Indian
cinema has a rich history. It started in 1913 with the production of first
Indian film Raja Harischandra by Dada Saheb Phalke. Since then Indian cinema
has grown by leaps and bounds and today around 1000 films are produced annually
in more than 15 languages. Indian films are followed throughout Southern Asia,
the Greater Middle East, Southeast Asia and former Soviet Union countries and
by expatriates living in the US, Europe and elsewhere.
The
turnover of Indian film industry was around 1.8 billion USD in 2011 which is
expected to rise up to 4.5 billion USD by 2016. This pales in comparison to
Hollywood which has an annual turnover of 51 billion USD. While 100% FDI in
films have attracted lot of foreign capital and technology, Indian film
industry faces numerous challenges. One of the biggest challenges before Indian
cinema is in reach which is currently limited to 45 million people. This means
less than 4 % Indians go to movies regularly. Moreover, India has less than
13000 screens versus almost 40000 in the US (which has 1/4th
population of India).
In
my view, alternate channels must be explored for distribution of Indian cinema.
Online medium forms one of the easiest and least capital intensive of such
channels. With the increasing penetration of broadband (projected 166 million
users by 2015) it is quite feasible for production houses to go for online
releases where users can either pay per view or purchase the movie for viewing
on multiple devices in such a way that it can’t be shared or replicated. This
will open an entirely new channel for movie distribution which has the
potential to give a major boost to the revenues of production houses.
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