You will be able to watch movies at your home on the same day when it is released in the cinemas anytime soon. The cable TV industry is awaiting the central government’s much-delayed policy on headends-on-the-sky (HITS), which will make this a reality. The industry’s large multiple system operators (MSOs) are planning to obtain rights from production houses to release films simultaneously as they are released in movie halls. The dog-eat-dog competition from telephone companies as well as direct-to-home telecasters are forcing cable TV industry to find novel ways to capture the consumers’ loyalty.
Incablenet, the Hinduja-owned MSO that caters to one-third of India’s cable TV owners, has the wherewithals to release films on demand directly to homes. Since the company is also into content generation, it will be easier for it to do it. “Once the HITS policy is in place, we will explore the possibility to release films via cable and will talk to production houses,” said Ravi Manuskhani, managing director of Incablenet.
A senior official in Wire and Wireless India Ltd (WWIL), the Zee Group company formerly known as Siti Cable, on condition of anonymity, also said the company is open to tying up with film production companies for releasing movies through cable. The official said the the company could go for releasing films four to five days later, if not on the same day.
“We are ready to launch HITS-based telecast any time. We already have the HITS licence,” said an official at WWIL, which is ready with digitalisation in five cities including Lucknow, Ludhiana, and Chandigarh. Many other MSOs are also understood to be keen on obtaining rights from movie production houses to release them simultaneously to homes. Film industry experts say this will not impact the existing film exhibitors because multiplexes still offer a different big-screen experience.
Digicable chairman Jagjit Singh Kohli, the poster boy of the cable TV industry, however, ferociously pooh-poohed other MSOs’ claims to release films via cable. “The technology to broadcast a programme on demand, with interactive features, is not yet ready.” HITS operators uplink signals of various TV channels to their satellite. Cable operators in turn downlink these signals and distribute them in digital format to the subscribers through their network.
Since HITS enables the cable operator to distribute programmes to only to a set of customers in a certain city, movie producers will be open to sell rights to the operators on a revenue sharing basis as it will maximise their returns, says a film analyst.
Kohli, however, says that that video-on-demand is an altogether different concept and no existing player is fully equipped to handle that.