Indian film industry has lost over 2 crore cinema-goers post pandemic

A man sitting in a cinema hall. Representative image

The audience is back in theatres but not in the same numbers as before the coronavirus outbreak, with a 16 percent drop in cinema-goers from the pre-pandemic levels.

The Indian film industry has lost an estimated 2.4 crore audience to the coronavirus pandemic, a report by media consulting firm Ormax has said.

The country had 12.2 crore theatre-goers—those who watched at least one film in a theatre in the last 12 months or between January and December 2022. The number was 14.6 crore in 2019 for the same period.  Theatres remained closed for large parts of 2020 and even the year 2021 was erratic.

The number was 14.6 crore in the January-March 2020 period, just before the onset of the pandemic in the country.

While Hindi is the most-watched language, with 5.8 crore audience, the Hindi theatre-going universe has shrunk by 21.5 percent from the pre-pandemic time, the report said.

On the other hand, South language films have seen stability or growth in terms of theatre-going audience, with Kannada growing the most at 25 percent, from 1.16 crore pre-pandemic to 1.45 crore currently, thanks to successful ventures like Kantara and KGF 2, the report said.

Along with Kannada, only Hollywood saw an increase in theatre going audience in India, with movie-goers increasing from 2.2 crore pre-pandemic to 2.4 crore at present.

Telugu and Bengali saw a 7.8 percent and 41.7 percent dip in audience, while Tamil films saw no change.

While India box office revenue crossed the Rs 10,000- crore mark, footfalls remain lower than the pre-pandemic levels but is is expected to recover in FY24.

With box office revenues to the tune of Rs 10,637 crore, the year 2022 became the second year ever to surpass the Rs 10,000-crore mark.

Pricey tickets hurting business

Analysts say that revenues are higher because of expensive movie tickets, which is also a reason for the drop in footfalls with a section of the audience staying away from the big screen.

This is also why only big-ticket films are performing well and the business of small and medium size films is down, say exhibitors.

Most of the audience is coming only for the experience and opting for premium screen formats, say theatre owners. Movie-going has come down from once a week to once a month, they say.