Chennai: Do you want to be the next Deepika Padukone or Ranbir Kapoor? Well, your long-time ambition to act, sing on the silver screen has now got easier with startups, who are working to make auditions transparent and accessible, as opposed to the traditional way of getting in through well-placed contacts.
Startups are proving a good source for the sunrise sector the Indian entertainment industry which constantly seeks artists to keep pace with its bourgeoning growth.
A report by KPMG expects the sector to grow at a CAGR of 14.3% and touch Rs 2.26 lakh crore by 2020, with advertising revenue expected to grow at 15.9% to Rs 99,400 crore.
The industry has seen rising consumer demand and improved revenues from non-traditional streams. Increasing digitisation and higher internet usage over the last decade has also led to higher engagement with audiences.
Despite these positives, the supply side -artists, actors, designers etc, it remains highly unorganised.
Most jobs are bagged on networking skills and by word of mouth and in some cases through touts.
Actor Anil Kapoor-backed Indi.com has various brands knocking at its doorsteps for talent for reality TV challenges, music contests, others.
The platform also facilitates sha ring options on social media, thereby increasing the artists’ visibility.
“With a flexible solution, some of the benefits of extending an auditionhiring process to a platform such as Indi are that there is no geographical restriction; the pool of potential entrants expands exponentially; results and entries can be reviewed in real time and sorted based on multiple metrics,” said Divyansh Bajpai, Co-Founder, Indi.com.
The startup has 9x media among its clients.
Soumini Sridharan Paul, AVP,
Artistaloud.com, who has hired some of the talent from Indi.com, said that such platforms increase transparency.
“The live performances uploaded on the platform help us gauge their performance better and seeing it online has helped break boundaries.”
She adds that sans any wild card rounds, which are characteristic of reality shows, there are fewer chances of a drop in quality.
Magnon’s Founder and exCEO of TBWA India Group, Vineet Bajpai set up Talentrack in January 2016 in a bid to democratise the industry. “The MECA (media, entertainment, creative and art) sector is the country’s second largest employment generator employing almost 50-55 million people.There is tremendous opportunity,” said Bajpai.
With 500 registrations coming in on a daily basis, Talentrack aggregates over 90,000 ar tists across categories, like actors, models, singers, photographers, designers, graphic artists, musicians and dancers.
At the other end, Talentrack has over 2,000 recruiters on board across various categories, like TV channels, advertising agencies, casting directors, filmmakers, modeling agencies, production houses, casting agents and event management companies.
The startup has multiple revenue streams from subscription fees for recruiters, advertising revenue. Though artists can sign up for free, they would need to pay for access to premium packages.
These startups attract young and older artists alike. Singer Shaan and his wife Radhika Mukherjee’s startup Happydemic, which has more than 500 artists on board, is working on the live entertainment segment. On its platform, singers, instrumentalists and stand-up comedy artists go on to perform in live shows.
Source: The Times of India
