Exhibitors support Telangana cinematography minister Komati Reddy on ticket rates hike. Telangana Cinematography Minister Komati Reddy Venkata Reddy made clear that he is against the ticket rates hikes for films and added that from now on producers and filmmakers should stop coming to the government to seek ticke rates hikes for their films.
Vijayender Reddy, president of the Telangana Controllers and Exhibitors Association, which represents around 300 exhibitors across the state, supported the minister and said “With inflated ticket rates, audiences have stopped coming to theatres, and we are going through very tough times,”. He requested the state government to fix ticket prices in the range of Rs 100 to Rs 200, or Rs 75 to Rs 175, for two classes, instead of permitting rates of Rs 400 to Rs 600 for big-budget films.
He revealed “Prices are increased four to five times, and audiences naturally shy away from theatres. To protect single screens, we even organised a partial bandh a few months ago, as most theatres are running under losses. Some theatres have locked their gates, while many are cancelling shows due to poor attendance, sometimes with fewer than ten viewers.”
He questioned “How can we equate the income of a rickshaw puller in a village with that of an IT employee in a city and fix the same ticket price?” and criticised the earlier government for allowing uniform ticket rates across gram panchayats, municipalities and municipal corporations.
On higher ticket rates increasing the collections in theatres, he said “This is a misconception. We do not get any extra benefit from inflated collections. For instance, on normal ticket rates, if a film collects Rs 45,000 from four shows, we receive Rs 15,000 as rent. Even if a film collects Rs 3 lakh a day due to hiked prices, we still get only Rs 15,000. So where is the extra money for theatres?”
He said “We are left helpless. Theatres in places like Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Gadwal, Nalgonda, Miryalaguda and Warangal are facing different kinds of problems,” and revealed "distributors pressure theatre owners by negotiating aggressively and cutting rentals to screen big films."