Disruption Or Chaos?

Will the rolling out of the ‘Jio First-Day-First-Show’ service to all ‘premium JioFiber’ customers announced by Mukesh Ambani disrupt theatrical revenue?

- Ashish Sinha

ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2016, some twenty minutes into his speech to shareholders at the 39th Reliance Annual General Meeting (AGM), Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani made it clear that the 4G LTE services of the brand name Reliance Jio (RJio) would come with free voice calls, zero roaming charges, simple tariff plans and a host of attractive offerings, making the worst fears of incumbents such as Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea come true. The service was launched on 5 September 2016. Today, the telecom business has been disrupted for sure. Voice service is virtually free, roaming is free too and data consumption is perhaps, at an all-time high. While the consumer does feel like a king, the industry is ridden with debt, taxes and multiple other issues.

Three years later, addressing the 42nd RIL AGM, Ambani made yet another announcement that could potentially disrupt the business of films screened at theatres across India. Ambani announced that JioFiber, the optical-fiber-based fixed-line broadband service, will roll out ‘Jio First-Day-First-Show’ to all ‘premium JioFiber’ customers. So come Friday, when typical Bollywood (regional and Hollywood) films are released, they will be available to all ‘premiumJioFiber’ customers.

Today, nearly Rs 12,000 crore of revenue is generated by organized, branded, multiplex chains like PVR, Inox, Cinemax, and several other national and regional (state-level) players. Better theatrical experience has attracted more footfalls (Rs 25 crore-plus) leading to higher revenue year after year.