Vodafone Idea (Vi) has joined the Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD) bandwagon, in partnership with the music and film streaming company Hungama, which has separately been offering films on TVOD for years. The announcement comes shortly after BookMyShow announced that it would be selling and renting films on BookMyShow Stream, the ticketing company’s new streaming service. Through the Hungama partnership, Vi will offer around 380 films, the telco announced in a press release.
“Tenet will now be available to Vi customers at an attractive price point of INR 120 along with the best of more 2020 movies, while other movies will be available at INR 60. This is the best pricing in the market for Hungama movies,” Vi said. In fact, this is among the best prices for any TVOD service in India, but that comes with the tradeoff of a less expansive catalogue.
Even as subscription-based streaming services have flocked to telco and hardware partnerships in droves to expand their user-base, TVOD has started emerging as a low-cost piece of the puzzle. TVOD licensing arrangements are not as financially daunting or risky as subscription-based ones, because studios usually get paid only when customers actually buy or rent a title. The same applies in the reverse; partnering telcos or other businesses that want to explore TVOD as a revenue channel don’t have much by way of upfront expenses, as most streaming tech is now available over-the-counter. But the question that still needs answering is: will customers show up in enough numbers to justify TVOD?
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