Regional film producers split streaming rights across OTTs to maximise revenue
Small southern films such asMartin andNaradan are now streaming on more than one platform, often in the same language, as producers look to maximise revenue and OTT players balk at paying high prices to acquire movies or retain exclusive rights of small and mid-budget movies.
“It is a chance for a producer to unlock greater aggregated value across multiple platforms rather than have it stream exclusively on one service,” producer Tanuj Garg said.
He added that smaller films can pretty much come for throwaway prices for one platform and that both OTT players as well as filmmakers are trying out different business models in the interest of monetisation.
Independent trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai said several of these films, especially the small and mid-budget ones, are bought by platforms on revenue-sharing terms and for a limited duration. Many such deals are struck only after the film has released in theatres and has crossed a certain box office threshold.
“Some of the services striking these deals are regional language players and can’t offer huge amounts, but the acquisition helps bolster its library. For the bigger, foreign platform, it doesn’t matter if the film is streaming non-exclusively. They even look to rent titles out to smaller players themselves after a certain period of time,” Pillai explained.
Experts said such strategies stem from the fact that no OTT platform is willing to spend huge amounts to acquire films, especially if they haven’t worked big time at the box office. While paying in instalments according to the number of views the movie garners on the service is one way, platforms are also striking deals based on how many new subscriptions they hope to build from the title.
Acquisitions, algorithms
Allowing the film to stream on a rival service alongside is simply one way of de-shouldering the burden of having bought a film at a certain price, especially as revenue dwindles.
“All platforms want new films but don’t really want to risk great money. The market is such at the moment. At the same time, they have to keep their algorithms alive with new products and have scheduling to fill up,” film producer Yusuf Shaikh said.
He said platforms are particularly cognisant of the fact that every language needs its own set of new products or else the audience graph from that region will go down.
“Everyone is happy to compromise, and exclusivity is not really the target all the time. The idea is to de-risk an acquisition while filling up the algorithm. Certain movies require these changes of terms because money saved is money earned and everyone is trying to stay prudent that way,” Shaikh added.
