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New Delhi, Aug 26: Far from the fears that the slashing of DVD and VCD rates will endanger the survival of the DVD rental business, the segment is experimenting with new concepts and is on an expansion spree with deep-pocketed business houses like Reliance ADAG group and Nimbus venturing into the space.
Most of the online DVD rental houses are entering into talks with DVD manufacturing companies to provide them with a window for the latest Bollywood flicks, before the DVDs hit the market through the retailers. Pilot projects to that effect have been already tested by seventymm, the largest online DVD rental company by customer-base, which struck a deal with the DVD company, Excel Home Video last year. “We tied up with Excel for three movies wherein they allowed us an exclusive time period of seven days for three movies, before they released the DVDs in the market. In return we promoted the movies and the DVD companies through our portal,” said Raghav Kher, CEO, seventymm.
The rental service is also in talks with other DVD companies to replicate the model. Kamal Gianchandani, COO, Bigflix.com, the rental service from ADAG group said, “We are working on a rental release window, to release titles on our rental service a minimum of 10 days prior to their official release on the sell through format”. However, he added that it is premature to comment on the films and supplier details. Bigflix has already experimented with the idea in its video on demand business segment. Bigflix may have an additional advantage for movies produced or co-produced by Big Motion Picture.
Rahul Mansharamani, CEO, MovieMart believes that such tie-ups will happen more frequently in future. Traditionally, the home video value chain operates like this - the movie producers or the content owners sell the DVD rights of the movie or content to companies like Moser Baer, Shemaroo, Excel which in turn dole out licences to DVD rental services at a negotiable price for a basket of movies.
Although the players feel that it may take another 3 to 5 years for digital download of movies to catch up in the country, Bigflix has already launched its download to own (costing $1.49 to $19.99) and free streaming service, albeit targeted at the NRI audience and seventymm will launch its download service in one year time, according to its COO Subhanker Sarker. Apart from implementing new formats, diversifying content on...
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