Couch potatos win as 250 movie halls shut down in UP
VIJAY UPADHYAY
AGRA. Gone are the days when a movie scoring a hit in Uttar Pradesh made it a blockbuster and the Hindi movie industry thrived on the “house full” boards that had become an almost permanent feature of the UP theatres two decades back.
Now, with the viewers becoming tied to the tube at home, this 100 year journey from a Biscope to the massive 70 mm screen seems to be coming to an end with 250 movie theatres drawing their curtains in this state in the past few years for the lack of viewers and about 100 to shut down shortly, giving way to a new generation of multiplexes.In a state which flaunts its large Hindi speaking population as its “resource” and whose “ambassadors” in the Bollywood movie world are mega stars like Amitabh Bachchan & Raj Babbar with well known actress of yesteryears Jaya Bachchan heading the UP Film Development Council, the number of film goers in Uttar Pradesh is rapidly declining each year posing a threat to the Mumbai film industry itself which is suffering from the terrible flop to hit ratio of 9:1 each year.Nine hundred cinema halls of Uttar Pradesh with a capacity of seating one billion movie viewers in a year saw barely 12.4 crore viewers in the past year indicating that movies were losing their gleam in the state and people were being lured away from the cinema halls by other attractions like water parks, resorts and above all, Cable Television & movie piracy which offered “previews” of movies even before the official release. Over 250 cinema halls have downed shutters in the past decade in the state with 100 more waiting in the queue and in Agra alone, where movie theatres were the major crowd pullers about a decade back in the absence of other “attractions” in the town, 22 theatres have shut down and another is on the verge of closure leaving just 29 theatres and last year, these movie halls managed to pull just over 2.5 lac viewers against their total capacity of seating 3.91 crore in a year. Cinema owners, who have pulled the curtain on their movie theatres citing low viewer turnout as the reason, now seem to be more interested in erecting shopping malls and multiplexes on the movie theatre land to cover up their losses. Though there are plans to open three multiplexes in Agra, they are still in the elementary stages and it would be quite some time when these multiplexes could open their doors for the viewers.UP state entertainment department sources said that a normal movie theatre in the state had 6-7 hundred seats and the number of viewers exceeded 25 crores each year about two decades back but in the past one year, it had been observed that on an average, barely 90-95 viewers watched a movie show in the state and out of the 6.35 lac seats, most remained vacant all the time. Even movies acclaimed as “blockbusters” elsewhere failed to pull up a House-full board before the theatre gates in UP.According to the sources even the opening of 250 multiplexes in a row was not comparable to the shutdown of these 250 movie halls, most of them linked to the heritage of their respective towns like the “Imperial” and “Rex” of Agra, which had been constructed during the British Rule in the cantonment area of the town showing only Hollywood movies and sported novelties like wooden dance floors for the military officers but their owners were forced to shut down these halls in the absence of viewers.Mohan Swaroop, Commissioner Entertainment, Uttar Pradesh claims that the state government is ready to facilitate the movie theatre owners in the upkeep and time to time upgradation of their theatres but still the dropping numbers of movie goers was effecting the closure of cinema halls in the state. He said the government had also offered an option to the movie theater owners to convert their theatres into multiplexes with a 5-year relaxation on entertainment & other taxes. Also, 22 movies had been declared “Tax-Free” in the state in the past year and tax rebate had been offered for the re-opening of shut down cinema halls. He said that attracted by the offers made by the state government, thirteen multiplexes had been established in Uttar Pradesh in the recent years and more were coming up shortly in Agra and other towns. He said that the movie halls contributed a great deal in the state’s revenue in the tune of over Rs. 100 crores per annum and the shutdown of these halls meant a significant loss to the revenue as entertainment tax, which was not acceptable at any cost and accordingly, he had held several meetings with the Cinema Hall Owners Association of Uttar Pradesh to coax them into desist from shutting down the movie halls and to open new halls and as a welcome change, seven new theatres had opened their doors in the state this year. Whatever may be the UP government’s claims on the measures taken to control the decreasing number of cinema goers in Uttar Pradesh, it is a fact that the number of cine viewers was decreasing and the meager number of multiplexes with low seating capacity could not answer to the closure of a whopping 250 cinema halls in the state.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
AGRA. Gone are the days when a movie scoring a hit in Uttar Pradesh made it a blockbuster and the Hindi movie industry thrived on the “house full” boards that had become an almost permanent feature of the UP theatres two decades back.
