Well, one may think of naming some nations’ governments when asked about the most corrupted places in the world. But that is not the case. The most corrupted places are often corporate companies and their people.
Let us narrow it down for better understanding and focus only on the companies involved in the film industry. Many corporate companies fund film production.
The person who sits in the company’s chair to sanction the money takes his cut first. Then, the person who arranges the deal between the company and the producer takes his cut from the producer.
The film is then made with the remaining funds. Later, when selling the film to an OTT platform, the mediator takes his cut and even the person who decides to buy it takes his share.
The same happens with satellite rights, audio rights and every other type of deal. Thus, the most profiteering people are the middlemen who set up and sign these deals. That’s a big business now.
To share a real example, a producer of a Pan-India film currently in production received funding of Rs 200 crore from a corporate company.
The person who sanctioned this amount took a 6% commission, out of which the mediator from producer's side who arranged the deal between the company and the producer took 50% of that commission. This means the mediator got Rs 6 crore, and the corporate official who approved the funding also earned Rs 6 crore.
Is that not a great deal? Although the mediator kept this secret, the truth eventually came out. It appears that the corporate official initially asked for only 3%, but the mediator raised it to 6% to take his own cut, all without the producer’s knowledge. Later, the relation between the producer and the mediator got strained.
The same producer also had to spend Rs 9 crore in commissions to sell the OTT rights of the film.
This style of open corruption, in the name of commissions, is rampant in corporates linked to the film industry and every such kickback is handled in black money, of course.
