Page 111 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

98 << Marketing and Promotions in Bollywood

the songs. While Doordarshan relied on a viewers’ poll, ZEE TV and MTV-
India turned to sales figures supplied by the Indian Music Companies’ Asso-
41
ciation. At stake were the ratings points that each television channel could
claim, and thereby the advertising rates they could set. And companies like
Yash Raj Films did begin exploring television as a new medium for publiciz-
42
ing and promoting films. In addition to airing songs and scenes from the
film, promotional efforts also included stars appearing on popular shows like
MTV’s Big Picture and Loveline to talk about their experiences working on
the film. Conversations initiated by television executives like Jiggy George
and Vikram Sathaye were beginning to make a difference.
Popular and scholarly accounts explain this transition either by point-
ing to the enduring popularity of film music and its inevitable presence on
television, or by noting that the sale of music and satellite rights became a
major new source of revenue for filmmakers. This is the argument Rajad-
hyaksha develops in his analysis of the relative importance of the box office
for Bollywood:

In economic terms, “haute” fashion explains most clearly the transition
that Bollywood negotiates as it moves the cinema away from the box
office, hitherto its staple source of income, into a series of new production
structures in transnational geographic and financial locations which offer
cultural crossovers (movie sells fashion sells brand endorsement sells star
sells movie sells music sells . . . ), strategic tie-ups, merchandising, public-
ity avenues (new television channels), as well as new electronic distribu-
tion alternatives. This explanation locates the cinema’s move in tandem
with the global trend towards B-to-B sectors (businesses servicing other
businesses as against dealing with the end-consumer), or, in the current
instance, in films transgressing their earlier distribution “territories” and
earning much more through selling rights than tickets. 43

However, the foregoing account of Doordarshan and the film industry’s ties
with transnational television channels like MTV-India suggests that film-TV
relations encompassed more than just the issue of negotiating rights or tele-
vision emerging as an important new release window. Rajadhyaksha is right
in arguing that one way to understand the shift away from the box office is
to approach it from the perspective of “businesses servicing other businesses
44
as against dealing with the end-consumer.” But his explanation tells us little
about relations between various media institutions in Bombay and how new
groups of industry professionals (in marketing and public relations) posi-
tioned themselves and negotiated their value in the industry. What kinds of