Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Hello. Welcome to another edition of The Kiruba Show, where you get to listen to leading newsmakers from the Indian IT industry. Did you know that Bollywood? The Hindi Movie Industry produces the largest number of movies in the world every year. Yes, even higher than Hollywood. In an unprecedented move, RajShri Media, one of India's biggest movie houses, premiered its latest movie VIVAH on the Internet. The very same day, it hit theaters worldwide. This is the first for any Indian movie. This brings about many interesting questions.

Will this move curb the ever prevalent piracy? Will this pioneering effort succeed in expanding the movie's reach? How good will the quality be? We ask these and many more questions to Rajat Barjatya, the Managing Director of RajShri Media. He is also the younger brother of the movie's Director, Sooraj Barjatya, who gave such mega blockbusters like, Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke Hain Koun. This is one of the most interesting interviews I have done so far. Listen in.Rajat thank you so much, for coming on to the show.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Absolutely, my pleasure.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Congratulations, on the launch of VIVAH, you created history of thoughts in the Indian movie scene. VIVAH is the first movie to be launched on the Internet. How did you come up with this idea?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
You know its very interesting Kiruba. I was in Finland, a few months ago. I was a guest at Nokia; was talking to one of their Indian engineers and they have a large Indian community out there. He mentioned that there are 15,000 Indian families. They were completely up to speed with all the latest Hindi movies, they knew all the gossip, they knew about our forthcoming movie VIVAH and that set me thinking, I said, hey Gees, we don't export a single film print to Finland nor do we export a single DVD. So, how are these guys watching all our movies? And he said, very simply, "We get DVDs," which obviously meant they are pirated. These are just 10 Mbps plus broadband speeds. We are dying to connect with that homeland. Bollywood is the main connection we have with their country. Bollywood films, film stars dominate their conversation with their family back home in India. I said, this is such a golden opportunity. I came back to India, the first thing I did was, speak to my family. I said, this is an experiment, I have no idea whether I want to sail or sink, but let's release VIVAH, simultaneously on the Internet, the same day we do in theaters across the world. I would ensure that we have the (Inaudible) in place, we have the platform in place, we have the bandwidth the CDN in place. It took us about six months to put all this together.

