A two-month stand-off with film producers have left multiplex owners bleeding in the first quarter. All listed multiplex companies like PVR, Inox, Cinemax, Adlabs and Fame reported first-quarter losses against neat profits a year earlier.

As the strike lingered, most multiplexes showed old films to thin audiences. In contrast, nearly 20 films were released in April and May 2008, about half of them big budget, giving these companies a strong quarter.

Leading the losers in Q1 was Anil Ambani?s Adlabs, with a (super-normal?) net loss of Rs 63.69 crore compared with a net profit of Rs 2.32 crore in the first quarter of last year. Its total income more than halved to Rs 104.79 crore during April-June from Rs 228.97 crore a year earlier.

But Anil Arjun, CEO, Adlabs, said, ?The Q1 performance cannot be compared to any period as it was a deadlock between producers and exhibitors with no new Hindi movie being released for 80% of the period during the quarter. This quarter witnessed the resolution of long-standing issues for the industry.?

He has reason to be optimistic. UTV?s Kaminey released last week has earned Rs 33 crore in the first three days despite missing the Mumbai market to swine flu. A spate of new movies with good content and the upcoming festive season should cheer up multiplex players. Kaminey follows the sharp recovery in July, when the industry collections doubled from movies like New York, Kambakth Ishq and Love Aaj Kal, Arjun added.

PVR also reported a net loss of Rs 10.9 crore for the quarter against a net profit of Rs 3.9 crore a year earlier. The company?s revenues were down 46% to Rs 44.56 crore in the quarter from Rs 82.25 crore.

However, Fame?s net loss widened to Rs 9.5 crore from Rs 3.6 crore in the same quarter last year and revenues dipped to Rs 16.25 crore.

Unsaid in the figures is that the losses have canned fresh investments by multiplexes on sorely needed capacity expansion.

Says Timmy Kandhari, leader?media and entertainment, PWC, ?The economic slowdown giving preference to TV viewership and low admissions at multiplexes were the biggest reasons for the losses. Besides, the producer-exhibitor stand-off, resulting in no new releases for 65 days, attributed to a weak movie pipeline during Q1 of FY10.?

Cinemax reported a net loss of Rs 58 lakh compared to a net profit of Rs 3 crore last year, with a dip in its income by 6.5 % to Rs 19.5 crore.

Similarly, Inox posted a net loss of Rs 4 crore for the quarter against a profit of Rs 3.68 crore.

The occupancy rates at multiplexes dipped in Q1 in the absence of new releases. PVR and Cinemax had only 20% occupancy when Inox and Fame saw occupancy of 19% and 13%. Post-strike, the occupancy is 80-90%.

?The stalemate over certain issues between producers and multiplex owners in April and May hit the bottomlines of multiplexes in the first quarter. In addition, IPL-2 saw a less number of people going to cinemas. Slow consumer spends and poor content in 2009 were other reasons for the (poor) performance for multiplex players,? said Shankar Ganesh, director, Nyka Events, an event organising company.

Owing to weak consumer spends and a narrow movie pipeline, average ticket prices were also reduced by 12-20%, hitting revenues by up to 40%.

Besides this, loss was also seen in the food & beverages (F&B) space where the sale of F&B at PVR dipped to Rs 3.15 crore for the quarter against Rs 3.77 crore a year earlier. F&B revenues at Inox dipped to Rs 2.05 crore from Rs 2.76 crore, at Cinemax to Rs 1.60 crore from Rs 1.63 crore and Fame to Rs 1.13 crore from Rs 1.62 crore.

Hoping that the second quarter will be profitable, Devang Sampat, senior VP, Cinemax, said, ?Major expansion and excellent content will help Cinemax to overcome the losses, which has already started coming in with July achieving the highest collection.?