Good News For Tamil Cinema; Fans Regulations For Theatres

Tamil cinema industry, over the last 7-10 days, was majorly focussing on one certain issue-the local entertainment tax proposed by the local government. The Tamil cinema is already said to be affected by the implementation of GST; the ticket rates were always under strict capping and the audience have tuned their minds to a certain slab rate. Post introduction of GST, the ticket rates were hiked up to Rs 150 from Rs 120, which itself was seen as a huge change.

Now the state government has decided to levy 5-8% of local entertainment tax on films. The move has come as a burner for the celluloid folks as this results in spiked up ticket prices, which only paves way for reduced viewership of movies.

Tamil cinema was and still is, affected vastly by a negative spirit called piracy. A new release ensures that a pirated copy of the movie will be hitting the net on the very same day and thus, eating out quite a considerable portion of the distributor's share.

With two different tax structures being implemented, the film chamber had taken the issue straight to the government for a marathon of discussions. However, Actor Vishal, the head of Nadigar Sangam, has decided to approach Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisamy to discuss 5 main points as substitution for the hiked ticket prices.

1. No selling tickets above the government scheduled rates for each class and theatre type

2. Sell items in canteen on MRP and viewers can take their own water inside

3. No parking charge

4. Online booking charges will be reduced very soon

5. If any theatre caught selling more than Government prices. They will face consequences

This indeed seems to be a reasonable move, which helps the cinema industry in not losing out on revenue, as the aforementioned requests would not cause extra loss of money for the audience. A big budget film would generally mean a higher ticket price and that with the consumption of edibles/essentials in theatres would result in an expensive affair at the multiplex. Post the implementation of the tax structure, the ticket price would look something like this:

Multiplexes - 150 + GST 28% (42) - Total 192

Other A/C theatres - 120 + GST 28% (33.6) - Total 153.6

Non-A/C theatres - 80 + GST 18% (14.4) - Total 95

Now then, this only assures that the Diwali release, Vijay-starrer Mersal, too falls under the same bracket and a price hike for the first day would not be a favourable gain for the distributors and exhibitors.