MUMBAI: The media and entertainment industry is moving beyond the traditional television-versus-digital divide, with technology, data and audience attention emerging as key drivers of the next phase of growth, senior industry executives said here on Tuesday.

Speaking in a panel discussion at Ficci Frames, India's leading media and entertainment conclave, Zee Entertainment CEO Punit Goenka said the industry has transformed and is no longer simply about investing in and focusing on either television or digital.

"We have moved away from TV, digital and those kinds of things. So now we are in an attention economy, and we need to capture that attention," he said. "To do that, we need to marry content, technology, data... all of that together to get the right outcome."

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JioStar chief executive-entertainment Kevin Vaz said the platform sees itself as a technology-content company, with a large part of its capital expenditure, or capex, being deployed towards data, technology and artificial intelligence to make content more meaningful and personalised.

Sony Pictures Networks India MD and CEO Gaurav Banerjee said a large part of the industry's capex over the last decade had gone into acquiring sports and movie rights. "We are moving towards developing IPs and if we can truly be an industry which can create amazing IPs more than just shows," he said, noting that this strategy would help the industry build long-term value.

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Gaurav Gandhi, vice president and head-Asia Pacific and Australia-New Zealand, Amazon Prime Video, said the platform's focus is on building homegrown IPs and making them successful in India and globally. "Putting Indian content on the world stage is a big priority and so is reaching the deepest parts of the country."

The next phase of growth would come not just from monetising attention but also from monetising intent, noted Vaz.

Goenka said content would remain at the heart of the media business, with technology serving as an enabler. The industry, he added, needs to find new formats of monetisation.

With audiences' attention spans shrinking, Gandhi said traditional metrics for defining successful content need to change. He said an IP needs to be part of the cultural zeitgeist and have the potential to become a franchise. The executives said connected TV is now a key screen for content consumption, while non-fiction and regional content are emerging as major growth drivers.