Pay Per View

It may have come to light only now but producers have been paying multiplexes for running the promos for almost a year. I paid for Tezz last year and I have noticed many similar instances with other producers.

Multiplexes are businesses,much like ours and they decide to charge for showcasing theatrical promos. But this is very wrong. Theatre owners do not realise we are running promos of films that we will show in these very theatres. Then why charge us for it? We are merely trying to bring an audience to watch our film by paying for it to the theatre owners. Then why are we being penalised for what will benefit them?

In the film industry,where independent,and small-budget films are being promoted,this rule is going to hit the makers of such films the most. They make films on shoestring budgets and they have very little money to promote and market their films. Would such a rule not eat into their marketing budget,especially if they wish to reach out to multiple theatre chains in more than one city? Firstly,theatres have high-ticket prices for their films and secondly,they want to make it tougher for these films to get promoted. That is unfair.

But the multiplexes should not assume that paying them for running our promos is the only way we can promote our films. We can actively look at television and new media for doing the same. We are exploring other options and talks are currently ongoing. Television,in fact,has a wider audience and reach,which will

benefit producers.

Ashish Saksena

COO – BIG Cinemas

I’d like to clarify that BIG Cinemas isn’t charging producers for their promos. I don’t believe that any multiplex is charging producers for putting up their promotional material such as posters and standees.

Many times,we are asked by distributors/ producers to repeatedly showcase promos of films that will release several months from that time,eating into our prescribed space and time of 20-minutes. But the interest of a theatre owner would lie in promoting a film which will release within two or three weeks that will fetch us immediate business. Paying to showcase promos allows those keen producers to project their film in that crowd without eating into a theatre owner’s interest.

But most theatre owners go by the unwritten rule wherein a producer whose film is playing in the theatre,attaches one or two trailers of their forthcoming films. All major studios do that,including Balaji Motion Pictures,Yash Raj Films,Eros,Disney UTV,Reliance and Dharma Productions,and these trailers are played. However,the issue crops up when a producer wants to showcase his trailer but has not found a distributor yet. That is when a theatre has to take the tough call between the trailer of a film that is about to release or a film that has still not found a distributor. I do not think that any multiplex would refuse to play the trailer of any film,which is confirmed for release in coming two to four weeks. In such cases,the theatre asks the producer without a distributor,to pay if he wants to showcase the film.