The obvious ones are biggies like Saina Nehwal, Pullela Gopichand, Narendra Paruchuri of Pragati Offset Pvt Ltd. Some of the other names are big in the Hyderabad society, like a Dinaz who made a career as a fitness trainer, Suhani Pittie – a jewellery designer, Arvind Chenji a leading photographer, Ali Baig – a theatre personality. It has also some really less known names, which make more interesting stories.

I would like to thank Hemant at Radio Mirchi for telling the guys at Passionate Foundation my story and recommending them to feature me. Not many people know that my family wasn’t too happy with my choice to get into films initially. I was coerced into Engineering stream in junior college (MPC) & failed miserably despite best efforts. Despite being from a film family, why wouldn’t my parents want me to join films? Its a long story. It an interesting argument they had. Will save it for another day! Getting into the highly capital-intensive business of print media was my choice. I had no mentors in it. I jumped into it purely out of passion, made mistakes, learnt from them & totally love my job now. Southscope will be the beginning to my longer journey in the media.

While I am amongst the fortunate amongst the ones featured in the magazine, having faced very less obstacles in my career, my choices have been unconventional & I am as passionate as the rest of them. Do read my story. And do share yours if its an unconventional & interesting one. Adios!

1) Micheal Dell, founder – Dell

Dropped out of University of Texas, Austin at 19 to business full time. Founded Dell by opening up his Mac and rebuilt to see if he could. Today, he is worth $15.5 bn.

2) Sir Richard Brandson, The Virgin Group

Suffered from dyslexia in school, and dropped out of high school itself to open a music store named ‘Virgin’ in London. From there he expanded into telecom airlines, radio. He is worth $ 2.8 bn and is known for his lavish lifestyle.

3) Steve Jobs, Founder – Apple

Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana was once a thief. Jobs was once a hacker who made a machine that let people make illegal calls. And then, like the former he too drove his energies in the positive direction to do something that is remembered forever. Jobs was a geek who dropped out of Reed College, Portland after one semester to start out in business. Today he is worth over $5 bn

4) Ralph Lauren, Founder – Polo clothing line

Ralph’s surname was Lifshitz which he changed to Lauren to disguise his Jewish roots. He worked after school in the Bronx to earn money to buy suits. Dropped out of the City College of New York after two years. Dint attend fashion school either to start Polo, initially a necktie brand. Today, he is worth $3.5 bn.

5) Ted Turner, founder – CNN, owner – MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon

Dropped out Brown University to join his father’s billboard business. He sold that to fund ‘Cable News Network’, the channel that revolutionized TV viewing with its live coverage of the Gulf war. Turner went ahead to buy over MTV, Nickelodeon and is the head of the broadcasting empire – Time Warner, that he built. He also built ESPN which was later bought over by Disney. The maverick retired young at 67 and is worth $ 4.7bn.

People’s recommendations : Mark Zuckerberg (Founder-CEO, Facebook), Dhirubhai Ambani (Reliance Industries), Will Smith (Rapper turned Hollywood superstar). Will add more!

These are just some of the few people from the western world. There are many other lesser known billionaires who quit studying. For every B-school topper who made it big, I can point out three who dint have great formal education. For all these men were not great ‘graduates’, but great ‘learners’ if you know what the difference is. There are many more people who fit into the ‘Drop-outs Hall of Fame’ like Thomas Alva Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Willis and Woody Allen. But these great men weren’t entrepreneurs while some of them would be worth in billions too. So my fellow men, take pride in our tribe coz we redefined what success is with our failures. And purely co-incidental that there is no famous woman entrepreneur who was a college dropout. Oops!

But not all 100 days movie are equal success. Some of them run in more theatres. A movie that ran for “100 days in 100 centers” is a bigger hit than a movie that for “100 days in 80 centers”. BTW, in film terms, center means a town or city. The calculation was simple. The more the centers, the bigger the hit. The number of centers a movie had for 100 days was a testament to the hero’s stamina. Peculiarly, what the centers system couldn’t answer was which film was a bigger hit. A film that ran for 100 days in 50 centers, but had only 10 centers for 175 days or the one that ran for 100 days in 40 centers and ran for 175 days in 20 centers! See the paradox. Allu Arjun’s first film Gangotri ran for 100 days in 54 centers. Yet his third film Bunny, which was a much bigger hit, collected 40% more had only 35 centers. Yamadonga was the biggest hit of NTR’s career. Yet it had only 63 centers for 100 days, where as Adi had 95 centers. There are many more such instances.

