Confident of ad, subscription revenue from Zee deal: Eros

Sumaira: Can you take us through what kind of an investment this would entail from your end and also what kind of returns would you expect from this opportunity in FY15 and going forward?

A: This content acquisition with Zee Telefilms is very positive move from our side. This is inline with our new media initiatives. We want to enhance our monetisation through new media digital platforms wherein the Eros Now is a very key strategy. We are quite focused as far as the Eros Now strategy is concerned. We are looking forward to monetise our existing film library as well as the content which we are acquiring through various television companies which is including Zee.

As far as this particular deal is concerned, there is not much investment involved in this particular deal. These are the rights which we have taken for all the premiere programming of Zee Telefilms which will be available on Eros Now platform to worldwide subscribers and to enhance their entertainment across the platform through movies as well as their television programming.

Likewise, we have done in the past acquisitions of various programming rights from televisions channels as well. The idea behind this is that Eros Now will become a one stop shop for online digital platform for subscribers. It is a premium service which is a few portions of it is available to the subscriber on free model wherein the film music and videos and everything is available to them.

We ourselves have more than 2000 film library which are digitised and put onto the platform. The subscriber can come onto the platform and can enhance their entertainment over there and if they like they can become subscriber to it. This particular service is available worldwide and this is inline with international digital media services like you have Netflix and all that kind of model. We are very positive and we are looking forward as far as this particular service is concerned.

Latha: How much money did you make in the last three months for instance or the previous quarter?

A: These are the services which we have began about six to eight months back. The service is live and available to customers worldwide. As of now the revenue potential from this service, we are very positive about it but not great number to start with because this is an internet based service. As far as India is concerned, we will take time to grow up this particular business model.

Latha: I am asking you because there is unfortunately a lot of competition from free downloads on the internet. So, I am asking you whether you will be able to achieve the kind of monetisation goals and what are your monetisation goals? What kind of money are you expecting one year down the line or two years down the line from this and have you factored in the free download competition?

A: What you are saying is right. Definitely there is competition across board from the free download and various sites wherein you can see the sites which basically provide movies through pirated platforms and all that.

However, this kind of competition has always been existing internationally also and you can clearly see a very huge business model around Netflix which is in excess of USD 5-6 company and that is primarily because of the reason because these monetisation platforms has already seen the potential to grow in western countries and that is coming up in India with 3G and 4G services.

So, business model what we have around is a) we have an exclusive library of ourselves which is in excess 2000 films library which you can’t see anywhere else than this particular platform. If you become a subscriber to it which is at different values in India say Rs 199 per month and internationally at different level USD 5 or 6-8 pound in different countries. So, if you become subscriber to these services you can livestream ‘n’ number of films which is available to you.

Then you have all television programs as well available to the viewers and this is what the business model is. We have a premium model where if you are a free subscriber to this whole thing we can clearly get an advertisement revenue and if you are subscriber we can get a subscription revenue through this model.

Latha: What is you revenue target for the current year?

A: You have already seen our first quarter number. We are quite happy to note that we have already seen about 26 percent growth in topline and almost 22 percent growth on the bottomline as far as PAT is concerned. We are positive for this year as well. Last year we did about Rs 1140 crore as topline so we are expecting good growth this year also because we have started on quite positive note as far as the first quarter is concerned.