UFO introduces new rate card to support the film industry

The announcement by the Central Government and many of the State Governments has come as a welcome relief to more than 9600 screens across the country. The next few weeks being crucial to the revival of the cinema industry, it is important that content comes to the cinemas which in turn will bring footfalls, revive confidence amongst audiences and reinstate lakhs of jobs across the film industry. Being cognisant of the difficult times the industry is going through, the impact of reduced capacity due to social distancing and the fact that the footfalls would be uncertain, we are introducing temporary measures to support the film producers/distributors and exhibitors by introducing reductions or changes in our rate card.

While old films which have already released in cinemas will be charged just the logistics cost, the Content Distribution Charges for new films will be charged as a percentage of the box office collections or as a reduced flat fee at the option of the producer/ distributor. We feel that being a stakeholder and part of the film industry, it was imperative to support the industry by this measure in the weeks just following the opening of cinemas. These special rates shall be applicable for All India except the southern states (South states shall be addressed separately) and shall be effective for a period of six weeks till 30th November 2020.

With this we hope that the films which are releasing after the opening of the cinemas such as Zee Studios “Khaali Peeli”, Yash Raj Films “Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar”, T Series “Indu Ki Jawani” and other films will be incentivised to release their films as widely as possible since the variable rate card will remove any element of risk to distributors on account of digital charges. Under the variable option our charges will be linked to the box office performance of the films and this will ensure that our charges shall be a fraction of the box office collections from every cinema, enabling the distributor to exploit their films to the maximum.

(We got this information in a press release).