Making entertainment a serious business

Feeling stressed out? Your mobile can come to your rescue. After releasing 'Shilpa's Yoga' on VCDs in Hindi and English, Mumbai-based Shemaroo Entertainment Pvt. Ltd has now customised video content for viewing on mobile handsets.

Shemaroo's director Hiren GadaShemaroo's director Hiren Gada, an MBA from the Welingkar Institute in Mumbai, plans to do much more in the entertainment industry - ranging from state-of-the-art studio facilities and using emerging technologies like the broadband, internet, IPTV and mobile among others as carriers of entertainment content that is driving its compounded annual growth (CAGR) at 40 per cent.

In an interview with domain-b's Aruna Rathod, he talks about Shemaroo's journey so far.....

How did the 'yoga on your mobile' idea originate?
In fact, with the Shilpa Shetty VCD we introduced the home video category, which is a non-film category. After that we wanted to give consumers anytime, anywhere access to the same content on their mobile handsets. These days almost everyone has a mobile, you just need a GPRS-enabled handset to access the yoga display. The DVD and digital sales complement each other. Many consumers decide to buy the complete DVD after sampling the videos on their mobile phone. Mobile operators also see value in offering this content to their consumers.

From a circulating book library to DVDs and films, how has the journey for Shemaroo been?
Shemaroo began 25 years ago and has since reached great heights. When we started it was with books, then we went onto to bulky video cassettes which were a rage. With newer technology, video cassettes (VHS) soon became defunct and though it was a loss for us we looked at it as a blessing in disguise and decided to get into into the what was the latest then and introduce it in India, which was CDs and DVDs.

About 15 years ago, we got into satellite and broadcast rights.