DTH option only widens choices

Cashing in on the satellite premiere bandwagon are DTH (Direct to Home) service providers relaying a bevy of new movies on the PPV (pay per view) format. The inherent benefits — good picture quality, no ad breaks, and of course, watching a movie as per one’s convenience — only make it an enduring platform.

With more than 125 million households in India having TV sets, of which an esitmated 70 million are cable users, the DTH user base is only about 9 million as of now. That’s probably why premiering new Hindi films is being pushed as a value-added-service by leading DTH players in the market.

“For the rural DTH customer, PPV also offers him the possibility of watching the latest super hit movies in regional languages soon after its theatrical release in the metros or sometimes, even immediately after release,” says Sugato Banerji, chief managing officer, DTH Services, Bharti Airtel.

With a projected growth of 30% (in DTH usage) by 2012, and in a bid to cut through the yet cable TV-dominated market, Hindi movies seem the best bet in a Bollywood-crazy nation like India.

Add to this, the fact that the same movies are aired on general entertainment channels, DTH can’t afford to slip on this front.
Viacom 18, for example, has a deal in place with all the leading DTH players — Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Big TV, Airtel and D2H. Depending on the nature of the deal, sometimes a movie is first featured on DTH, before its premiere on the channel.

Dabangg, for instance, came out on Tata Sky before its much-hyped premiere on Colors.

Film producers aren’t complaining. Kamal Gianchandani, president at PVR Pictures, says, “With DTH’s growing popularity, it is a great form of ancillary revenue for us.”

The pattern has also been that mostly movies with big stars or niche films generally do well on the PPV platform. “Star-studded movies that didn’t do well in theatres did well on the PPV format.

What’s Your Rashee? and Kites for example did particularly well, so did a niche film like Tere Bin Laden,” says Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, Tata Sky Limited.

The price point for PPV has also come down to Rs25-75 as opposed to Rs75-100 earlier. Airtel TV even experimented with a price point of Rs10 for movies like Love Aaj Kal. “We got a phenomenal response,” says Banerji.

Dish TV alone, has 6 Movie-On-Demand (MOD) channels, one of which shows the latest Hindi blockbusters for Rs25-75. Some movies aired on the channel were Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Housefull and Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge.

With multiple and cheaper options to watch barely-out-of-theatre movies, whether on Cable TV or DTH, at the end of it all, the idiot box has got a lot more interesting.