Doordharshan
and Video rights
Until
the Government television channel Doordharshan started the service, common
public’s only entertainment medium was Cinema Industry’s films. Slowly the
scenario changed and Doordharshan gained popularity as the alternate medium.
This is when old movies developed demand for them and were being sold at a
reasonable price for broadcasting them in TV. During the peak of this era,
producers stood in queue for getting applications to sell their films to
Doordharshan. All this happened only until satellite channels arrived in the
arena.
Meanwhile, videocassettes started to
gain popularity among the public. Since they were so famous in overseas, our
producers started selling videocassette rights of their films. Slowly
videocassette business started to gain momentum. In later days, Video and VCR
were introduced in our land as well. Trafficking of abroad videos (which were
released with video rights in abroad) of
movies in to India has started as well. Films’ collection started suffering
huge losses. As usual, our copyright laws could not control this to a great
extent, domestic video right business thus started.
During initial days, domestic video
rights came in to effect only after 5 years from the movie release date. Soon
this gap reduced to three years. Later further it came down to one year and six
month. Eventually the videocassettes
were released in the same date of film release. ‘Oomai Vizhigal’ is the first
movie released in this fashion, followed by ‘Nayagan’. Though a number of films
with these simultaneous releases were successful, distributors of those days
started to oppose this. Their case was the video rights were affecting the
theater collections. So, as it happens, the situation has inched back to three
years gap from theater release and video release.
As the video was gaining popularity,
video parlours were mushrooming across the nation. They were as universal as
tea-stalls across any city or town. For family functions it was so common to
rent a VCP along with cassettes and watch films through the night along with
family. This simplified the video cassette rental business to an extent that it
did not needed shops to run anymore, and were run at even homes, just like any
other cottage industry.
When producers were earning a
sizeable income through selling the video rights, cable TV service stunned the
sales of Videocassettes. Sales of Videocassettes faced unbelievable decline
after the inception of Cable TV networks. Situation was turned upside down from
an average movie selling thousand+ video cassettes to even great movies’ sales
dropped to mere hundreds. Cable televisions adopted VCRs, played movies
repeatedly over their spawning networks across homes. As a sad result, brand
new films were screened within households. With rights? You must be joking!
Thus videos lost their edge and VCR and Videocassette had become antique.
Before they reappeared in contemporary avatar of VCD and DVD, Satellite
channels arrived in, heralding the new era of entertainment in India.
Since the times of Cable broadcast
of movies, slowly the invasion of satellite channels started across the
country. These channels fuelled the growth of cable networks’ rapid growth
across the country’s length and breadth. Startled by this new technology and
misunderstood this as a threat, Tamil film industry’s actors and technicians
held a procession, demanding the control on Cable television networks. Only
person who has understood this in the right manner from Tamil cinema fraternity
was Kamalhasan. He openly proclaimed that technological improvements like Cable
networks are inevitable and Tamil cinema industry must learn to accept and
travel along with it. For this statement, Kamal was strongly condemned by birds
of his own feather. His own colleagues even put on wall posters depicting him
as the turncoat of Tamil film industry.
Satellite
rights
Tamil
films have indeed come a long way since that era of processions and posters.
Now in certain cases, satellite rights are one of the biggest earning rights
for a producer. This has brought in a curious phenomenon of producing a film in
small budget, targeting profit from satellite TV rights. Hard to believe? Read
on.
‘Subramaniapuram’ is a small budget
movie, which was shot within Rs. 2.5 Crores. The production house has not
cashed in on the satellite TV rights until the film was released. Later, when
the movie was declared hit, the rights were sold to Zee Tamil for Rs. 75 lakhs.
Then, Z Tamil created revolution by re-selling the rights to Sun TV for Rs. 1
Crore and by simulcasting the movie in both the channels. Satellite rights have
become very noteworthy that they could earn half or at least a major portion of
the production cost of a film.
