The media and entertainment industry continues to face a rough patch in the first quarter of 2024-25. The industry, which fared badly in the last quarter of 2023-24, was hit hard by two mega sport events – IPL and T20, and General elections, attracting all the attention of the film lovers.

Though Kalki 2898 AD emerged as a winner at the box office raking in over ₹900 crore so far, its impact on revenues will reflect in the second quarter as it was released at the fag end of June.

“The first quarter is likely to be a disappointing quarter for our media coverage. The mega events in the summer caused a diversion of advertisement budgets. These also led to a weak movie slate which resulted in subpar office collections,” research firm Emkay Global has said.

Anticipating poor patronage, makers of some top big-budget movies have not even considered the releases during the summer, fearing a flop show.

“Though Bollywood had a few major releases, Hollywood offerings were largely absent. The regional offerings fared better,” it said.

Subscription revenues should be steady, whereas other sales and services should see some ramp-up on a sequential basis due to the release of two movies and syndication deals.

Muted footfalls

The lack of major movie releases should keep footfalls muted in the first quarter. Bollywood saw a slow start, with the highly anticipated ‘Bade Miyan Chote Miyan’ and ‘Maidaan’ disappointing at the box office.

Some small-to-medium-budget movies did well, but not enough to move the needle, with ‘Munjya’ emerging as a surprise hit. ‘Aavesham’ and ‘Aranmanai 4’ too did well.

“We expect footfalls to decline to 30.8 million in the quarter against 32.6 million in the previous quarter, going by the overall weak box-office collections,” said the report.

The report added that advertising revenues will remain muted owing to inconsistent performance at ₹100 crore, down by 4.3 per cent over the previous quarter.

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