A first for DTH

Four Direct to Home (DTH) players will offer their viewers Rishi Kapoor’s Chintuji alongside its theatrical release. Eros International has roped in Tata Sky, Dish, Big and Airtel to exploit the DTH platform simultaneously with the theatrical one. This will be the first Hindi film to be released on both in theatres and the DTH platform simultaneously. For Eros, the success of Aa Dekhe Zaara on DTH, which according to market reports, saw numbers in excess of 50,000 downloads, has been a trigger. Other films like Billu and Heroes also did well. Going forward, Eros would like to exploit the DTH platform for his forthcoming releases like the Bobby Deol and Kangana Ranuat starrer, Vaada Raha... I Promise, which releases next week, apart from films like Pankh and The Great Indian Butterfly lined up for release this year. Almost all these films are small budget in the range of Rs 5-10 crore. Following Rishi Kapoor’s debut on DTH will be UTV’s Kaminey and Aagyat, which also will be available across the DTH players platform in the next two weeks. The DTH market, in the past five years, has grown to a subscriber base of around 12 million with Dish and TataSky grabbing the larger share of the pie.