Bollywood, or for that matter, Mollywood (representing Malayalam films) and Tollywood (Telugu and Tamil films), have always had a strong following in the Gulf, where hundreds of thousands of non-resident Indians, or NRIs, and other South Asians have for years flocked cinema halls or rented VCDs/DVDs to enjoy a few hours of entertainment provided by the dream merchants from India.

But thanks to the disruptive powers of technology, including faster broadband speeds and the amazing crunching capabilities of chips, fans of Bolly and other woods now need not venture out of their homes to watch the Big B or Sallubhai, or Rajnikant, Mammootty or Mohanlal take on dozens of goons single-handedly. They can do so from the comforts of their home (or from their cars) through their desktops, laptops, iPads and other hand-held devices (the so-called third and fourth screens), accessing thousands of popular Indian titles after paying a nominal monthly subscription fee.

Starting this week, two top Indian entertainment firms — Reliance Entertainment Digital and Hungama Digital Media Entertainment — are rolling out their online streaming, or movies-on-demand services, covering the Gulf region.

Said Manish Agarwal, CEO of Reliance Entertainment, which runs Bigflix: “Being the first mover in the video-on-demand space, our aim has always been to offer our subscribers the widest range of movies on a single platform. In addition to Bollywood, movies from south India, especially Malayalam, have a high interest from online users. Our new Malayalam catalogue features both recent hits and classics giving subscribers ample variety in terms of content.”

Added Siddhartha Roy, COO of consumer business and allied services at Hungama.com: “Our movies-on-demand storefront will offer premium HD and SD movie watching experience for a monthly subscription starting at Dh6.99. The subscription packs are tailor-made to suit every consumer’s needs.”

Both these leading online movie “streamers” have tied up with scores of Indian production houses, acquiring their titles and building up substantial libraries of popular films. They have also invested large sums in building up the necessary telecommunications and IT infrastructure to enable viewers in the Gulf to seamlessly watch the films on their screens.

The disruptive new technology of online viewing has destroyed some industries — including the renting of VCDs/DVDs, besides posing a threat to brick-and-mortar cinema theatres and multiplexes — across the globe. In the US and Canada, Netflix has built up a subscription base of more than 25 million members, who pay $7.99 a month and watch unlimited movies and TV episodes that are streamed onto their TVs, computers and other devices.

Both Roy and Agarwal are confident that with extensive broadband penetration in the Gulf, they would be able to tap into the NRI market quite rapidly. “I see great future in the UAE market, where tele-density is high and connectivity with excellent speeds is very good,” said Roy. “There is also pent-up demand for content. I am very excited about the roll-out of our services in the UAE and the Gulf.”

Hungama Movies had last year joined hands with Intel in India, offering the latest blockbusters in high definition on PCs and other screens. With Intel Insider, movie buffs can download and stream HD movies from Hungama.com for PCs powered by the second and third generation Intel Core processors. “We see immense opportunities in the Middle East and the UAE, which have always had a huge demand for Indian entertainment content,” explained Roy. “Our content library specifically caters to the needs of the South Asian community in these regions.”

Hungama will be officially announcing the launch of its services, along with Intel, at Gitex.

Hungama Movies — which has over 5,000 films across Bollywood, Hollywood and regional Indian languages, aside from television series, both in HD and SD quality in its content catalogue — has a subscriber base of more than 50,000 paid users in India, which is projected to grow three times in the next 12 months. In the Middle East, it hopes to sign up about 10,000 subscribers in the first phase.

Of course, India will emerge as the biggest market for online movie distributors such as Bigflix and Hungama in the coming years. “The Indian market will explode in three years, when the country is expected to have 300 million to 400 million broadband users,” said Agarwal. “Telecom firms are already rolling out 3G services and by next year 4G services will also be available widely.” Roy points out that India is currently the third-largest Internet market in the world. “Internet connections are expected to reach 443 million by 2016, with a growth on an average of 40 per cent annually,” he explains. “Internet TV/online streaming is the way forward. HD programming at value pricing is making online viewing experience a real treat for all.”

Bigflix, which is part of Reliance Entertainment, the flagship motion picture arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani-controlled Reliance group, currently has a subscriber base of 25,000 in India. It has about 2,000 film titles, and is rapidly expanding the base.

After launching Telugu titles recently, the company is introducing a Malayalam catalogue. “While we are currently launching with 200 movies, over the next few months we will expand our Malayalam catalogue to over 500 movies,” says Agarwal.

While in India Bigflix offers subscribers unlimited access to its library on payment of Rs249 a month, it will be charging $4.99 for international subscribers, including those in the Gulf.

— nithin@khaleejtimes.com

Taking on the challenges

One of the biggest challenges confronting Bollywood all these years was that of piracy. Film producers were always hesitant in sharing their creative content with third parties, fearing that it could get into wrong hands, resulting in the release of pirated copies of the film, even before the official release.

But with online streaming of movies, this problem appears to have been licked. Steaming movies cannot be downloaded, so the fear of it being transferred on to some other media — a DVD, for instance — is not there.

From the consumer point of view, one of the biggest disadvantages of streaming movies was “buffering”, the irritating pauses one had to suffer when the movie gets downloaded on to one’s PC or other device. But with broadband connectivity, buffering is no more an issue.

Technology also enables the service provider to allow the subscriber to download a movie, but again with digital rights management tools, it is impossible for the film or TV serial to be copied and distributed to others.

The other significant challenge for the online streaming and movies-on-demand sector is to ensure quick releases of films; while any number of classics and yesteryear films are available in their libraries, movie fans want to view the latest blockbusters on their desktops/hand-helds within a week or two of their release.

Reliance Bigflix did shrink the time between the theatre release and online streaming of a movie recently, when it allowed its international subscribers to watch Jism2 on their desktops barely a fortnight after its general release.

Manish Agarwal of Bigflix says that it will ultimately boil down to the negotiating power of the company streaming the films; the bigger the subscriber base, quicker will be the movies that it will be able to acquire for online viewing. In fact, many television entertainment channels are able to acquire rights to telecast films just weeks after their release at multiplexes.

With online subscribers expected to rise sharply over the coming months, companies including Bigflix and Hungama will also be able to procure the latest releases from film producers. Indeed, a win-win situation for all.