Impact of COVID-19 and Online Streaming Services on the Movie Theater

ABSTRACT

Movie Theaters in India face a big crisis amid COVID-19, which leads to the shutdown of Theaters for more than five months. In the meantime, Online Streaming Services are expanding their business and revenue like never before. This scenario raises the very prominent questions (1) whether the movie theater business will survive this hard time and get back to normal growth and business once COVID-19 cases will reduce. The situation gets back to `old normal'. (2) Will Online Streaming services and Movie Theater business co-exist in the future, as Satellite TV and Movie Theater exist for many decades. Based on data from an empirical survey conducted among regular moviegoers, this paper questions the claims of the industry that the Movie Theater business is in danger due to the emergence of online streaming services. It has been observed that the increase in traffic on these online streaming services is mainly because of the lockdown situation, and once theater reopens and the COVID-19 health crisis went, people will get back to Theaters in a large number. Data from the reopening of Theaters in other countries are also showing the same result.