Goldmines Telefilms has over the years become one of the biggest players of terrestrial television rights. The content powerhouse has assigned the satellite rights of many movies to major channels in the Hindi Movie industry with a success ratio of over 80 percent, as per Manish Shah, Director, Goldmines Telefilms.
The YouTube channel of Goldmines Telefilms has also garnered a massive following of over 37 million plus subscribers on its YouTube channel courtesy of the huge number of films available on it.
Goldmines Telefilms recently turned a new chapter in its journey with the launch of its Free to Air (FTA) Hindi Movies channel ‘Dhinchaak‘ on India’s only FTA DTH platform DD Free Dish on 24th May. ‘Dhinchaak’ is currently available on DD Free Dish, Dish TV, Tata Sky, and InDigital Cable among other distribution platform operators in India.
DreamDTH’s Senior Editor Esmail Beguwala caught up with Manish Shah, Director, Goldmines Telefilms to talk about Goldmines entry into the FTA space, its content strategy, distribution plans, and how Goldmines would balance between its television business and content selling business.
What is the game plan behind entering the Free to Air space?
“Goldmines has been a pioneer in the dubbing of the South Indian movies. It has the biggest library of the South Indian movies. Today also with regards to MAX, out of the top 10 movies of MAX, we have got between 5 to 9 movies which are from Goldmines. And with regards to Colors (Colors Cineplex), out of the top 10 movies, between 3 to 6 movies are from Goldmines.
Goldmines has been giving consistent ratings across channels. Goldmines now has sufficient content to also launch its own channel. I have taken a Free to Air route today, for the beginning. Tomorrow, I may go pay also, it depends.”
What will your content strategy be for ‘Dhinchaak’?
“Goldmines has always been a company which has understood content at the back of its mind. So we know what content works. Our success ratio whenever we deliver movies to any broadcaster is 80 percent plus.
Since we understand what content is there, we are going to take the best possible content for our audience. It will be South dubbed movies, it will be action, it will be horror-comedy, it will be thrillers, it will be horrors plus Hindi movies.”
How do you plan to balance between selling films right and keeping films for your own Hindi Movie channel? Will you keep some films exclusive for ‘Dhinchaak’?
“Today also, we are only going with exclusive movies for Dhinchaak. Even today, we are getting new movies day by day and I am expecting a minimum of a 250 movies exclusive library by December. I am talking of an active list of 250 movies. See what happens if you go to any channel, they must have a library of over 1000 movies.
You ask what is the active list, it is 200 movies. Plus what happens is every broadcaster has 6-7 channels. They have a specific channel which is only for Hindi movies like a MAX2, Zee Bollywood or Zee Classic. So, they need a separate library for that. We don’t have that channel, so for us it is a mix of both dubbed and Hindi movies. We don’t need a separate library of 500 Hindi movies.”
You have entered the Free to Air space in the midst of COVID-19. Zee Anmol Cinema and Rishtey Cineplex are back in the FTA space. How do you plan to tackle the competition?
“The COVID is only going to affect the revenues. We have to break this into two scenarios. One, the impact of Zee Anmol Cinema and Rishtey Cineplex on GRPs and second is the impact of COVID on your revenues. Revenues are going to be affected at least upto August or September. We were planning initially to monetize from July, but now have to monetize from August. We may have 3-4 months where we may not meet our estimates, slowly and steadily we will build up.
If you analyze what is coming on Zee Anmol Cinema, 60% is repeat of &pictures, Zee Bollywood and Zee Cinema. There is no unique content. As for Rishtey Cineplex, they don’t have a proper distribution in place, they are only on DD Free Dish, they are not on any other platforms. So, let them go onto other platforms, and then we will handle it.”
‘Dhinchaak’ is currently present on DD Free Dish, Dish TV, Tata Sky, and InDigital Cable? What plans do you have for the distribution play?
“By July, we will be everywhere. We will be on Airtel, Siti Cable and Jio Platforms. We are very clear that if you want to watch the movies of Dhinchaak, you have to come to Dhinchaak. These movies are not available anywhere else.
Today, we are not on any OTT. We will look at OTT after two years. Till the time you don’t build the channel, you don’t deliver numbers, you are not going to go into anything else. Of course, there’s a possibility (OTT) after two years.”
Read More: Dhinchaak expands DTH presence as it onboards Tata Sky
What is the vision for ‘Dhinchaak’ and your plan for the second half of 2020?
“See, the second half of 2020 is beginning. We are premiering two movies a week. Every Saturday and Sunday, we are premiering a new South dubbed movie. So they are going to be 8 premieres in the month of July, 10 premiers in August, 8 premiers in September, 9 premiers in October and November and and 8 premieres in December.
So we are trying to get around 8 movies every month into the system. Plus we have got the original movies and we have our original content that we are going to show it.”
Dhinchak channel