the cost of production has increased exorbitantly high. Lack of control on budget has increased the default rate these days which can also be seen in the increase in the number of flops. Clients: The distributors and advertisers of the movies were once regarded as very successful businessmen in the society. Gone were those golden days and now, the distributors are suffering very high losses due to increase in dubbed movie releases, more number of simultaneous releases of movies and bad quality of movies. Care has to be taken to make the distributors profitable as they are the ones who are very crucial in bringing the movie to the audience. Other industry competitors: There were days when people were mesmerised by the graphics, locations, acting sequences in the movies and the beauty of the actors. But now, radio and television industry has taken over the film industry by storm and now, the viewers are more inclined towards

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watching television as per the latest reports. Internet is another source of entertainment which is taking the market share of films. Overseas market: These days Tollywood has increased its market to international level encompassing USA, Europe, Australia and other Asian countries. The overseas distributors are gaining profits by releasing Telugu movies. More emphasis has to be given to the foreign market as there is a huge untapped market which can be the future for the industry.

Literature Review
1. C.S.H.N. Murthy (2013) Film remakes as cross-cultural connections between North and South: A case study of the Telugu film industry's contribution to Indian filmmaking, Journal of International Communication, 19:1, 19-42, DOI:

10.1080/13216597.2012.739573 This paper discusses about the various reasons for dubbing of movies from one language to another. The major genres of film industry, the cross cultural indices in the Telugu film industry have been clearly discussed. This paper also discusses about remakes, re-adaptations and Guinness records in this industry. Clear identification of remakes, their comparisons with other language similar movies has been made. It highlights the dominance of Telugu films in other industries. 2. Pandyan, Kanakasabapathy, Journal of Asian Pacific Communication (John Benjamins Publishing Co.); 2013, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p66-85, 20p Emergence of animation industry in India has been extensively discussed in this paper. There is a large market for animation industry which can be capitalised by right implementation of resources and regulations. Animation industry is a fusion of Information

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technology (IT) industry and film industry, wherein animation has been used for cartooning and to deliver live action works. It also traces back the origin of the animation in India wherein it refers to the early works of Dadasaheb Phlake, the father of Indian cinema, who had used animation in experimental films through stop-motion featuring marching matchsticks and dancing coins. 3. Shanti Kumar (2006) Mapping Tollywood: The Cultural Geography of “Ramoji Film City” in Hyderabad, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 23:2, 129-138, DOI: 10.1080/10509200590490628 The article focuses on the international characteristics of film production done in Ramoji Film City (RFC) in Hyderabad, India. Many television serials are also produced in RFC. Here, many national and international movies are filmed. RFC is considered as the largest, and most professionally designed film production centre in the world It already surpassed the size and facilities of Universal Studios in Hollywood. Hollywood has already made an entry into RFC and films done in RFC would have cost ten times if it was done in Hollywood. Since the production is much cheaper in RFC, filmmakers from Bollywood are also lining up. Moreover, the population of audiences in India are also attracting the attention of many transnational media corporations. 4. Sara Dickey & Rajinder Dudrah (2010) South Asian cinemas: Widening the lens, South Asian Popular Culture, 8:3, 207-212, DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2010.501539 This paper discusses many possibilities of South Asian cinemas. This is like a precursor for further research. It talks about effect of Hindi cinemas on other regional languages. Telugu and Tamil industry are very similar in the type of movies they make, the audiences’ preferences and market for the films. This paper probes questions like overlapping in personnel, production facilities, methods and ideas among different South Asian cinemas.

