Even though OTT platforms began their journey in India many years ago, people flocked to them on a large scale to pass time during lockdown. These platforms became successful in attracting people as they have become the only means to watch the movies. Viewers can opt for monthly or annual subscriptions to enjoy these services. Apart from Netflix and Amazon Prime, ‘Aha’ was introduced primarily for Telugu audiences while ‘Hoichoi’ was made available for Bengalis. Rest of the regional languages do not have any such OTT platforms and are eagerly waiting for theatres to open.
October 1st is when theatres across the nation will open up. Many movie-lovers are watching world cinema in the comfort of their couch by paying a few thousand rupees to these OTT platforms. It takes a lot of time for the fear of Corona to subside in the people and get them back to theatres again. News it that the managements of these OTT platforms are said to be unhappy with the current buying costs which amounts to crores of rupees. They are now thinking of transforming OTTs into ATTs – Any Time Theatre. It is to be noted that RGV recently released his films on ATT platform.
Zee group introduced an ATT app named ‘ZEEPLEX’ which plays movies on pay-per-view process. This is prevalent in foreign countries from a long time. Even Kamal Hassan thought of releasing his ‘Viswaroopam’ on ATT and his decision was severely criticized by the Tamil industry back then. Vijay Sethupathi starrer ‘Rana Singam’ is about to release on ZEEPLEX for the first time in Tamil. Aishwarya Rajesh is playing the female lead in this film. Sources say that ZEEPLEX also bagged the rights of a young hero’s film in Telugu.
‘Pay-per-view’ needs the viewers to pay the amount to watch a film just like buying tickets in a theatre. Producer can check the statistics about the number of people who watched his film and the revenue it generated from a single show. This will benefit OTT platforms too as there will be no need for them to buy the movie rights for outright prices. Instead they can work on revenue sharing basis with the makers which will reduce the burden on them. The revenue will be calculated on the watch time of the viewers.
If a person skips to another movie within 20 minutes since the movie began on ATT, it will be considered as a ‘null view’ and the producer will not be paid. This format requires gluing the viewers to the screen for a film’s total runtime. Makers must make sure that they select interesting subjects on par with the world cinema before they start a project.
