Hindi
What ails the Indian film industry?
BANGALORE: A panel discussion on ‘What ails the film industry – A reality checkup of the filmed entertainment sector‘ at the third edition of the Ficci‘s two-day Media and Entertainment Business Conclave highlighted a number of issues that plagued the film industry in India.
The session, moderated by actor, director and screenwriter Kamal Hassan had film producer, director and scriptwriter S Priyadarsan, South India Film Chamber of Commerce Secretary L Suresh, Cinemax CEO Suresh Shenoy and Real Images co-founder Senthil Kumar as panellists.
Piracy, multiple sales of the same ticket and the state governments‘ role in fixing movie ticket prices were highlighted as the main banes of the Indian film industry.
In the case of producers, besides piracy, the other major ailments were high cost of talent and high cost of production; cost inflation; lack of understanding of Intellectual Property (IP) and Copyright (CR) rules; lack of access to institutional funding; lack of good scriptwriters and original content.
From the exhibitors point of view, archaic rules and regulations, some as old as 1947, such as getting licenses and renewals, needed a relook since most of the theaters had gone digital. The laws based on the Electricity and the Projection Acts were not really relevant today.
From the distributors point of view some of the problems faced included exorbitant acquisition costs; because of non-availability of institutional funds, regional distributors were finding it difficult to grow beyond their limits, hence making it difficult to release films during peak season time because of high prices by the exhibitors and also multiple releases during a week makes it difficult for the distributor to get good show timings from the exhibitors who control the last mile.
The industry needed to embrace technology at all places down the value chain. Priyadarsan shared the approach of the Kerala Film Industry to curb piracy and revenue leakages through wide releases of films and computerised ticketing. Instead of the 30 or 40 screens that a film was released earlier, it is now being released across 100 screens. In the case of computerised tickets, Priyadarsan said that sitting in his house, he could know how many tickets of his film were sold in real time.
Shenoy cautioned that the viability of a wide release varied from movie to movie. It should be based on the merit of the film. He pointed out the wide release had brought down the shelf life of a movie from 4 weeks to 1 week, hence there could be problem with maintaining a flow of content for the exhibitor. The number of movies being produced had to be at least doubled to maintain a steady flow of content and to advocate wide releases for big ticket films.
Shenoy also suggested that the government should take up piracy issue on a pan India basis and bring in a suitable law and impose it on the states, rather than the current situation where piracy which came mainly under the ambit of state governments‘, many of whom did not take the matter seriously.
Suresh said that Tamil Nadu had one of the best laws to combat piracy that was being emulated by a number of states, but bemoaned the fact that implementation of the law was very poor. Piracy could be eradicated only if the administrators in a town were adamant and ruthless in implementing the law.
Suresh also questioned a state government‘s (like Tamil Nadu) curbs in the pricing of film tickets. The ticket price of a small budget film could be low, while in the case of the big budget film, the producer, with the knowledge-not permission from the state government, could fix whatever price he chose. Computerized ticketing would ensure that a government would get its taxes.
Hassan agreed with Suresh saying that the state government should treat films as any other business, more so in the case of the southern states, where the governments saw films more as a political platform.
Suresh also suggested dynamic pricing of film tickets, maybe, the price could be higher for the first few weeks and then lowered later. He further said that the in the case of other major cities and towns, the benefits of dynamic rates that were being arbitrarily fixed by theater owners depending upon show timings did not filter down to the producers who owned the copyrights of the content.
Shenoy informed, “In some cases, the cost of talent is almost 60 per cent of the film‘s budget”. He suggested that rather than paying per film, the actors should be paid a fixed sum and part of the profits which depended upon the box-office performance of a film, a model similar to the one followed in Hollywood.
Senthil agreed that most of the problems faced by the industry could be alleviated with the right application of technology. Piracy, which caused leakage of 30 to 50 per cent revenue leakage, could be prevented to a great extent. Technology made it possible for piracy to be curbed in all means except through a cam-coder brought into the movie hall. Technology will make the necessity of a film print redundant.
