Indian film industry lost 2.4 crore moviegoers to Covid, reveals survey

The Indian film industry has lost an estimated 2.4 crore moviegoers to the Covid-19 pandemic, revealed a media analytics firm Ormax Media Sizing The Cinema: 2023 Report.

According to the survey, reported Moneycontrol, India currently has 12.2 crore theatre-goers, defined as those who saw at least one film in a theatre in the previous 12 months. In 2020, between January and March, the figure stood at 14.6 crore, just before the pandemic began.

"The Sizing The Cinema: 2023" report is based on research conducted among 15,000 Indian viewers in urban and rural India.

According to Ormax Media, the average Indian moviegoer sees 1.5 films in 1.5 languages at a theatre each year.

With 58 million viewers, Hindi is the most-watched language. According to the report, the Hindi theater-going universe shrank by 21.5 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels. In contrast, most South Indian languages have shown stability or growth, with Kannada gaining the most at 25%, from 1.16 crore to 1.45 crore.

The viewership base for Tamil films, on the other hand, has remained stable at 28.2 million. Despite notable successes like RRR, Telugu has suffered a 7.8 per cent decrease in its theatrical universe, from 30.4 million to 28 million. There has been a 10.1 per cent rise in Hollywood, from 22 million to 24.2 million.

“We believe that India’s theatrical universe is sizable enough to deserve better quality of data, than what is generally available. In a diverse and multi-lingual country like ours, absence of industry data can be a limiting factor for various stakeholders, such as investors, studios, independent producers, distributors, marketers, exhibitors, and so on," Gautam Jain, partner - Ormax Media, said in a statement.

According to Ormax, the film industry wants to restore lost audiences by 2023. As per Yash Raj Films, Shah Rukh Khan's 'Pathaan' grossed up to Rs 472.95 crore in domestic receipts and $115.40 million globally as of February 13.

Indian box office scripts grossed over Rs 10,637 crore in 2022, trailing only Rs 10,948 crore in pre-pandemic 2019. According to Ormax, 2022 is only the second year in history to surpass the 10,000 crore mark at the India Box Office. KGF 2, RRR, Brahmastra, and Drishyam 2 were among the films that created an impression last year.

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