Video piracy, falling viewership deepen crisis in Tollywood

Though the state government rescued the Rs 5,000-crore Telugu film industry from imminent losses by reverting to the earlier practice of imposing sales tax on tickets sold, the crisis is far from over, according to G Viswanath, president of the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce (APFCC).

The situation is mainly due to nosediving box-office success rate of about 170 films produced in the State every year.

While only 10 percent of the films produced in a year are tasting box-office success, 10-25 percent of the films are able to recover just the cost of production and 60 per cent bomb at the box-office failing even to recover print and publicity costs, says Viswanath.

Viswanath, who is also managing director of the Poorna Pictures (P) Ltd and Urvasi Theatres (P) Ltd, told Business Standard that the government's move had helped about 130 closed theatres to reopen. Over 700 theatres, which were on the brink of closure, came around and are screening films today.

However, he said, the falling occupancy rate (32-35 percent at present) in cinema halls continues to dog the film industry. Parallel entertainment and video piracy pose the biggest challenge to the occupancy rate. Video piracy alone is eating up to 20-25 per cent of the occupancy rate.

Viswanath said a special cell set up by APFCC to fight video piracy failed to prove effective due to inadequate staff. The cell, which consists of retired police officials, has registered 2,500 piracy cases in the state.

As the cases have been registered at different places in the state, the special cell personnel find it difficult to attend to all the cases.

"If the government sets up a separate court to try piracy cases in Hyderabad, justice can be delivered very fast and check spread of video piracy."

According to Viswanath, the prescription for making theatres profitable is considerable improvement in quality of films.

He urged the state government to abrogate entertainment tax on small budget films as has been done in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.