Did you miss Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick or Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train in cinemas and now want to watch the film at home? Try TVOD – Transactional Video On Demand – also known as pay-per-view, as these recent releases are available on rent across multiple platforms. When cinemas were shut in the beginning of the pandemic, viewers shifted to video-on-demand services in increasing numbers, but as people return to cinemas, TVOD is still clicking with a section of viewers, who purchase both old and new films.

During Amazon Prime’s TVOD launch, Gaurav Gandhi from the platform said, “The TVOD movie rental service gives customers more choice in how they want to access and watch content. It enables them to pay per movie, instead of a flat monthly fee.”

Zee also experimented with models of pay-per-view releases with their hybridized release of Salman Khan-starrer Radhe on ZeePlex. Commenting on it, a Zee official had said then, “The pay-per-view format is meant to enable the audiences to make the choice as to where and when they want to consume the content that is available to them.”

The TVOD platform BookMyShow Stream was launched last year and Ashish Saksena, COO – Cinemas, BookMyShow, says, “TVOD has been amongst the most exciting spaces to be for content makers and studios alike, as the culture of ‘Pay for what you want to watch’ is fast gaining traction, rather than having multiple subscriptions. We have witnessed high interest and engagement across varied cross-sections of the audience for both rent and buy options.”

However, he adds, “The TVOD model is currently not being utilized fully by Indian-home-grown studios and content owners. As an emerging business model nationally, there is a strong case for the massive potential that the TVOD model holds.”

Other platforms offering pay-per-view are YouTube, ShemarooMe Box Office and Apple TV Plus.

Sharing what works for the TVOD model, Girish Johar, producer and business analyst, says, “It’s a combination of a lot of things. An entire family can watch a movie for the price of one ticket, which is indeed quite reasonable, and plus they can watch it from the comfort of their home and when they want to. It also is somewhat like the VCR era when families would gather and watch a film together. Currently, it is urban-centric but has scope of growth.”

However, he adds, “In the US and European market, TVOD is very mature, but in India it is at a nascent stage. Radhe was TVOD release, but didn’t do well in terms of audience because the market is not that mature and also because Salman’s audience is not your TVOD audience. Our entertainment is still very different and TVOD doesn’t have to be a replacement but it can be one of the avenues. You see more mature content from Hollywood on TVOD because their market is more mature than in India. Over the years it may reach at that stage, but at present it is for a niche audience.”

Talking about the challenges, media and internet research analyst Karan Taurani was recently quoted as saying, “The TVOD market in India is very premature and the Indian audience would pay for a bouquet of services and variety of content, but refrain to pay on a transaction basis. Scalability of TVOD remains a big challenge as there is only a very niche audience. ”

Saurabh, a 27-year-old government employee, says, “There are many films which are not released in India or have limited shows so you miss those. For instance, I had seen French Dispatch on pay-per-view because it was not released in India. There are some films which have shows during the weekday, when officegoers can’t go, but with TVOD you can just purchase or rent the film online.”

Rashmi Ahuja, 31, who works in an ed-tech company, says, “Pay-per-view definitely gives you more options. Sometimes someone recommends a classic film, but it is not available anywhere. However, with TVOD, you can get access to these by paying just 100-200.”

In pay-per-view (or Transactional Video On Demand), viewers have the choice to pay for only the content they want to watch. Instead of paying a flat fee for an OTT platform, people can only pay for the film or show they wish to watch. In SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand), the viewer gets access to the complete library of the OTT platform and there is no time limit to watch the content

available, while in TVOD, the audience has access to the film/show for a limited period of time.