Coming soon to the small screen

The fact that new movies are coming on TV within a couple of months of their release is a pointer that the shelf life of a film in theatres has reduced drastically and TV is increasingly being considered another ‘territory’ in trade parlance. Gordhan Tanwani,Chairman and MD,Baba Arts that deals with the syndication of satellite rights said,“Films in cinemas today make optimum money in two weeks,essentially two weekends as the film opens in all the centres simultaneously. After that it hardly gets one per cent business. It’s better to sell the satellite rights to a channel as it has become a major source of recovery for films.”

It helps the channels too,which don’t have to work much on marketing the film,as the buzz is already there. They just have to leverage on the hype. And if the film’s a hit,it percolates down to the small screen. As Ashvini Yardi,Programming Head,Colors pointed out,“Airing new and blockbuster films within 45 days of theatrical release generate immediate response and eyeballs. Our aim is to become the entertainment destination for our viewers and new movies are a part of the strategy. Coming up soon on the channel is Wake Up Sid,which will be aired next month.” Rao agrees that broadcasters endeavour to bring the film on TV at the earliest,“but it depends on the producers deal with the distributors”.

With TV becoming a huge money-spinner for films,producers too try and seal the deal with a channel before the release of the film in an attempt to de-risk it,which means even if the film doesn’t do well in the theatres,the producer recovers some money from the satellite rights. Trade analyst Amod Mehra said,“Since the recession,producers are having a bad time. Flop films like What’s Your Rashee? are not even getting buyers i.e the price offered is very less.”

Even the trend of syndicating movies (airing on different channels) that began with Jab We Met where producers earned with each telecast is slowly on the decline. Except for Colors and Imagine,which follow the trend, others like Star and Sony prefer buying exclusive rights. Yuvvraaj and Love Aaj Kal,have been exclusively bought by Zee. The channel has apparently doled out Rs 3 crore for Yuvvraaj and around Rs 12 crore for the Saif Ali Khan – Deepika Padukone starrer for a period of five years. Star has got exclusive rights for Rann for five years. The Amitabh Bachchan starrer was bagged by the channel for Rs 7.5 crore. Jayantilal Gada of Pen Entertainment,movie agency for Zee averred,“The trend of syndication of movies is getting over. Star,Sony and Zee are buying movies exclusively. This is a win-win situation for both.”