New age film cities beginning to emerge as audiences get hungry for content

New age film cities beginning to emerge as audiences get hungry for content

India's iconic hubs of film production - the Mumbai Film City and Hyderabad's Ramoji Film City - are in for some glitzy competition as new age media entities are starting to raise world-class infrastructure in various cities.

To challenge the legacy film centres, Bodhi Tree Multimedia's division along with Suman Entertainment are building a film studio called the Thane Film City project - also known as the Dharmaveer Media City - spread across 1,000 acres at an estimated investment of Rs 1,000 crore.

Thane Film City - situated in Mumbai's adjoining district - promises to be a next-gen project with virtual production facilities and infrastructure that will be relevant for five years from now, said Mautik Tolia, Managing Director of Bodhi Tree Multimedia Limited.

"The Thane project is more about the new tech that comes in with it, because that is where the future is going to be. It is not about having thousand acres of land and shooting facilities out there. We are bound by an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), but we are in talks with a couple of international tech companies which have executives from ex-DreamWorks for high-end virtual production tech," he added. Bodhi Tree is exploring investment from international players for the upcoming film city.

More Production Hubs

Bodhi Tree is hoping to branch out into other Indian cities as well and spawn more film studios.

"Most of the facilities that were created in Bombay and other places were a few decades back. So, there is a huge scope for creating infrastructure, considering the demand for content keeps increasing. Our plan with creating this subsidiary is to create a film city near Thane, but at the same time also explore opportunities in other cities. Essential content production centres like Chennai and Kolkata are in dire need of infrastructure when it comes to shooting, because so much of content is shot there," Tolia said.

Bodhi Tree is tapping all stakeholders who are keen to invest, both government agencies as well as private players, even though the opportunity of film studios in Chennai and Kolkata are at an exploratory stage.

"Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Gujarat have ample scope for creating media infrastructure. In addition to exploring new studios, we are also looking at taking over existing studio facilities to refurbish them. Each project will have its own trajectory. In some cases, there will be private acquisition of land that will happen and for others there will be government provided land, through a tender," said Managing Director of Bodhi Tree Multimedia Limited said, the company behind streaming content like Netflix's Class, or the TV shows like Mai Hoo Aparajita.

Like Bodhi Tree, many production houses are looking for centralised locations to shoot, which has been a hassle.

"A lot of the shoots right now are happening fragmented. There are no centralised locations and as a production house, we ourselves face all these issues on a day-to-day basis. If producers get a one-stop shop facility to do creative work, it becomes a lot easier for them and also cheaper," Tolia said.

Demand From TV

While Bodhi Tree's new subsidiary is yet to contribute to the company's overall revenue, in FY24 it reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 3.73 crore, up 9 percent year-on-year (YoY). Bodhi Tree recorded a 40 percent YoY increase in its content volume in FY24, and expects this to continue as demand from broadcasters is seen strong.

"There is a bigger demand for television content rather than OTT (over the top platform) content. At this point of time, I would say that 60 percent of it (revenue) comes from TV and 40 percent from OTT. OTT is going through a certain amount of consolidation but I think in a couple of months the share will be 50-50."

Within television, Bodhi Tree claims to be getting a lot of demand from FTA (free to air) channels.

"FTAs are doing more low-cost content but there is also a need for creating higher-cost content because I think the model that everyone is moving towards is not just broadcast but catch-up TV as well. All of them also have an OTT strategy. Also, the content that is currently being created caters not just to the female +25 (audience), which was the core audience at one point. The focus now is to create more male-inclusive content which can then be consumed on catch-up OTT," Tolia said.