A film is generally seen as a product packaged for as wide a sale as
possible by the producers. For that, reaching out to the nook and corner of the population demography, is very important.Which a producer in South or in Mumbai or in Punjab can easily accomplish while the commercial Bengali film producer would have
liked similar advantages but is hampered by the entertainment penetration of
west bengal. Whereas the state of Andhra Pradesh has around 1100 active
theatres for a population of 6 crores, In west Bengal we have only around 250
active theatres catering to a population of 9 crore people.
This is a major problem if not rectified will slowly kill the bengali film industry.
Over and above this problem there is this problem of piracy which eats away more than 80% of the revenue share of a producer.
In such a scenario delivering value to the target audience becomes very imperative.
What audience needs is value for their money. They want pleasant cinematic experience . There are only around 80 to 100 cinema halls which gives the bengali audience such experience. The remaining 150 halls are old fashioned hot and humid single screen cinema halls.
For an educated bengali to come and watch a movie in such a hall needs lot of pull which in other words means a very very good story.
On the one side the urban crowd has very less loyalty to the local language or its movies. On the drop of their hat they will always switch to a Hindi or an english movie which are made on a budget which is atleast 100 times more than a bengali movies budget.Giving them an overall edge on the overall production value of the movie.
On the other side , the semi urban or rural crowd are fiercely loyal to their mother tongue but has no choice other than to watch a movie in a shitty single screen cinema hall.
Will discuss in the next article about the futuristic solutions to save the oldest film industry of india from a possible death.
