Sunday, November 09, 2003
Shekhar Kapur peeks into the future
Edward made this fascinating post linking to an interview with film-maker Shekhar Kapur. While the interview itself is fascinating, I found Edward's introductory comments very interesting too.
What amazes me about this interview is that he sees everything so clearly. I have been trying to argue some of these topics here in Western Europe for the past couple of years. You see I think here - especially in the 'culture industries' - the numbers are everything, and once you pass a critical point, there really is no turning back. Kapur can even see the importance of the age structure of the population, even if he doesn't grasp the full signifiance of this. He even 'gets' the fact that GWB leading the US off on a 'bad for business' war in Iraq may yet have profound implications, well beyond those that were originally envisaged.
So why are virtually none of the conventional economists getting the message? Why do you need a film maker and cultural entrepreneur to explain this to the world? I've thought long and hard about this. The only answer I've come up with (and I think I've said this before on Bonobo) is the existence of a form of soft-racism. A soft-racism which exists in Asian society itself, in the sense that people feel so lacking in their own self confidence and abilities that they think it can never happen. Then there's the soft-racism of the left, who need the poor to be poor. I mean if the poor can get to be rich by themselves, wouldn't that mean that capitalism might work? And then of course there is the soft-racism of the political and economic elites in the US and Europe who just can't even begin to imagine that a bunch of yellow and brown people could finally get their act together.
Shekhar Kapur brings up the importance of soft power -- an issue I have harped about in the past -- and sees the 21st century as belonging to Asia due to a convergence of economic, demographic and cultural reasons.
Every way we look at it, my guess is that 10 years down the line the absolute revenue in the entertainment business will be more out of Asia than from the West. Let's take a look at the demographics. Entertainment demographics run from 14-15 to just under 30. The stunning population statistics are huge in the particular demographics I'm talking about. In India, we are expecting almost 30 per cent of our population to increase within that demographic. In the US, despite immigration, they are expecting between 5 and 10 per cent. So it's not just population growth. It is population growth within that demographic as a percentage of total population growth.
So there's probably a hundred million Asian diaspora dotted around that will support any such reverse cultural colonisation. They will also have the purchasing power. And the purchasing power at home is growing. Shall I give you an example of this? Everybody told me Bombay Dreams won't work, including Andrew Lloyd Webber. It became the most successful show in town. Who supported it in the first month? The diaspora. Apollo is the largest theatre in town [London]. It's now going up 80 per cent and 90 per cent every day and 100 per cent at the weekends. Still, it's one year down the line. It was for the Really Useful Group -- Andrew Lloyd Webber's company -- the fastest payback for investors ever. Not even Phantom of the Opera returned it that fast. All investments were recovered within a year, in fact within eight or nine months it went into profit.
The big business opportunity now is for this big Asian corporation, or corporations, to come in and take a long-term view and see that if 70 per cent of the growth in revenues from the entertainment, infotainment, media business is coming from Asia, are we looking at out of US$1.3 trillion, at least $700 billion coming from Asia? If there is a $700 billion future market, how much of that comes from India? Can India take 30 per cent of that? Are we then talking about a $200 billion business that can come out of India?
What amazes me about this interview is that he sees everything so clearly. I have been trying to argue some of these topics here in Western Europe for the past couple of years. You see I think here - especially in the 'culture industries' - the numbers are everything, and once you pass a critical point, there really is no turning back. Kapur can even see the importance of the age structure of the population, even if he doesn't grasp the full signifiance of this. He even 'gets' the fact that GWB leading the US off on a 'bad for business' war in Iraq may yet have profound implications, well beyond those that were originally envisaged.
So why are virtually none of the conventional economists getting the message? Why do you need a film maker and cultural entrepreneur to explain this to the world? I've thought long and hard about this. The only answer I've come up with (and I think I've said this before on Bonobo) is the existence of a form of soft-racism. A soft-racism which exists in Asian society itself, in the sense that people feel so lacking in their own self confidence and abilities that they think it can never happen. Then there's the soft-racism of the left, who need the poor to be poor. I mean if the poor can get to be rich by themselves, wouldn't that mean that capitalism might work? And then of course there is the soft-racism of the political and economic elites in the US and Europe who just can't even begin to imagine that a bunch of yellow and brown people could finally get their act together.
Shekhar Kapur brings up the importance of soft power -- an issue I have harped about in the past -- and sees the 21st century as belonging to Asia due to a convergence of economic, demographic and cultural reasons.
Every way we look at it, my guess is that 10 years down the line the absolute revenue in the entertainment business will be more out of Asia than from the West. Let's take a look at the demographics. Entertainment demographics run from 14-15 to just under 30. The stunning population statistics are huge in the particular demographics I'm talking about. In India, we are expecting almost 30 per cent of our population to increase within that demographic. In the US, despite immigration, they are expecting between 5 and 10 per cent. So it's not just population growth. It is population growth within that demographic as a percentage of total population growth.
So there's probably a hundred million Asian diaspora dotted around that will support any such reverse cultural colonisation. They will also have the purchasing power. And the purchasing power at home is growing. Shall I give you an example of this? Everybody told me Bombay Dreams won't work, including Andrew Lloyd Webber. It became the most successful show in town. Who supported it in the first month? The diaspora. Apollo is the largest theatre in town [London]. It's now going up 80 per cent and 90 per cent every day and 100 per cent at the weekends. Still, it's one year down the line. It was for the Really Useful Group -- Andrew Lloyd Webber's company -- the fastest payback for investors ever. Not even Phantom of the Opera returned it that fast. All investments were recovered within a year, in fact within eight or nine months it went into profit.
The big business opportunity now is for this big Asian corporation, or corporations, to come in and take a long-term view and see that if 70 per cent of the growth in revenues from the entertainment, infotainment, media business is coming from Asia, are we looking at out of US$1.3 trillion, at least $700 billion coming from Asia? If there is a $700 billion future market, how much of that comes from India? Can India take 30 per cent of that? Are we then talking about a $200 billion business that can come out of India?
