The workers of India’s television industry are back to the den after 10 days of their face-off over wage hike. The show ended yesterday when the members of the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA), Producers’ Guild and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) met together for a consensus.
Due to the strike, the television industry was under turmoil and was forced to rerun their programs. The opportunity has been better utilised by the leading movie retailers and cashed in a considerable amount of revenue out of it.
Vikas Sharma — head, brand communication and alliances, Palador Pictures, said, “Definitely we have seen an offshoot in our business during the last 10-15 days. We are getting very good orders from customers and there had been an increase of turnover at around 15 per cent during the period.”
“It cannot be exactly figured out what was the impact of the strike on our business as during the period, we have also tied up with retailers like Landmark, Crossword and MusicWorld for selling our movies. But certain percentage of our sales increase was due to the strike,” added Sharma.
Agrees Subhanker Sarker, CEO, Seventymm, another major in movie rental company. He said: “Average number of rentals in the last one week or so has gone up by around 20 per cent. That can be because people were free during the time, but strike had its impact as well.”
“One of the hypotheses is that when there is no good programme in television, the propensity to watch movies among people increases. So, I think, strike had a good impact in our revenue generation,” added Sarker.
—Sarimul Islam Choudhury & Shailesh Shah
