![OTT to save the cinema business](https://www.greatandhra.com/newphotos10/ott11682231415.jpg)
The cinema business has come full circle. OTT platforms, which rely on films as their main content provider, are now facing a supply shortage. Feature films carry universal appeal and are the biggest draw for eyeballs on OTT platforms.
People may be following some OTT web series, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic lock down and exploring content from around the world. That’s because the supply of new films has stopped. However, feature films rule the OTT platforms, mostly the old ones.
Now that the world is coming together, thanks to the Internet, people are exploring all the options available to them during the lockdown. But the films remain the main attraction.
So, two major players, Apple and Amazon Prime, decided to invest up to a billion dollars in the production of the film with the aim of giving them a theatrical release. People love to watch movies in a cinema, but high admission rates combined with pandemic-borne lockdowns are driving entertainment seekers to OTT streaming.
Also working here are films, apart from the occasional web series. The catch here is that a movie is only a movie if it is released in theaters and not directly on an OTT platform. A theatrical release is like an endorsement for a feature film. Also, when a film is released in a cinema, it gets publicity as well as media exposure. In short, it creates public awareness about the film.
In India, we learned this lesson the hard way very early, a few decades ago. This is when the video format came to India. Anyone who can afford a video player (some may even get a refurbished one), rents video cassettes to watch movies. Cassettes were available for rental as video piracy flourished.
Some hunters with the goal of making quick bucks misread the need for movies in video format. They started making feature films in video format with budgets as low as Rs 3-5 lakh at a time when the budget for a Hindi film rose to Rs 50-60 lakh.
The market is flooded with more than 5,000 video films. Unfortunately, there are no takers, even if the market is gradually becoming legitimate, because the buyer of the video rights, nor the viewer cares for films shot in video format. No one wants a film that is not a regular feature film made for theaters. As a result, investments in about 5,000 video shows went down the drain.
This reality now seems to be dawning on the OTT big shots in the US of A. They are planning huge investments in feature films, giving them a regular theatrical release, which will add to the major recovery of a film and can also it qualifies for the OTT platform as a regular film. It also helps the cinema chains to survive, considering the lack of supply that forces cinemas to reduce the admission rate by a third of the original.
Closer to home, the good news for the trade in general and the exhibition trade in particular is that the entertainment arm of Reliance Industries, Jio Cinema, is working on putting together a slate of entertainment content within some period, finally announced a wide. slate of 100 products in different languages, which includes films as well as OTT content.
Jio Cinema is working on gathering content, but, perhaps, doesn’t want to announce it until they have a large repertoire in hand. Although the company’s first plan was to expand itself in the news media with a channel dedicated to each city or town, an idea that one would think was far-fetched and pointless, this move to entertainment media is welcome. Entertainment has takers all around.
Jio Cinema is slowly making its moves, one at a time. From the Jio mobile network to acquiring media interests in television news, its progress from the small screen of the smartphone to the big screen and 5G will finally be everything: from cellphone to television to the big screen of the cinema.
Many producers announce or launch more than one project at a time. Some are just publicity stunts; others explained it. But what Jio Cinema has planned is a 100-project slate to begin with.
Jio Cinema has interests in all types of content. These include films like ‘Dunki’ (Shah Rukh Khan), ‘Bloody Daddy’ (Shahid Kapor), ‘Bhediya 2’ (Varun Dhawan), ‘Stree 2’ (Rajkummar Rao- Shraddha Kpoor) and many regulars star cast films. . The stars of the company’s acquisitions / joint ventures are from all regions. They include Vijay Sethupati, R. Madhavan, Pratik Gandhi, and Arvind Swamy, among others.
Similarly, Jio Cinema’s web content includes ‘Laal Batti’, ‘Union: The Making Of India’, ‘Inspector Avinash’, ‘Rafuchakkar’, ‘Bajao’ and others that offer a variety of content and actors .
Along with Jio Cinema, Viacom18 OTT platform, Voot, is also reportedly on a content acquisition spree. Reliance has interests in Viacom and Voot.
Jio had planned to release ‘Stree’ directly on OTT, but, as an afterthought, decided to give the film a theatrical release; the risks are not high. The film did wonders and registered good business. Their experience with ‘Luka Chuppi’ is similar.
In all probability, if these shows were released directly on OTT, they might not have worked or not achieved the same success. As I mentioned earlier, a feature film is not accepted until it is shown in theaters. Web series are good, but for OTT to succeed, the route is through movies. What Apple, Amazon and Jio Cinema are doing will benefit and ensure the survival of all entertainment channels.
The government woke up to the 51-year-old problem
It has been more than 50 years since the video cassette recorder / player brought watching films to India. This was also the time when video piracy took root as well. Owning a VCR is a luxury and watching a feature film at home is a privilege. Unfortunately, the movies available on video cassettes are often pirated.
There are different ways to pirate a feature film. This involved hijacking a print of the film for a few hours while it was shipped to nearby theaters, or duplicating copies shipped to overseas markets (usually shipped a week in the release of a film in India has not yet been completed because it is required to complete censor and other formalities in the respective countries ), but the cheapest and worst way to copy a film is to make a camera print while watching a movie. The format is new and people don’t even care to look at those copies.
Isn’t it surprising that the government has woken up after many years to the issue of piracy and unauthorized screening of films? What is the challenge, 51 years since the problem first raised its head? The government calls the camcording of a film in a theater a violation. Is this still happening? I don’t think so.
Piracy like it did in the 1970s and 80s doesn’t happen today. Yes, unauthorized exhibition of films happens big time and, no, these are not pirated copies as the government believes. The prints were obtained through unauthorized means without obtaining the rights and made available through the Internet.
The Government has amended the Cinematograph Act 1952. The new legislation is the Cinematograph Amendment Bill 2023. It provides for the blocking of websites that transmit unauthorized content.
Films from 1932 onwards, mostly from later periods, are available on the Net. How does the government plan to determine which film is authorized and which is not? Most OTT platforms operate from countries other than India and blocking a popular portal may not solve the problem as blocking does not guarantee no access. Yes, maybe you can try to block the income streams of such portals.
The Bill does not address music piracy, which would, perhaps, generate more revenue for pirates and other illegal content providers.