Shenoy said that there was a need for open dialogue between all the stakeholders and the government as well as a constructive dialogue amongst various stakeholders in the film world is critical. For example the multiplex impasse a couple of years ago impacted not only the warring parties, but everyone in the value chain. “The industry must keep channels of communication open and look for alternative means for dispute resolution,” he suggested.
Shenoy further suggested that producers should garner together an initiative to train scriptwriters and paid great importance to research and development to enable only quality scripts being made into films.
Hindi
India’s telecom subscribers cross 1.32 billion in February 2026
Broadband base swells past 1.06 billion as Jio and Airtel tighten grip on the market.
MUMBAI: India’s telecom sector is ringing in steady growth once again adding millions of new connections every month while the race for broadband supremacy continues to heat up like a fiercely contested cricket match. According to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 April 2026, the total telephone subscriber base in the country reached 1,321.31 million at the end of February 2026. This marked a net addition of 7.31 million subscribers during the month, translating into a monthly growth rate of 0.56 per cent.
Wireless subscribers (including mobile and Fixed Wireless Access) stood at 1,273.31 million, registering a net addition of 6.97 million and a growth rate of 0.55 per cent. Within this, urban wireless connections grew to 730.75 million (growth 0.70 per cent), while rural wireless subscribers reached 542.56 million (growth 0.35 per cent).
Wireline subscribers, though much smaller in scale, showed slightly faster growth. The total wireline base increased to 47.99 million, with a net addition of 0.34 million and a monthly growth rate of 0.70 per cent. Urban areas continued to dominate wireline connections with a share of 89.41 per cent.
Overall tele-density in India improved to 92.66 per cent. Urban tele-density stood at 150.68 per cent, while rural tele-density edged up to 60.02 per cent.
The broadband subscriber base crossed a significant milestone, reaching 1,059.05 million at the end of February 2026. This reflected a healthy net addition of 6.33 million subscribers and a monthly growth rate of 0.60 per cent from January’s figure of 1,052.72 million.
Segment-wise, mobile wireless access continued to drive the majority of growth with 996.52 million subscribers. Fixed Wireless Access (including 5G FWA) added 16.51 million, while wired broadband stood at 46.02 million.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. maintained its commanding lead with 519.64 million broadband subscribers. Bharti Airtel Ltd. followed with 364.14 million, Vodafone Idea Ltd. with 129.36 million, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. with 28.70 million, and Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd. with 2.38 million.
Together, these top five players command a massive 98.60 per cent share of the total broadband market.
In the wireless (mobile) segment, private operators continued to dominate with 92.59 per cent market share, leaving public sector undertakings (BSNL and MTNL) with just 7.41 per cent.
Out of the total 1,257.29 million wireless (mobile) subscribers, 1,177.60 million were active on the peak Visitor Location Register (VLR) date, representing an impressive 93.66 per cent activity rate. Bharti Airtel led in this metric with 99.42 per cent of its subscribers active.
Meanwhile, 14.47 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in February, indicating healthy competition and customer churn across zones.
While urban areas still lead in absolute numbers, rural connectivity is slowly catching up. Rural wireless tele-density stood at 59.46 per cent, compared with the much higher urban figure of 142.32 per cent.
Fixed Wireless Access using 5G technology also showed promising traction, growing to 11.93 million subscribers. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are the primary players driving this segment.
The data paints a picture of a maturing yet still rapidly expanding telecom ecosystem. With total telephone subscribers now well past the 1.32 billion mark and broadband users comfortably above 1.06 billion, India continues to solidify its position as one of the world’s largest and most dynamic digital markets.
From bustling city streets to remote villages, more Indians are staying connected than ever before proving that when it comes to telecom, the country’s appetite for growth shows no signs of hanging up anytime soon.
