Page 99 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

86 << Marketing and Promotions in Bollywood

of relationships that defined the social world of filmmaking in Bombay had
expanded to include people and groups for whom the culturalist discourses
of the film industry, particularly when it came to the question of imagining
and mobilizing the figure of the “audience,” were simply untenable. Needless
to say, I am not suggesting that these new circuits of capital have erased or
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completely supplanted kinship networks. And as I outlined in the previous
chapter, family businesses and kin relations continue to play crucial roles in
Bollywood’s emergent production relations. Let us, however, consider some
of the key changes that have taken place since 2000.
According to industry reports, financial institutions such as the Industrial
Development Bank of India have sanctioned Rs. 1.8 billion for movie proj-
ects, of which Rs. 900 million have already been distributed. Bank of India
has financed Rs. 250 million for five movies, and since April 2004 the Export-
Import Bank of India has financed Rs. 580 million for nine movies, includ-
ing Rs. 400 million to Yash Raj Films for big-budget hits such as Veer Zaara
(Yash Chopra, 2004), Hum Tum (Kunal Kohli, 2004), and Bunty Aur Babli
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(Shaad Ali, 2005). Another significant source of funds has been the entry
of large corporations into the film business, the most prominent being the
establishment of Reliance Entertainment, which is now involved in film pro-
duction, processing, exhibition, and distribution. Since 2005 the television
industry has also made forays into film production and distribution. Well-
established groups such as the ZEE Network, Sahara Group, Balaji Telefilms,
UTV, STAR, and SONY have all set up film divisions, bringing their produc-
tion values and processes to bear on filmmaking. In a brief span of five to
six years, these integrated media companies have also developed innovative
strategies for marketing and distributing film content through their television
channels. Further, by the year 2002, when Kaante was released, there were as
many as 35 promotional agencies and 4 in-film advertising firms in Bombay,
with large advertising agencies like Leo Burnett, O&M, and Lintas setting up
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divisions to deal exclusively with film accounts. According to trade reports,
the average marketing expenditure, excluding product placements and brand
promotions, had increased from Rs. 5.2 million in 2001 to Rs. 8.8 million in
2004, with companies like UTV earmarking anywhere from 15 percent to 40
percent of a film’s budget for marketing and promotions. 20
Of course, such accounts of industry transactions, produced and circu-
lated on a daily and weekly basis by the trade-press in Bombay, do need to
be understood in relation to the broader emergence of industrial reflexivity
in media industries across the world, which has been central to the overall
project of imagining Bollywood as well. As Nitin Govil argues, “[N]umbers
offer a possible solution to perceptions of the Indian industries’ deficit of