Aimed at thwarting competition arising from pirated content and digital platforms, leading broadcaster and DTH players are vying to attract consumers as they tweak their movie offerings.

From newly released grossers to films showcased at film festivals and retro film, consumers can take their pick of the best movies as channels try to differentiate themselves from competitors.

Tata Sky recently had announced a hand-picked array of critically acclaimed films from recent editions of the Mumbai Film Festival. These films will be exclusively available to all Tata Sky subscribers on the new service – ‘Tata Sky Mumbai Film Festival’.

Interestingly, this was the first time that a Film Festival will be showcased on TV, which reached a few thousands to now reaching over millions. Tata Sky said it will run three films on a daily basis. This exclusive hand-picked list will include films in multiple languages, such as Hindi, English, Assamese, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Arabic, Russian, French, and even silent films.

Tamil satellite channel Jaya TV HD has also initiated mechanisms to air block buster movies every Sunday under its new series- Blockbuster Sunday Movie Festival.

Other players like Zee Classic initiated a strategic programming restructuring. Under this initiative, the channel has a dedicated timeslot to each decade of Hindi Cinema. It is looking at ‘retro’ in a big way. The company also roped in Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor as brand ambassador.

“Our aim is to increase our market share with our content restructuring. Currently, our market share is six per cent in our genre. With digitisation and DAS phase III, we are confident of adding not just the Hindi-speaking audience but a pan-India consumer base to our channel,” said Ruchir Tiwari, Business Head of Zee Hindi Movies Cluster.

Zee Classic is betting its penny on “retro” in a big way. “Besides films from the 60s, 70s and 80s, the 1990s are also a category we are looking at carefully,” he added.

The Hindi movie space is seeing action. BFlix movies, a new hindi Free to Air movie channel, will soon be launched. Viacom18 also recently announced the launch of its Rishtey Cineplex, a dedicated Hindi movie channel.

Sony Pictures Network’s includes Max, Max2, Wah and max HD. Sony too, has increased it movie cluster. From just one Hindi movie channel in the network (MAX) two years back, the company has introduced a cluster of four Hindi channels. As per available data, SPN has market share of 27 per cent.

Sony PIX (a part of Sony Pictures Networks India) too launched a new version 2.0 earlier this.

Saurabh Yagnik, Executive Vice-President and Business Head, English Cluster of Channels, Sony Pictures Networks India, said: “In 2013, when we re-launched the channel, we had identified three strategic pillars to drive growth – invest in content, innovate to break clutter and build brand perception by straddling across the entire Hollywood ecosystem in the country.”

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