Mr. Ajay Bijli, Managing Director, PVR INOX Limited, the largest and the most premium cinema exhibitor in India and the fifth largest listed multiplex chain globally delivered the keynote address at CinemaCon 2023, the Largest Global Cinema Industry Event in Las Vegas, USA on April 24, 2023. A visionary and thought leader with over three decades of experience in film exhibition business in India, Mr. Ajay Bijli shared key pieces of advice for exhibitor, studios and streaming platforms globally.

Here are some highlights of his keynote address for different stakeholders in the eco-system:

Exhibitors

Need to adapt to changing landscape and consumer behavior
Make cinema more relevant and create new experiences – format, technology and hospitality
Use loyalty program and audience behavior data to provide meaningful engagements
Use pricing strategies as a marketing tool through subscription programs, bundling of offers, segmentation to attract customers at various price points
Build out of home entertainment destinations, not just cinemas completely differentiated from watching content at home

Studios

Create more content for the big screen
Monetize the content journey – theatres first and then streaming
Increase the theatrical window

Streaming

Streaming and Cinema are here to co-exist
Create a perfect ecosystem to make content bigger, leveraging merits of cinemas and streaming
Big budget films can’t make it big and would not be able to recoup their investments if they come too quickly to streaming
Probability of Piracy and theft of content is more on streaming
Theatrical release set the quantitative and qualitative benchmarks and drive greater value for streamers
Create a perfect eco-system attune to make content bigger leveraging the inherent strengths of theatrical and streaming
Welcomes tech giants, Apple and Amazon’s plans to invest in making movies for cinemas

Mr. Ajay Bijli has become the First Indian Film Industry official to be invited to deliver the Keynote address in CinemaCon’s 11 year’s history. For someone who created the multiplex industry in India 25 years back, Mr. Bijli is strengthening and creating scale to the film exhibition industry. Through his critical experience of mobilizing content producers, mall developers, studios and cinema technology makers, Mr. Ajay Bijli has been able to create a conduit between consumers and film industry on one hand and the other with the retail industry and real estate development. Today multiplexes have witnessed significant growth across major Indian cities and smaller towns considering India is an under-screened market.

About PVR INOX

PVR INOX Limited is the largest film exhibition company in India with 1689 screens across 361 properties in 115 cities (India and Sri Lanka). Since their inception, both PVR and INOX have created iconic cinema brands with storied histories of achieving significant milestones and setting benchmarks in the film exhibition industry. With a collective heritage of transforming out-of-home entertainment in the country, the merged company offers a wide range of cinema services such as child friendly audis, the latest screening technology, superior sound systems, wide range of F&B offerings, film and non-film content and an array of formats in the premium screen category.