Kannada Movie Industry: Economic Analysis

Q: Why is the Kannada movie industry so weak – especially when compared to its neighbours?

Movie industry	Annual revenue
Kannada	Not available
Telugu	Rs 1150 crore
Tamil	Rs 1200 crore
Malayalam	Not available

Total revenue figures are not available for the Kannada and Malayalam movie industries. So we use another measure:

Movie industry	#1 Movie	Box office gross
Kannada	Mungaaru Male (2006)	Rs 65 crore
Telugu	Attarintiki Daredi (2013)	Rs 180 crore
Tamil	Enthiran (2010)	Rs 250 crore
Malayalam	Drishyam (2013)	Rs 60 crore

Immediately we see the strength of each film industry. How to explain this difference? We start with the most basic fact:

State	Population
Karnataka	6.1 crore
Andhra Pradesh	8.5 crore
Tamil Nadu	7.2 crore
Kerala	3.3 crore

1. Karnataka is straightaway at a disadvantage – being only the 3rd biggest state in south India. (only Kerala is smaller)

But how many people actually speak Kannada (as their 1st language)?

Language	Number of speakers (a)
Kannada	3.8 crore
Telugu	7.4 crore
Tamil	6.1 crore
Malayalam	3.3 crore

2. Now the situation becomes even worse. The Kannada-speaking population is much smaller than Karnataka's population. In every state, some people speak another language (as their 1st language). But the situation is worst in Karnataka.

[So Karnataka's size is misleading – only about 60% of its people speak Kannada as their 1st language]

Next, it's not enough to have people. The people need money to see movies. So:

State	Per capita income (b)
Karnataka	Rs 1,00,755
Andhra Pradesh	Rs 1,00,698
Tamil Nadu	Rs 1,18,100
Kerala	Rs 1,20,085

3. The situation gets even worse for Karnataka – with almost the lowest per capita income in south India.

[Tamil Nadu is the most developed state; but Kerala has the highest per capita income due to money sent by Keralite workers in West Asia]

Finally if we multiply the per capita income by the number of language-speakers, we get a measure of the total market size in that language:

Language	Total market size (a x b)
Kannada	Rs 3,82,870 crore
Telugu	Rs 7,45,166 crore
Tamil	Rs 7,20,409 crore
Malayalam	Rs 3,96,282 crore

4. The Kannada movie industry has the smallest market in south India. The markets for the Telugu and Tamil movie industries are almost 2 times bigger.

That is why the Kannada movie industry is so weak.