Back then and even today all these centers, records and jazz don’t matter to a normal movie goer. They only know two things – good film, bad film. But, for the fans who have immense loyalties to the star, rivalries with other actor’s fans the “boxoffice records” meant more than a good movie itself. For me as a hardcore Chiranjeevi fan, all these mattered.  Release centers, 50 days centers, 100 days and silver jubilee centers. But things have changed and it’s time to move on.

The “Centers” Mania : Balakrishna’s Narasimha Naidu ran for 100 days in a record 105 centers. Chiranjeevi Indra passed that milestone and completed 100 days in 117 centers. NTR’s Simhadri beat that record by completing 100 days in 147 centers. Chiranjeevi’s Tagore finally beat that record by running for 100 days in 192 centers. Likewise, NTR’s Simhadri held the record for maximum number of silver jubilee centers. Then came Pokiri and so on.

The side-effects of records : These records were only meant for fans and the stars. But they burdened the industry quite a lot. Producers and distributors were forced to keep the movie in the theatres to please fans. For the theatre owners too it was a hassle, though they earn a flat rent irrespective of the boxoffice run. Empty theatres meant they wouldn’t be making money from parking fees, canteen sales which contributes a lot to their bottom-line. For many hit films, the producers had to spend 10-15% of his “take home” money (read : nett profits) on these records, which usually don’t last for more than a year. Also these theatres are ‘blocked’ by the old film, which is running to empty halls, where as if terminated it could accommodate a new film. Also these records can be easily manipulated by the Producer or Distributors, by running the film in the theatre and losing money. Thankfully, all this is fading quickly in Telugu Cinema.

Why we need a 100 days to make money? In those good old days, the number of theatres a movie released in were limited. A big star’s movie would release in about 150-200 theatres in the state. People dint have alternative entertainment choices. Movies used to run for long in theatres. Some movies even ran for years! For a movie to make Rs 20 crores at boxoffice it had to be in the over 100 theatres for about 100-150 days. For a producer to recover his money, the movie had to play in theatres for so long. So in those good old days more centers equals a bigger hit. This era lasted through the early and mid 2000s.

In this age of piracy, alternative entertainment options one cannot hope that his movie will run in theatres forever. Hence distributors of big-budget film adopted a strategy, known in Hollywood as “tentpole release”. The movie would open in the highest number of theatres, accommodate as many people in the first week and recover most of its budget in the first week few weeks itself. As the stakes are big in a expensive film, distributors want to reduce risk by getting maximum number of people to see it in the first week itself before any word-of-mouth about the movie spreads. This is the reason why we see many films that just seemed like ordinary films, yet are termed “hits” at boxoffice as they made big money.

Gross – the global standard : The metric used across the world to see which movie is a bigger hit is the “boxoffice gross”. Which simply is the amount of money the movie made by selling tickets at theatres. The more number of people see the film, the higher the gross. As simple as that.  The film that has a higher gross is a bigger hit. A film that grosses $100 million could get all that money in one week itself, or over a period of 4-8 weeks.

Avatar grossed over $2.7 billion worldwide, higher than Titanic’s $1.8 billion. It took Avatar only 21 weeks to collect this sum, where as Titanic took 41 weeks to reach that total. How long doesn’t matter. How much does. Avatar was watched by more people in theatres, collected more and is a bigger hit than Titanic. Period. All equations like “But, Avatar was made on budget of $300 million, where as Titanic was made for $180 million” don’t matter. Which film is more profitable is impossible to tell and doesn’t matter to most people. In all probability, Avatar will be a more profitable film to the studio than Titanic.

Short Life span of Telugu blockbusters : Jalsa released in over 1000 screens, grossed 20 crores in its first week. In the next 10 weeks the movie grossed another 22 crores. Nearly half the money it made was earned in the first one week itself. At 42 crores, the movie was telugu cinema’s second-highest grossing film back then. But it had only 25 centers for 100 days. Same case with Adhurs. The movie released in the most number of theatres, grossed over 20 crores at boxoffice in the first week. Went on to become one of the highest grossing films, yet it had only 15 centers for 100 days. Magadheera is Telugu cinema’s biggest hit till date. Yet it has only 3 centers for 175 days.

