Rajjat A. Barjatya, MD, Rajshri Media (P) Ltd is the man steering his family’s film production and distribution business towards the digital domain. Rajshri Productions is one of the largest content owners in the film and entertainment business in India, and Rajshri.com, their newly launched broadband video portal Rajshri.com will also see the premiere of Vivah, the first film in India to be simultaneously premiered in the theaters and online. I spoke to Barjatya about Rajshri Media’s plans for their video portal:

How do you intend to promote the portal and which agency have you signed up?
We’ve signed up Interactive Avenues for the online promotions. Online is an important means of reaching our target market – the NRI and PIO community. We’ll be doing video ads, flash and search marketing.
What about advertising on the website? I noticed Google ads…
We’re only using Google ads for now and are experimenting with the medium. We’re not going to take any ads for the first three months, and there is no rush. We want the system to stabilize. We’re new to this and we know there will be problems and we will learn; I’m not afraid of failure. This is the first part of a marathon. The next 12 months we will see very little traction, mostly from the early adopters, but between 24 and 36 months from now, this is going to boom. I’m willing to wait for that.
You’ve got full screen mode on video streaming, so doesn’t that negate the ads on the site?
I want people to move to a full screen mode while streaming because I’ll have video ads like you have on TV. These will be served from an adserver, and will depend on the profile of the user.
What kind of deals do you have with various studios and why they should sign up with Rajshri.com?
We’re on a revenue sharing model, but I can’t go into the details of that. Rajshri.com is a platform for studios to monetize their content, to reach out to that large diaspora in places like Finland where prints are not released and you get only pirated movies, often very late. I’m giving them a legal option, and they won’t need to wait. The content can be streamed, downloaded to own and downloaded to rent. Rajshri.com is a multiplex with unlimited seats. Today, even if a movie does not do well in India, this offers studios another distribution channel to reach out to a larger audience. Just 10% of the current content on Rajshri.com is Rajshri content.
And which studios have signed up?
For music we have T-series, Sa Re Ga Ma, Crescendo, Universal Music, Free Spirit, Fountain Music, Rajshri Music. And we’re only showing video content. For movies we have B.R.Chopra, Pramod Films, Prasad Productions, Shakti Films and the Films Division of India. We want to be the industry platform for video. We think this will create a revolution in the film industry and a parallel digital industry will evolve.
What about your plans for the Mobile space?
Rajshri Media is an aggregator, but will also be creating content for the mobile. The background of the Rajshri Group is such that we create world class content at rock bottom prices. Before the end of this year, we will begin creating new IP for the new media that is customized to that space – like for the mobile screen, and in a 3 minute format.
How do you see the content on Rajshri.com evolving?
We’ve got around 300 movies, a lot of TV shows, documentaries, short films. I see it going beyond the entertainment domain to yoga, management seminars and spirituality.
Could you elaborate on the DRM. I heard the name Microsoft being mentioned.
We’ve gone with the Brightcove platform. Jeremy Allaire’s Brightcove is based out of Cambridge and they’ve got a robust platform for pay media and the Content Delivery Network is in place. Our ‘download to rent’ option uses Microsoft DRM. Bright Cove is also being used by Warner Brothers, Sony BMG and others.

So, I’m wondering if the DVD rental business has long term viability once we have sufficient bandwidth in India, as well as broadband content available…or is that a pipe-dream?

Related:
-  Rajshri Media Launches Broadband Entertainment Portal; VIVAH To Premiere Online