Saturday, October 22, 2005

Chennai cinemas

Earlier this week, Kaps had blogged about the upcoming high-end cinemas in Chennai. It got me thinking about how it would affect the economics of watching a movie at Chennai.

PVR, Inox etc will demand a premium from the consumers - and of course, provide superior quality experience at the theatre. With the kind of money muscle these theatres would have, they shouldnt have any problems in bidding for the movie rights from the distributors. How would a "small theatre" compete against this? (A small theatre being one that charges 30-40 Rs/ticket) Would the bidding happen at two levels - one for the premium theatres, and a separate one for the rest? If not, I dont see how the smaller competitors can match the amounts that a PVR would be willing to shell out. Or would the PVRs get creative, and demand that the smaller competitors may release movies only with a time lag?

Well, whichever way it turns out to be, there definitely is going to be a lot of money in cinema retail. And the next few years would probably see the demise of some middle-rung theatres as well.

At least in the case of cinemas, the boom in high-end theatres is coming up when there are quite a few "low-end" ones so that one might expect at least a few of the latter to survive. In the field of healthcare though, there is tremendous growth in high-end sector with almost a non-existent low-end side. If let to continue this way, surely the society will strike back!

3 Value-adds:

Blogger Kaps said...

some of the mid rung movie halls have already been converted into shopping malls and wedding halls.

some of the mid rung can still survive by offering Rs. 30 - 40 tkts as they may not have high end audio systems (Dolby etc) and the seating comforts might not be good.

otherwise the low-end theatres will screen movies by B grade heroes (read Sathyaraj, Parthiban etc) where they don't need to shell out lot of money to obtain the rights.

October 24, 2005 8:35 AM  
Blogger Kaps said...

although i have made one comment, your main page is showing as 0 comments. any problem??

October 24, 2005 12:48 PM  
Blogger eV said...

> the low-end theatres will screen movies by B grade heroes (read Sathyaraj, Parthiban etc) where they don't need to shell out lot of money to obtain the rights

Precisely my point. Wont this irritate the rasigar-mandrams and all? I'd be majorly pained if I had to watch a film like Thirupachi at a PVR. Wouldnt have enjoyed it as much as I did in that local theatre in Blore. Strong ambience-fit for the film. :)

>although i have made one comment, your main page is showing as 0 comments.

No idea. At least it isnt showing 0 comments right now.

October 24, 2005 1:15 PM  

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