WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

When Reliance backed BigFlicks launches, it would take the total tally of online video rental companies in India to 9 - others include Seventymm.com, Clixflix.com, Catchflix.com, CineSprite.com, Fridayboxoffice.com, Indiahuthouse.com, Moviemart.in and Homeview.in. How much ever the players claim the market size is (estimates put it at growing to Rs. 2,000 crores by 2010), a shakeout is imminent (Madhouse has already merged with Seventymm for instance).
Movie Bank, launched by Mumbai based Easy Entertainment allows members to pick up and drop movie DVDs from any of their ATM (Any Time Movie) locations across the city of Mumbai. I don’t know whether they are planning to open full fledged centers across the city ala Blockbuster and thus bring some degree of organization to the market, or just provide the despensing machines at select locations. ADAG given the huge across India presence they have via their Infocom outlets etc. would be the best bet for merging the offline model with online delivery.
It would be interesting to note how the models work out. I would tend to think that once VOD and IPTV comes in, most offline models would have a tough time given the dynamics of an offline model, but that is open to debate.
Moreover with the cost of DVDs dropping drastically (Moser Baer has recently launched a range of DVDs at as low as Rs. 34), how is the pricing for the rentals going to work out?

Related reads:
Blockbuster vs. Netflix: The DVD Death Match
Seventymm, India’s Netflix?

Filed under: Business, Ideas & Innovations, India