New Movies should be premiered online for Mass reach - Gurjot Bedi

Indian film industry is the world's largest in terms of number of films produced as well as the number of cinemagoers. But you really get an idea of its size when you discover that it produces almost as many films as the next three - the US, Japan and China – combined!

·         In 2009, India produced a total of 2961 films on celluloid that include 1288 feature films.

·         100% FDI has paved the way for foreign giants like 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures and the likes

The turnover of the Indian film industry is around 1.8 billion dollars. When this is posited with the global revenues of major Hollywood flicks, it is next to nothing. Avatar, for instance, generated revenues through global collections of more than $2.8 billion. The number of movie theatres in India reaches 45 million people (which is just 3.6% of our population) thus indicating huge untapped potential for films. Thus the major reasons for loss in revenue are piracy and limited reach. In my opinion an elegant solution for these problems is showcasing new movies online. The revenue model could be a one-time pay per view model or availability of the film on your local device for repeated use but not replicable or shared. Depending on agreements with Exhibitors the movies could be made available post the initial release week. This would not only help get revenues and increase reach but also help combat the evil of Piracy. Apart from targeting the urban market we can also look towards the rural market, which, even with lower ticket prices can help drive revenues through huge volumes.

This would also give rise to a new distribution model for films in India, wherein the distributor is bypassed and movies are delivered directly to the end-user.

Some facts that led me to believe about the huge potential of targeting the rural market for films

·         70% of India’s 1.24 billion people live in the rural areas.

·         According to a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) there are 72 million Internet users in Rural India. 

·         Number of computer literates in rural India has risen nearly two-fold to 125 million, June 2013

·         Penetration and availability of high speed data like 3G in rural areas