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The term 'film' encompasses motion pictures. When a movie or a television show is shot it generates revenue, jobs and related infrastructure. Productions boosts the economy of the country and sometimes can boost tourism too. But with pandemic in 2020 the jobs and economy both were affected. Theatrical entertainment accounted for only 15% in 2020 of the total global entertainment revenues, compared to 43% in 2019. In 2020 the entire global theatrical and home/mobile entertainment market totalled $80.8 billion, the lowest figure since 2016 and a decline of 18% from 2019. The sharpest decline was in theatrical revenue which dropped from $42.3 billion in 2019 to $12 billion in 2020.
As the global pandemic impacted the theatres, production studios temporarily halted new projects and started releasing their shelved projects in OTT platforms. Some production companies directly sold their film rights to already established OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video whereas the bigger production houses launched their own platforms like Disney+ and HBO Max. Disney+ was launched in India by means of its existing service Hotstar and included plethora of scripted and unscripted content. Disney+ Hotstar reported a revenue of INR 1628 Cr in 2020 compared to INR 1123 Cr in 2019. Though Hotstar has shown significant increase in subscribers and revenue in India compared to Netflix but has reported a loss of INR 361 Cr last year. Netflix India reported a profit of INR 9 Cr in 2020 with less expenses incurred. Even though Hotstar has suffered losses, the company claimed it is because of postponement of sporting events worldwide in 2020. With restrictions now easing down Hotstar has already released web originals in their platform and has started productions for their upcoming shows too, they also said the impact of the pandemic will be assessed in periods. Disney+ on Disney+ day celebrated by giving 100 hours of content to the non-subscribers and announced plethora of upcoming shows. Netflix earlier offered 2 days free trial for non-subscribers who can get access to any content. These 2 platforms have shown early how they want to function in the OTT market and market their content. The pandemic led other small production companies to release their streaming services in the Indian market. MX Player, Zee5 were...