Now, with the viewers becoming tied to the tube at home, this 100 year journey from a Biscope to the massive 70 mm screen seems to be coming to an end with 250 movie theatres drawing their curtains in this state in the past few years for the lack of viewers and about 100 to shut down shortly, giving way to a new generation of multiplexes.In a state which flaunts its large Hindi speaking population as its “resource” and whose “ambassadors” in the Bollywood movie world are mega stars like Amitabh Bachchan & Raj Babbar with well known actress of yesteryears Jaya Bachchan heading the UP Film Development Council, the number of film goers in Uttar Pradesh is rapidly declining each year posing a threat to the Mumbai film industry itself which is suffering from the terrible flop to hit ratio of 9:1 each year.Nine hundred cinema halls of Uttar Pradesh with a capacity of seating one billion movie viewers in a year saw barely 12.4 crore viewers in the past year indicating that movies were losing their gleam in the state and people were being lured away from the cinema halls by other attractions like water parks, resorts and above all, Cable Television & movie piracy which offered “previews” of movies even before the official release. Over 250 cinema halls have downed shutters in the past decade in the state with 100 more waiting in the queue and in Agra alone, where movie theatres were the major crowd pullers about a decade back in the absence of other “attractions” in the town, 22 theatres have shut down and another is on the verge of closure leaving just 29 theatres and last year, these movie halls managed to pull just over 2.5 lac viewers against their total capacity of seating 3.91 crore in a year. Cinema owners, who have pulled the curtain on their movie theatres citing low viewer turnout as the reason, now seem to be more interested in erecting shopping malls and multiplexes on the movie theatre land to cover up their losses. Though there are plans to open three multiplexes in Agra, they are still in the elementary stages and it would be quite some time when these multiplexes could open their doors for the viewers.UP state entertainment department sources said that a normal movie theatre in the state had 6-7 hundred seats and the number of viewers exceeded 25 crores each year about two decades back but in the past one year, it had been observed that on an average, barely 90-95 viewers watched a movie show in the state and out of the 6.35 lac seats, most remained vacant all the time. Even movies acclaimed as “blockbusters” elsewhere failed to pull up a House-full board before the theatre gates in UP.According to the sources even the opening of 250 multiplexes in a row was not comparable to the shutdown of these 250 movie halls, most of them linked to the heritage of their respective towns like the “Imperial” and “Rex” of Agra, which had been constructed during the British Rule in the cantonment area of the town showing only Hollywood movies and sported novelties like wooden dance floors for the military officers but their owners were forced to shut down these halls in the absence of viewers.Mohan Swaroop, Commissioner Entertainment, Uttar Pradesh claims that the state government is ready to facilitate the movie theatre owners in the upkeep and time to time upgradation of their theatres but still the dropping numbers of movie goers was effecting the closure of cinema halls in the state. He said the government had also offered an option to the movie theater owners to convert their theatres into multiplexes with a 5-year relaxation on entertainment & other taxes. Also, 22 movies had been declared “Tax-Free” in the state in the past year and tax rebate had been offered for the re-opening of shut down cinema halls. He said that attracted by the offers made by the state government, thirteen multiplexes had been established in Uttar Pradesh in the recent years and more were coming up shortly in Agra and other towns. He said that the movie halls contributed a great deal in the state’s revenue in the tune of over Rs. 100 crores per annum and the shutdown of these halls meant a significant loss to the revenue as entertainment tax, which was not acceptable at any cost and accordingly, he had held several meetings with the Cinema Hall Owners Association of Uttar Pradesh to coax them into desist from shutting down the movie halls and to open new halls and as a welcome change, seven new theatres had opened their doors in the state this year. Whatever may be the UP government’s claims on the measures taken to control the decreasing number of cinema goers in Uttar Pradesh, it is a fact that the number of cine viewers was decreasing and the meager number of multiplexes with low seating capacity could not answer to the closure of a whopping 250 cinema halls in the state.
(UNITED NEWS NETWORK)
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