Can satellite rights really generate
these kind of income? I would bet yes in capital letters. Sun TV was the first
Tamil satellite channel after Doordharshan. Initially they were airing only
three hours a day. Slowly, they added old movies in their library. Also, since
there weren’t anyone, they also started to purchase latest movies for bargain
rates. At this juncture video veterans Raj Video Vision started their satellite
TV venture. This heralded competition between Raj and Sun TV channels. Raj
Video Vision had the strong back up in the form of Video rights for thousands
of films. It is these movies which have formed the backbone of their Satellite
TV undertaking, which was started when their sales fortress of Videocassettes
are ravaged, as you know, by satellite channels.
How a movie with only video rights
can be broadcasted in the satellite channels? Our producers were gullible in
this front. In the inexperienced agreements of Video rights sales, the
producers gave away along with video, the broadcasting rights for many future
forms of broadcasting such as home video arena, cable and cable-less broadcast.
All these sales took place at a very cheap price, without realizing the true
worth of the movie and it’s money-spinning capability. I know a lot of producers
who regret for their innocence even now.
When the satellite channels seize
the movie rights through video right purchase, they include all the future
possible rights of home video,
broadcasting through video, wire broadcasting, wireless broadcasting and other
expected rights as well. They never leave any stone unturned in this aspect.
The film rights thus purchased in the past with meager investment yield
repeated profits today and they would continue to earn even in the coming days.
But what about the producers who have produced those movies with their blood
and sweat?
The producers started to get good
deals in satellite rights when there were more channels in the market and
competition prevailed. In Tamilnadu, channels with political backing only would
be always in the leading front. This too, would change depending upon which
party is in power. Most of the channels belong to either the ruling party or to
the party of opposition. The movies are generally purchased using the ruling
power of the parties.
ADMK was ruling when ‘Chandramuki’
was released. Most of big movies released in that period went to the custody of
Jaya TV. Producers like Aascaar Ravichandran, who were regularly selling movies
only to Sun TV, understandably changed to selling to Jaya TV. As an interesting
thing, since it’s inception, all Rajini films released were owned by Sun TV,
and it did not want to lose this magnum opus to anyone. Sun competed with Jaya
TV and paid a huge price to acquire the movie rights.
Six years ago, family feud between
Karunanidhi and Moran brothers started a new spree of satellite channels, which
brought in even more, fresh competition. Big movies launched during that
period, the likes of Sivaji and Dasavatharam, were all chugged by
Kalaignar TV. As a matter of fact, it is to counter this problem only Sun TV
ventured in film production and distribution.
Sun’s Telugu arm Gemini TV, like Sun
in Tamil, spread its tentacles in the Telugu film industry. However, the media
statesman Ramoji Rao started Enaadu channel, which gave stiff competition to
Sun network channels in Telugu. There was a time the industry was looking for a
way out for the arrogant and low-cost purchasing practice of Sun network. A new channel, Maa TV was started precisely
at this point and Telugu superstars like Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna and Venkatesh
acquired the majority of its shares. As a result, now it is a struggle for
Gemini TV to get hold of any new Telugu movie rights. All new films, especially
big movies, end up at Maa TV’s stable.
In Tamil film industry, T.Rajendar
had never sold anything except his film rights except that of theater,
including domestic and foreign rights. This translated into good reception for
all his films during re screening. Only a few years back he had earned good
profit by selling his movies’ satellite rights. Similarly, MGR’s Ulagam Sutrum
Valiban and Adimaippen’s selling right issues stopped sale of them so far. Only recently it was solved and Raj TV
garnered these classic movies’ satellite rights. These channels indulge in such
buying sprees despite the competition only to secure the viewers and ensure
better TRP rating.
According to a recent survey, the
annual business value of South Indian film industry (which comprises Tamil,
Telugu,Malayalam and Kannada language films) is worth a good Rs. 1700 Crores.
Theater collection alone contributes to 1300 out of this revenue. Telugu film
industry produces the most number of films of all. It produced as much as 230
films in the financial year of 2008 – 09. In
the total collection, Tamil and Telugu industries contribute 45% each.
Malayalam brings home 8% whereas Kannada films’ share is 2%.
The survey committee also asserts
that, our southern film industry is yet to start earning through home rights, overseas
distribution and overseas satellite
rights.
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