All the movies mentioned above released in over 800 screens instead of 300 like a few years back. Most of its audience got to see it in the first few weeks itself. So, why should they run in the theatres for longer? If the movie is terminated from theatres, it could accommodate a new film instead.

To simplify, the metric to measure a movie’s success has to change. It can’t be number of 100 days or 175 days centers, but boxoffice gross. The highest gross is the biggest hit. The second highest grosser is the second biggest hit and so on.

So, is that the end of the silver jubilee era?

Mostly, Yes. Probably, the film would be running for 25 weeks in a handful of theatres at most. Even Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu and NTR Jr can’t break their own 100 days and silver jubilee records. Not that they cant give hits like Tagore, Pokiri, Simhadri again. But the era where a film runs for months together in theatres is gone. All the records that were made between 2003 and 2008 will remain unbroken in the future, in all probability.

On the 175^th day, blockbusters would be making attempts to create “records” on a newer turfs. On television, for the highest TRPs. On home-video, for most number of DVDs and Blu-Ray sold. On the internet, on which is the most downloaded film. So, records are here to stay but have a new address. Let’s take our fight to the next level.

Some of the highlights are :

(1) The owners of present Telugu channels
(2) Low costs to setup and run news channels
(3) Why news is hyper-local, caste based & crime-driven.

The author rightly identifies the capital expenditure to setup a channel and the cost to run it is pretty. The cost of programming for 30 minutes for an entertainment channel is almost 10 times that of a news channel. The report observes that nearly 6 news channels we’re launched before elections in the state to ride on its wave. Without naming, the report identifies Mr. Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna as stake holders in Maa Television Network, which is true. But it misreports that Chiranjeevi’s family owns or runs Local TV, which is untrue.

Click here to read/download the report (PDF file)

But, what I wanted to bring to light is the fact that the management of TV channels have fed their journalists that “more TRP = more money”. Which is totally true, isn’t it? If a channel gets higher TRPs, they can charge more money from the advertisers. True, but not all the time.

We’re aware in the recent times, there is a lot of unrest in the state. Incidents have been occurring repeatedly which have disrupted normal life. Be it the Telangana movement, alleged N.D Tiwari scandal or the conspiracy behind YSR’s death. When so much is happening, it’s the media’s duty to report and cover it.

While doing that, almost all of the media went overboard at many occasions. There is no denying that there is civil unrest. But by repeatedly telecasting it, magnifying the violence and sensationalizing, it caused a “multiplier effect”. Instead of pacifying the situation, it made it worse. With all this coverage, the media has infused “fear” into the minds of the common man. They were successfully able to get people glued to TV and consume news.

Now, after successfully increasing their viewership by huge margins the channels tried to hike their ad rates, expecting to make more money. But, the move backfired. Big time. Most news channels are free-to-air and advertising is their prime source of revenue. Especially for telugu channels, regional advertisers form a major chunk of their revenues. Most local advertisers, reduced the money they spend on ads than previous months. Forget increasing it. Why? Cuz people are simply not spending money! People are more indoor now due to frequent bandhs, disruption of normal life and the “dull mood” prevailing in the society. This naturally leads to lower spending by people.

Advertising’s prime function is to drive consumption and increase it. When that’s not happening (due to external factors), what’s the point in advertising? To make it simple, why should stores advertise when people are not interested in buying. December-January is a festive season where consumption (thereby, advertising) increases. But, instead of a sales increase, they have plummeted steeply. So, instead of spending their money now – advertisers want to save that for later, when normalcy returns and people start buying again.

Despite of increased viewership, ad sales in television channels aren’t as much as they were in the previous months. So, our media have learnt a hard lesson that viewership is of no use if there is no advertising. And advertising is of no use, if people are not buying. A perfectly logical series of events has taken place that could serve to restore balance, establish limits, and teach some harsh lessons. Television is powerful, but the source of that power is the people. People cant be measured in terms of TRPs, but should now be respected for what they are – the drivers of this economy. The media industry can never afford to take lightly the ability of its consumers to serve out a severe backlash.  In this case, the marketplace did.