NEW DELHI: India’s entertainment and media (E&M) industry is expected to reach Rs 4,30,401 crore by 2026 at 8.8 per cent CAGR, according to a report in June. The PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022-2026 report has shown substantial growth across India’s E&M industry segments such as OTT video, newspaper, advertisements, online games, cinema, music, among others.

“The Indian Media and Entertainment outlook for the next few years is quite unique. There is an exciting pace of growth of digital media and advertising led by the deeper penetration of Internet and mobile devices in our market,” said Rajib Basu, Partner & Leader - Entertainment & Media, PwC India in a statement.

“At the same time, traditional media will maintain their steady growth rate over the next few years. We shall see a very different profile of media and entertainment related businesses and revenue models emerging in the digital space once we have the rollout of 5G,” he added.

The absence of public entertainment and additional time at home due to the Covid pandemic more than doubled the total OTT revenue in 2020 and 2021. While growth rates will slow, the market will still expand at an impressive 14.1 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 21,032 crore in 2026. India will also see an increase in total newspaper revenue at 2.7 per cent CAGR from Rs 26,378 crore in 2021 to Rs 29,945 crore in 2026. The country is expected to leapfrog both France and the UK to become the fifth-biggest newspaper market by 2026, and will also be the only nation to grow total newspaper print revenue consistently across the five-year forecast period, the report said.

Further, the out-of-home (OOH) advertising market is also demonstrating one of the strongest comebacks globally and is predicted to grow at 12.57 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 5,562 crore in 2026.

While the TV advertising market is expected to expand at a 6.3 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 43,410 crore by 2026, Internet advertising market is set to increase at a 12.1 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 28,234 crore by 2026. The country’s total video games and exports revenue was Rs 16,200 crore in 2021, and is forecasted to reach Rs 37,535 crore by 2026, increasing at a 18.3 per cent CAGR. While still a fairly small market for the country’s size and population, India is the third fastest-growing video games market in the world, after Turkey and Pakistan.

India is also the third-biggest market globally in terms of total number of cinema tickets sold, after China and the US in 2021 and is set to grow at the highest growth rate amongst all the segments at a staggering 38.3 per cent CAGR in the forecast period to reach Rs 16,198 crore by 2026. The music, radio and podcast segment also grew at 18 per cent in 2021 and is set to grow at 9.8 per cent CAGR to reach Rs 11,536 crore by 2026.