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5. Srinivas, S. V., Cardboard monuments: City, language and ‘nation’ in contemporary Telugu cinema This paper looks at how the city of Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh has been projected and promoted in the films across the nations. Not only in Telugu films but also in other regional films, Hyderabad, most importantly, the 400 year old Charminar has been widely filmed. It outlines the history of a new mode of representing the city in Telugu cinema and argues that its significance lies in the tendency to delocalize the city. Charminar is famous for the Muslim speaking people and their non-standard way of conversation in Telugu, and also the criminal acts that occur in and around Charminar. 6. Sher Muhammad Doudpota, Sumanta Guha, Junaid Baber, Mining movies for song sequences with video based music genre identification system, Information Processing and Management 49 (2013) 529–544 This article emphasises on the songs and song sequences in movies that are of very high importance in South Asian movies. It talks about various technical intricacies involved in song making like song extraction, pattern checker, and song boundary detection. In this paper, authors have explained our ongoing work on an automatic song extractor and genre identifier. Such a song extractor can also assist in production of CD/cassettes that contain songs from different movies. 7. Baggam, Srinivas Rao, K. Venkata Varma, P. Suresh, Detecting Pirated Movie's with Similarity Assessment Based on Earth Mover's Distance, International Journal of Information Technology & Computer Science; Mar2013, Vol. 5 Issue 4, p47-54, 8p Piracy in today’s world is considered to be a major impediment for the success of a movie. Entertainment industry is highly affected because of the piracy and millions of

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dollars worldwide is being allocated to mitigate piracy. This paper discusses an effective technology that detects piracy and identifies them before causing loss to the film makers. This paper puts forward the need for an advanced technology to combat with the people or firms that sustain on pirating the movies. This paper focused on the importance of primary detection of piracy to help the film industry prosper. 8. Mamidi Harikrishna, THE SHOW GOES ON.. A retrospection on 80 years of Tollywood, harikrishnam@ragalahari.in This paper gives an overall view of the Telugu film industry from its starting days to the present day. This paper talks about the six stages of Tollywood namely, puranas, mass folklore, colour films, mass commercial movies, technically advanced movies and entertainment quotient high movies. It discusses the transition from one stage to another and the improvements made along each transition. On the native front, Telugu Cinema has become an integral part in the lifestyle of Telugu people. 9. Roy Stafford, Indian Cinema: The World’s Biggest And Most Diverse Film Industry, Cornerhouse publications This short paper discusses the various cases of hit regional movies and their lessons to next generations. Cases of Bombay, Roja, Dil Se movies and also personalities of Mani Ratnam have been clearly discussed. This paper also raises certain interesting questions on the dance and song sequences, opinions of NRI audiences and effect of Hollywood on Indian cinema.

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Research Objective
Identify the various factors affecting the decrease in number of box office hits in Telugu film industry and also the stakeholders affected due to this, thereby attempting to suggest few recommendations for the problem.

Research Questions
1. What are the various factors affecting the decrease in the number of box office hits in Telugu film industry? 2. Who are the major stakeholders getting affected and influencing the situation? 3. What are the major recommendations and improvements that can be made in the system to mitigate the situation in Tollywood?

Methodology and Methods
The current methodology involves mostly observational studies and reports by eminent writers. The information from the articles has been taken and analysed. Further research methodology would include depth interviews with movie artists, distributors, press, audience and analysis of foreign markets. Focus group interviews can be conducted for the above stakeholders. A perfect market research can be done on Telugu film industry by preparing a questionnaire and getting responses from all the concerned parties. This can lead to effective analysis of the situation knowing which factor influence each other factor thereby giving a clear idea of the situation. Based on the quantitative analysis of the market research, effective recommendations can be made to increase the number of box office hits.

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Causal Loop diagram

Limitations of the research
This research is limited only to Tollywood and does not give an effective solution for other industry problems. Similar analysis has to be done for other regions to get a clear idea of the situation. There is a chance of getting biased opinions and hence a market research has to be done to eliminate all these kinds of biases.

Analysis and Results
On taking into account the various factors influencing the decline in the number of hits in Tollywood in recent times, a thorough study has been made on numerous research papers and reports by eminent authors. It has been observed that though certain factors have been present from a very long time, these factors have gained prominence in the current M Rohit (PGP/17/151) Page 17

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period due to external factors like globalization, change in working habits of the people and emulating the culture of western nations. An effective market research has to be done to come up with strong evidence of effects of the factors. Cross-cultural effects of north and south Indian films have to be done to know the effect of these factors. Animation sector has to be given enough focus as it has not been concentrated so far. Most importantly, piracy has to be restricted. Piracy is predominant because of the craze among the movie goers, and the technology has been so advanced that the hackers are able to intrude the producers’ accounts and release the movie beforehand. The major stakeholders getting affected because of the piracy are distributors and producers. Hence, proper vigilance teams have to be maintained in major piracy prone areas, and the responsibility of eradicating piracy also lies with the audience.

