For decades, India’s media and entertainment industry was viewed largely through the prism of cinema—box-office numbers, star power, and theatrical releases. That framing may now be outdated, as the Economic Survey 2025–26 suggests.

What emerges from the survey is a sector that has quietly transitioned from being film-centric to becoming a multi-format, services-driven industry—one that increasingly mirrors India’s information technology services journey, built on exports, digital scale, and urban employment.

The media and entertainment (M&E) industry, estimated at around ₹2.5 lakh crore in 2024, is now being positioned as part of India’s broader services growth story, alongside IT, financial services, and professional services. The shift is structural, not cyclical, driven by the rise of digital distribution, gaming, animation, and live formats.

From theatres to platforms

The first inflection point has been the steady erosion of theatrical dominance. While films remain culturally central, the survey notes that revenue growth is increasingly coming from over-the-top (OTT) platforms, subscription video, digital advertising, and creator-led ecosystems.

Digital media now accounts for roughly one-third of the industry’s revenues, with video subscriptions alone estimated at ₹9,200 crore in 2024, according to the survey. This platform-led expansion has changed not just consumption patterns, but also production economics: shorter formats, faster turnaround times, and global-ready content pipelines.

Much like IT services in the early 2000s, India’s content ecosystem has leveraged cost competitiveness, a large talent base, and English-language capabilities to plug into global demand.

Gaming, animation, and the export play

Beyond streaming, the survey highlights gaming and animation as fast-growing sub-sectors with export potential. India’s gaming market, estimated at around ₹23,200 crore in 2024, is largely mobile-first, benefiting from smartphone penetration, UPI-based payments, and a young user base.

Animation and visual effects (VFX), valued at around ₹10,300 crore in 2024, have emerged as a key services export segment. Indian studios are increasingly integrated into global production pipelines, providing VFX, post-production, dubbing, and localisation services for international films, series, and gaming studios.

This mirrors the IT-BPM playbook: backend integration first, followed by higher-value creative and IP-led work. As with software services, scale and repeatability have become competitive advantages.

Another leg of the industry’s transformation is live entertainment. The survey recognised concerts, festivals, and experiential formats as economic multipliers rather than discretionary cultural events.

A familiar arc

One of the survey’s key interventions is reframing media and entertainment as a jobs sector. The industry supports a wide value chain—production crews, editors, animators, designers, sound engineers, event staff, logistics providers, and gig workers—many of whom operate outside the traditional film economy.

As with IT services, employment creation is concentrated in urban clusters, reinforcing the link between M&E growth and city-level economic dynamism. The parallels with India’s IT services evolution are striking. Both industries began with domestic demand, scaled rapidly through cost arbitrage and talent availability, and gradually integrated into global value chains. Both rely heavily on intellectual property, digital infrastructure, and human capital rather than physical assets.

The Economic Survey stops short of calling media and entertainment a second IT sector. But its inclusion within the services growth narrative—and its treatment as an export-capable, employment-generating industry—marks a clear shift in official thinking.