Even as there is full of appreciation on the novelty of the idea of airing a big budget movie premier through Direct-to-home (DTH) platform before it hits the theaters, Airtel Digital TV, one of the first companies which confirmed its deal with producer and actor Kamal Haasan for broadcasting his new movie Vishwaroopam, feels that pricing could be a factor which might restrict subscription of the movie to a limited numbers, in the model.
“It is a very interesting and novel idea from the producer and the production house to come up with, that is our first impression when we first heard it,” said Shashi Arora, CEO of Airtel Digital TV. This is the first time a producer came forward with an idea to broadcast a new movie through Direct-to-home (DTH) platform before its theatrical release, while usually the DTH companies broadcast a movie after the threatrical release and almost two to three weeks before the satellite release.
However, if the pricing is very steep, it might have its impact on participation of more viewers. Unlike the misperception that the DTH subscribers are urban population, almost two third of the customers are in the semi urban areas, he added.
It is to be noted that Kamal Haasan has announced earlier that his new movie Vishwaroopam would have a one time show in DTH platform before theatrical release, and the subscriber has to pay around Rs 1000 to watch the particular premier.
While this has triggered hues and cries from the exhibitor and distributor associations, according to sources in the industry, the actor cum director has been in talks with various domestic and foreign DTH players to broadcast the movie premier in various countries across the world, in the past few days.
The Airtel official said that the broadcasting of the premier is very much like any other latest movie it airs after the theatrical release under its pay per view show offerings and the company is, in a sence, just a “distributor” of whatever content there is in the movie. The company has around 30 per cent of the Tamil Nadu DTH market, said Arora.
Allaying the apprehensions that the movie could be copied from the DTH, he said that any pay per view show could be stored by the subscriber even if there is a DVR, only for a maximum extend of 24 hours and beyond that the film would get automatically erased. While many of such issues on copying and piracy is a matter of concern for the production house, the DTH operator is only acting as a distributor in that sense.
Airing a movie before the theatrical release has a challenge that many subscribers would not be ready to buy a movie which has not been known to them. “Customers like to purchase a movie on DTH once they know about the movie, which they might have missed to watch in a theatre or was waiting watch in television. Here, things are more unplanned and we have to see how many people want to see a premier in DTH,” he said.
Having said that, Arora added that there is zero ambiguity in taking up a Kamal Haasan movie to be broadcasted as premier, since people would love to watch it in whichever platform it is in. He said that the deal the company entered with Kamal Haasan's production house is based on how many subscribers are likely to watch the movie.
And the model has its potential, since DTH offers high quality digital print, and even the audio effects depending on the facilities set in the household. All the movies shown in DTH platform has to have U/A certification and no A certified movies could be broadcasted through the platform. This ensures that any movie shown through DTH must be viewable for the family audience.
He added that the company would be looking at broadcasting more such premiers as an opportunity similar to its various other programmes, if there are more such proposals from the producers of the movies.
