A spree of movie acquisitions, big-ticket premieres, a tough fight at the top and two channel launches marked the first half of 2012 in the Hindi movie channel space.

The tussle was for snatching market share and, unfortunately these efforts failed to expand the overall viewership of the Hindi movie channel genre.

Star TV took the fight to the other networks with the launch of a second Hindi movie channel under its OK brand. Armed with a vast movie library, Movies OK has had a strong start, becoming the fourth player in the space with over 60 GRPs. The leader channel, whether it is Star Gold or Zee Cinema or Max, enjoys around 120 GRPs.

Star has also been aggressive on the acquisition front, taking the whole library of 500 films from Colors whose own movie channel launch has been put on hold. This allows Star to play its content around its two channels.

The first half also saw the unceremonious launch of another movie channel. Cinema TV, promoted by Mumbai-based Softline Creations, has failed to make any impact. The company claims it has an 800-movie library comprising mainly of retros and is aiming to create a space for itself in the genre dominated by Star Gold, Zee Cinema and Max.

"There were a whole lot of premieres; IPL has further intensified the entire thing (competition), so there is a lot of emphasis on promotional packages. There has been a resurgence in the movie space as a whole," says Zee Cinema business head Mohan Gopinath.

The genre, however, has stagnated in terms of viewership. "The size of the Hindi movie channel genre hasn't grown. It remains the same 500-odd GRPs. There is a lot of movie consumption that happens outside the Hindi movie channel genre like on the GECs. The regional channels also show movies and then there are cable guys. So there is enough movie offering," avers Disney UTV executive director movie channels and channel distribution Sameer Ganapathy.

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