To widen its offering and cater to rising demand, theatre-on-demand platform Vkaao plans to add more regional content in Assamese, Sikkimese, Marathi, Bengali and Punjabi apart from critically acclaimed and foreign language movies to its library.

Vkaao is a platform jointly owned by PVR Pictures, the film production and distribution arm of PVR group, and leading ticketing service BookMyShow.

Of the more than 500 films in its library currently, about 100 are already in 15 different languages in addition to Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

“In terms of language, maximum demand is for Hindi followed by English. However, regional content has its own audience,” said Kamal Gianchandani, chief executive, PVR Pictures.

Vkaao was also coming up with non-movie or alternate content such as stand-up comedy, short film anthologies as well, added Gianchandani.

Launched two years ago, Vkaao offers viewers the choice to select a movie from the library to be screened at a particular theatre and time. Promoting it through social media or otherwise, if a certain number of tickets are booked through crowd-sourcing for the show, the film is screened. So far, over 4,500 shows from across genres and languages have been screened through the Vkaao platform with 1,700 shows in 2017 and 2,800
in 2018.

Genres popular on the Vkaao platform are romantic comedies, action adventure and animation. In the past two years, Vkaao has released 210 films —38% are from Hollywood, 47% Bollywood and 15% regional content. The firm has witnessed a rising demand for Hollywood content in tier-II and -III cities.

“In order to deliver relevant and preferred content, we analyse data of Vkaao viewers for a better understanding of customer preference and demand in a specific region. Going ahead, we plan to action better consumer targeting that is specific to their preferences,” said Gianchandani.

In addition, campaigns on occasions such as Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, among others, are some of the marketing initiatives under works. Vkaao is also looking for more deals and offers in collaboration with brand partners.

BookMyShow said the number of bookings for shows on Vkaao went up as there was growing interest for alternate content in cinema.

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“Our analytical intelligence, coupled with our database, enables these films to reach the right set of audiences, contributing to more than half of the tickets sold for such films by Vkaao,” said Marzdi Kalianiwala, senior vice-president for marketing and business intelligence, BookMyShow.