Is Reliance Jio affecting film business in Bollywood?

Data consumption in India has increased quite significantly in the last 6 months or so with Reliance recently announcing that JIO has crossed 100 million (10 crore) subscribers in just 170 days after its launch.

Jio was offering unlimited internet for free until December 31st, after which the free-usage limit was set to 1GB per day until March 31st. From April onwards, Jio will continue to offer 1GB data per day for just Rs 303 per month. In comparison, 1GB data on Airtel currently costs Rs 250, while Jio is offering the same for Rs 10!

The increase in data consumption has given a huge boost to YouTube publishers. The view-count of trailers and song promos has hit record levels – Dangal became the first Hindi film trailer to cross 50 million views. ‘The Humma Song’ has garnered nearly 140 million views in just 2 months after its release.

Before the launch of Jio, only 4-5 songs had crossed the 100 million mark. Now, Dheere Dheere Se has already crossed 200 million. Kala Chashma has 194 million views, Nashe Se Chadh Gayi has 184 million and older songs like Gerua and Tum Hi Ho have nearly doubled their view-count.

All of this is benefiting the music industry. But there could be a negative side to it too.

The biggest downside is piracy. Movies that could only be watched or downloaded from a broadband internet connection at home, can now be streamed on a mobile phone while traveling in a train or car.

During the release of Kaabil and Raees, we noticed that a new high-definition copy of the two films was uploaded onto Youtube, Facebook, Google Drive once every 4-5 mins. Some of those links garnered more than half a million views before they were taken down. Even if 20% of those viewers of one link had purchased a theatre ticket, the collections of each film would’ve probably increased by around 2 crore!

People are also sharing these links privately on Whatsapp groups, making it almost impossible for companies like Aiplex to take the links down – before it goes viral and before the movies have been watched by thousands of people.

How much of this is impacting film business? It may not necessarily have a huge impact on event films like Dangal, Sultan or even a big-screen experience like Baahubali or Padmavati, but smaller films that do not necessarily deserve a big-screen watch, could be affected big time. Even those films that opt to ‘clash’ at the box office could be affected because most people aren’t willing to spend on two movies per week.

The footfalls at theatres has gradually decreased every year in the last three years. If Jio continues to remain aggressive and comes up with unlimited data plans, the impact on film business could be quite significant in the next few years.