Pay-per-view service opens new revenue stream for film industry

Mumbai, Dec 2 (IANS) The pay-per-view (PPV) services, offered by the direct to home (DTH) satellite TV service providers, will soon become another lucrative revenue stream for the Indian film sector, an industry lobby said Tuesday.

'The PPV system has emerged from being an ancillary segment of film business to a full-fledged industry across the globe' and it is catching up in India also, said a report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Under the PPV system, television viewers can purchase events to be seen and pay for the private telecast of that event to their homes.

'With subscriber base in India growing annually at 16 percent as compared to global rise of 35 percent, DTH PPV will emerge as a separate revenue stream for India,' the report added.

According to a study by Hong Kong-based Media Partners Asia, the total PPV revenues in India will touch $18.5 billion by 2017. While subscriptions will fetch $12.3 billion, advertising revenues will grow up to $6.2 billion.

It added that India has an edge over China, another emerging economic power in Asia, in terms of PPV distributors and content suppliers.

It also projected that the overall pay-per-view subscriber base will expand to 137 million by 2012 and 163.8 million by 2017.