Conclusion and scope for further research
The decrease in the number of hits in Tollywood has to be addressed with immediate action as this affects all the stakeholders mentioned in one way or the other. Hence, an effective governing body has to be established to be certain that if not all the interests, at least majority of the interests of all the stakeholders have to be satisfied for growth of the film industry. Further, this analysis can be applied to other local regional film industries like Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Bhojpuri and so on, and finally do the analysis for Indian film industry. There is a need to analyse the international film industries of various nations to come up with a solid research and recommendations. The entertainment industry is one of the major contributors of income to the GDP of India.

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References
1. C.S.H.N. Murthy (2013) Film remakes as cross-cultural connections between North and South: A case study of the Telugu film industry's contribution to Indian filmmaking, Journal of International Communication, 19:1, 19-42, DOI:

10.1080/13216597.2012.739573 2. Pandyan, Kanakasabapathy, Journal of Asian Pacific Communication (John Benjamins Publishing Co.); 2013, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p66-85, 20p 3. Shanti Kumar (2006) Mapping Tollywood: The Cultural Geography of “Ramoji Film City” in Hyderabad, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 23:2, 129-138, DOI: 10.1080/10509200590490628 4. Sara Dickey & Rajinder Dudrah (2010) South Asian cinemas: Widening the lens, South Asian Popular Culture, 8:3, 207-212, DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2010.501539 5. Srinivas, S. V., Cardboard monuments: City, language and ‘nation’ in contemporary Telugu cinema 6. Sher Muhammad Doudpota, Sumanta Guha, Junaid Baber, Mining movies for song sequences with video based music genre identification system, Information Processing and Management 49 (2013) 529–544 7. Baggam, Srinivas Rao, K. Venkata Varma, P. Suresh, Detecting Pirated Movie's with Similarity Assessment Based on Earth Mover's Distance, International Journal of Information Technology & Computer Science; Mar2013, Vol. 5 Issue 4, p47-54, 8p 8. Mamidi Harikrishna, THE SHOW GOES ON.. A retrospection on 80 years of Tollywood, harikrishnam@ragalahari.in 9. Roy Stafford, Indian Cinema: The World’s Biggest And Most Diverse Film Industry, Cornerhouse publications

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10. Somaaya,

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http://bhawanasomaaya.com/blog/2011/04/29/cinemaand-literature/ 11. Yukta (2009) Remakes: What is a Remake?

http://aagorsholay.blogspot.com/2010/01/normal-0-falsefalse-false-en-in-xnone_4791.html 12. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. “The ‘Bollywoodization’ of Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4.1 (2003): 25–39. 13. Rao, Shakuntala. “The Globalization of Bollywood: An Ethnography of Non-Elite Audiences in India.” The Communication Review 10 (2007): 57–76. 14. J. Lubin, J. A. Bloom, and H. Cheng, ―Robust, content-dependent, high-fidelity watermark for tracking in digital cinema,‖ Proc. SPIE Security and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents V, vol. 5020, pp. 536–545, Jan. 2003. 15. Dickey, Sara.1993. Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 16. Thoraval, Y. (2000) The Cinemas of India, New Delhi: Macmillan Publication. 17. Forrest, J. & Koos, R.L. (2002) (eds) Dead Ringers: The remake in theory and practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. 18. Mandiberg, S. (2008) Remakes as translation: Cultural flow, New York: New York University. 19. Li, T.,Ogihara,M.,&Li,Q. (2003).A comparative study on content-based music genre classification. In Research and development in information retrieval (pp. 282–289). 20. Das, Sanjukta. 2008. ―Timing Movie Release on the Internet in the Context of Piracy. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce 18(4): 307. Mahwah: Oct 2008.

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