Hiren Gada, CEO of Shemaroo Entertainment discusses the changing nature of streaming services, digital content due to pandemic

Mr Hiren Gada, CEO of Shemaroo Entertainment in a recent interview with NewsX discussed the changing nature of streaming services and digital content due to the pandemic.

Due to the closure of the movie theatres during the lockdown, it’s been an almost impossible feat to try and release new movies. Luckily for us, Shemaroo has come up with a solution. They have started a kind of pay-per-view model ShermarooMe to “open the window of monetisation and release of the film”.

ShemarooMe is a one-stop destination for authentic Indian content, starting from regional movied to Bollywood movies. The platform grew out of a necessity to “unlock the film’s journey and give the audience an opportunity to see fresh content”, Mr Gada said. “It’s a transaction product where you can buy a ticket and redeem it on a movie. You can then watch the movie for a period of three days as many times as you’d like”, he added. “It gives the audience the closest possible experience of a movie theatre as you buy a ticket from BookMyShow and then watch it.”

The place where it differs is that there is no limit on the number of people who can watch the movie and it’s wildly more economic. “We saw a huge surge in home entertainment consumption and so we launched a Hindi general entertainment channel in May which was put together during the lockdown.”, he stated. He went on to commend the team’s effort and grit, even during the trying times of the pandemic. Moreover, this channel was made free-to-air so that people wouldn’t have to pay for it.

Shemaroo Entertainment also worked with more than 30 temples to stream their artis live on their channels. They made this service completely free for their audience as well. “The idea here was to incentivise the people to ‘Stay at Home and Pray at Home’ and this really resonated with our audience”

Touching upon the future of regional digital content Mr Gada said, “ The audience prefer local and regional content and there has been a surge of original regional content. It’s an indication of a change in mass consumption. However, I am positive there is no replacement of the experience that a theatre provides”, said Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment.