Movie channels ki maut. But a Requiem for them? Nah...

I remember the time, not very long ago (a few years at the most), when my first task of the morning was to scan the newspaper supplement to check the various movie listings for the day, map the times in a mental timetable and religiously sit during the allotted time in front of the TV, with snacks in tow. Some of my memorable moments with cinema have happened this way.

But something has changed. The change seems very evident to me in the last month. This is a time when I have been at home for quite some time, thanks to my summer project being in Delhi. This is at a time when I can sit at home at leisure and watch movies on TV (the number of movie channels have gone up too in the last one year).

Except, I don't.

Maybe its the laptop effect coupled with my ever increasing movie collection. But I think that there are deeper reasons.

The main thing is time. Why would I want to take 3 hours to watch a 2 hours movie? When you have acquired the taste of watching a movie uninterrupted, why would you want a break in the narrative and needless to say, a break in the flow of the movie every 20 mins or so? I get enough ads to last me a lifetime when I watch a cricket match anyway. I don't think I need to be more informed in order to exercise an informed choice. And more and more people are getting exposed to this taste of watching movies without breaks.

And its not just me. The pace at which we are working, the pace at which we need to work, is increasing for everyone and this pace is filtering down to the teenagers as well. Between juggling an information overload from which we need to filter out meaningful knowledge and relaxing to get our mind de-stressed, why would we let ourselves be a captive tool for advertisers and have our time wasted in addition?

This is a reality that advertisers and Movie channels need to wake up to (especially the Zee movie channels who easily double the viewing time of a film - I wonder if anyone, even bored housewives, watches them anymore).

The reality is not only of laptop toting young and not so young consumers who have separate hard drives for movies (a exponentially growing tribe). DVD libraries like 70mm and DVD Express are gaining popularity with their excellent collection of movies (especially foreign movies - something that is not easily seen on regular channels). There are various models in the pipeline for the DVD rental business, but its a dynamic, constantly changing business. The only thing sure about this business is that they are going to topple the conventional movie channels in the time to come (atleast the current format)

The main turn of tide will occur because of a deeper reason. That of choice. The movie channels had a merry run because of the ever increasing hunger for entertainment and few alternative outlets. With movie halls becoming more of an outing rather than a regular feature due to the ever-rising ticket prices, they filled a vacuum recently vacated by VCRs and magnetic videos and not yet filled by DVDs. They dished it out and we took it.

Not any more.

The movie channels in their current formats would be on their way out soon. I have good memories of its early years. But now, they just eat up my time and deny variety.

Off with their heads, I say.

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