In a bid to revitalise weekday cinema attendance, PVR INOX has introduced Passport, a subscription service that allows patrons to watch 10 movies a month at Rs 699. This effectively means that each show costs just under Rs 70, excluding the convenience fee.
The move comes during challenging times for the Indian cinema industry. Even as digital entertainment and OTT (over-the-top) platforms continue to thrive, cumulative box office earnings for January to June this year were 15% lower compared with the same period last year, say industry reports. In the first quarter of the current fiscal, PVR Inox saw its occupancy rate fall to 22.3% as opposed to 31.4% in the same quarter of FY23. Cinema weekday occupancy is usually around 10-15% while weekend occupancy rates can be as high as 40%, as per reports.
Gautam Dutta, co-CEO of PVR Inox, says the Passport offering has been designed to boost weekday occupancy and enhance overall cinema engagement. “Our patrons tend to visit theatres about once a month, and we wanted to transform this pattern by encouraging them to visit more frequently, ideally five to six times a month. Passport is our most budget-friendly ticket option to date,” says Dutta. PVR Inox is focusing on students, senior citizens and homemakers.
Terms and conditions
The move has seen some criticism from commentators on social media because of the conditions attached to the subscription. For example, a viewer can watch no more than one movie a day and the offering does not include premium options such as IMAX, Gold, and Director’s Cut.
“Products and services have been sold at attractive prices with terms and conditions. While people are demanding enhancements to the Passport offering, if we demand higher payments, they won’t be receptive,” argues Dutta. He adds that patrons would typically be able to purchase two movie tickets for Rs 699 but with Passport, they’re being offered 10 tickets for the same price!
Movie pass subscription packages also exist in other markets such as the US and UK but the PVR Inox proposition appears far more economical. For example, the AMC Stubs A-List across the US is priced between $19.95 and $23.95 (Rs 1,600-Rs 2,000) per month, allowing subscribers to watch up to three movies a week. In the UK, CineWorld Unlimited allows subscribers to watch unlimited number of movies each month and the pricing varies as per location from £17.90 to £20.70 (Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,100) per month.
According to Karan Taurani, senior vice-president at Elara Capital, the subscription service may bring some respite for the business since India is a price-sensitive market. However, its success will be determined by the quality of content that is released. “It is a good strategy to drive frequency. Small or medium budget movies do not perform as well as the big budget ones. Considering that there are just 15-odd big budget releases every year, they are not enough to drive occupancy,” observes Taurani.
Meanwhile, Dutta says that while it is premature to make any predictions about the impact of Passport on cinema footfalls, the idea of limiting the number of subscriptions to 20,000 in the initial rollout phase was to study feedback.
Based on the study of their data, PVR Inox could also adopt other proactive measures to boost weekday footfalls, suggests Ambika Sharma, founder and MD at Pulp Strategy. “Offering discounts on weekday tickets, independent of the subscription pass, makes movies more affordable for all patrons. Collaborations with corporate clients to extend special discounts and promotions for employees could draw a wider audience on weekdays,” says Sharma. The chain could also explore events such as themed movie nights, live music performances and comedy shows to encourage greater cinema occupancy.
In an age where cinema finds itself competing with OTT platforms that allow viewers to binge watch content, will this move be enough to woo audiences back to the big screen? Prashant Puri, CEO and co-founder of global digital marketing agency AdLift, says it wouldn’t be right to compare OTT and cinema entertainment. He explains, “The move is made to let people realign themselves to watch a movie in a cinema, like they used to before Covid. For the past two years, PVR’s experiment of selling movie tickets for Rs 99 on National Cinema Day has been well received by audiences. This is an extension of the same strategy as movie theatres have gone through the most challenging times post the pandemic.”