Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) MD and CEO, Gaurav Banerjee, has called for large-scale investment into India’s creative industry “with the same boldness and vision that we are now beginning to invest around new technologies”.

In his keynote address at the FICCI Frames event in Mumbai this month, Banerjee said “creative industries are no longer peripheral. They need to be central... If India has to write the next chapter of global leadership, we must rely on creativity and technology both”.

He called on policy makers, media leaders and creators, to “champion this agenda, to push boldly for reform, be experimental and open-minded around regulation”.;

Highlighting “difficult and challenging” times, Banerjee said the media and entertainment industry’s 7%-8% annual growth was almost all domestic demand.

He asked where “the next big league” – something truly global in its quality and scale” – would come from, and how India might be able to “create a Silicon Valley of creativity”.

He also pointed out the industry’s three great inflection points in the last 25 years –  Kaun Banega Crorepati (Who Wants to be a Millionaire?); IPL cricket; and pan-Indian TV and films such as Satyamev Jayate and Baahubali. 

“The problem is that... these big, noteworthy innovations happened 10 years ago... Why has this wait gone on for this long?, and what is it that we can do... to stop this, to bring in more change and at a way faster than ever before?,” he asked.  

His solutions involve “aggregating human capital”, and he pointed to the Indian Premier League, which created a “centre of excellence”, as the closest Indian model. 

“This is the kind of ecosystem we need, that will reach the most authentic storytellers, and enable them to craft stories which are good enough for the world...that’s where India’s answer to Squid Game... will get created.”