That's when the idea of having a larger industry portal, actually emanated; then why just VIVAH, why just 75 Rajshri movies? Why not put up thousands and thousands of video content, sourced from the most influential individuals and organizations, Bollywood, non-Bollywood, fiction, non-fiction, old and new, free and paid for. So, today I am very proud that on November 10th, when VIVAH released in theaters worldwide, the movie was available at 12 noon online at rajshri.com. It was available for a 72 hour download event with DRN (ph). I think the response has been phenomenal on the Internet. It's actually beaten all my predictions. I was being very conservative when I gave a projection to my family and what I've predicted will happen in three months, actually happened in a about of week's time, will happen in about a week's time. Overwhelmed with the response received to the website and to VIVAH. Go ahead.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Excellent. You said there is a 72 hour license, explain that?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Yes. When you download VIVAH, we have partnered with a company called BrightCove, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are a leading company in the Online Radio Space. We are using BrightCove's pay media platform. So, they have a 72 hour license. You download VIVAH, after 72 hours, the license is taken away from you and the movie stops playing. So, in a sense that file disintegrates, it becomes useless for you. You can watch the movie n number of times on your PC, but you can't copy it to a DVD or to a video iPod or to any other device.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Let me understand.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
We're quite secure in that sense.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
When I pay a $10 to access VIVAH do I download the file or do I just stream it over the net?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
You actually download the file on to your hard drive and then it plays back offline. Just for the very first frame, you need to be online to secure the Brightcove's license and then the movie continues to play, you can go offline, you can watch the entire movie 20 times, but over 72 hours. So, it's quite secure in a sense, it also allows you to download in the office and go back home and watch with your family. So, I am not saying that, it's streaming only, it's actually a download prevent, which is working very well for us.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Right. So, how much do DVDs cost of your movies?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Well, DVDs would typically retail at $20 and DVDs would be released, in about 4-8 weeks after the movie releases theatrically, depending on how the film has performed in cinemas. So, what we realized is that, the DVD market is shrinking, because a lot of piracy eats into the legitimate DVD sales. And unfortunately, as hard as the industry stride, we have not been able to reduce the incidence piracy. So, piracy is a reality, we have to work around it. So, we said, "We'd like to make our movie available on multiple platforms on day one," so that if you are near a cinema, please go and watch it. I would very much want you to watch VIVAH in a cinema. We can never replicate the cinema experience; but if you are 100 miles away, or if you are in Helsinki for example, where you don't have a cinema playing in your country, you at least have the next best thing, which is online.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
How good is the quality?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
The quality is extremely good, it's near DVD quality. So, it's a 550 MB file, which you download on to your PC. It simply depends on how good your Internet connection is? It could take any where from a couple of minutes to -- like I downloaded myself as a viewer, it took me about 65 minutes in India, which is not bad at all.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Not bad at all.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Without our connectivity - absolutely. At least I have access to the movie on day one, so if I am abroad, I am watching the movie when my family in India is watching it in cinemas.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
You can never judge pirates, right? They figure out some way or the other. So, how confident are you that the movie that somebody downloads, is not crack The BrightCove is then cracked and then it's pirated.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Well, I would look at the positive side. I think I am making the movie available to a vast number of NRIs, PIOs and non-Indians watching the movies. And instantly, there are 25 million NRIs, PIO students and there are 25 million non-Indians, who watch Indian movies on a regular basis. So, we have an addressable audience of 50 million people and if 0.1% of them were to actually hack the movie, I wouldn't be disappointed. I am very optimistic. We are not here to fight with pirates. We are here to make our content available in a legitimate fashion to an audience, which wants to consume our movie in a legitimate fashion.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Actually, you know what you could be beating the pirates in their own game.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
I am not trying to do any thing; I am just trying to make my film available on day one in a legitimate fashion.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Right, right.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
This is not an anti-piracy activity, as much as it is progressive in a sense that your movie is available even for an audience, which doesn't have access to a movie theatre. Its very often it happens you have a theater next to you, but the timings don't suit you. The cinema is not up to the mark probably. There could be n number of reasons, where even if you have a cinema near you, you won't able to watch the movie. Indians are scattered across the globe, non-Indians watch Indian movies at across the globe. So, we don't release our movies in Japan. We don't release our movies in New Zealand for example. We don't release our movies in Finland, but there are Indians all over the place. A lot of non-Indians are now waking-up to the power of Indian content, that magic of Bollywood. So, you have the German market, which is opening out. You have so many pockets around the world which are warming-up to Bollywood and we are giving them a legitimate option to stream older movies, so we have about 300 plus movies in our catalogue of which just a few of them we've been put up on the site today, but in the next seven days, we have an aggressive role out plan and you will find a lot of new content coming up on rajshri.com, which is available for free, for streaming and for a price for a download.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Right. Rajat as you are speaking a lot of questions keep popping into my mind, so I am going to streamline those. a) I knew a company called GV Films down here, down south in Chennai and I remember a way back in about, I think the year 2000 or little before that, they actually purchased right for about 3000 movies, solely for broadcasting over the Internet.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Yeah, for Webcasting absolutely.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
They didn't go any where at all.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
You know there is a certain thing called, timing the market. I personally believe and I may be wrong that a YouTube could not have happened five years ago. There is a certain time for everything. I think we are in the online video space at just the right time. There is no destination on the Internet for premium Indian entrainment content. We want to fill that void and the kind of response we've received in the last three days, since we've been naive, is overwhelming.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Interesting, interesting. What is your mobile strategy?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
At the moment, RajShri Media, which is the digital entertainment arm of the group, we are mobile content aggregators and distributors. So, we would repurpose the content, so we have 100s of movies, we have TV shows, we have documentaries on the Government of India and other people. We are exclusive licensees of Mattel Toys, of Osho. We have exclusive mobile rights of a Yoga Guru called Baba Ramdev, who's instantly a cult in the country. What we would do is, we would take this content, repurpose it and put it up on the web portals and the voice portals of Indian mobile operators. Going forward, we are looking at having our own web portal. We are also integrating mobile content in an aggressive fashion on our web portal.

So that, you can both download and have a ringtone or a video clip push to your phone, but I see a very bright future in entertainment through mobile phones. Using the mobile device, which is getting more and more powerful, using mobile networks, which are getting more and more powerful, to distribute rich entertainment content. I think the biggest differentiator between RajShri Media and other mobile content aggregators, is the fact that we have a very rich history of content creation. So, while our parent company creates content of three hours and 30 minutes for television, our company is looking at a three minute format. And we are saying, "Can we create original IP, original compelling video programming for mobile phones, for video iPods and for PCs and Mac's. So, basically for digital devices, for distribution via digital media. I think that's going to be a very important differentiator between RajShri Media and any other mobile aggregator. We just aren't an aggregator, we are much more than that, we understand the value of IP, IP whether its Intellectual Property or Internet Protocol.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Well said. Do you see other movie houses following suit?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Well I definitely find every single nature movie house having a digital strategy, whether that is selling your digital rights in block for a certain period of time or its setting up a separate division. In our case, we've set up a separate entity altogether to exploit digital, but I definitely find a very growing awareness, a growing interest in other people and I would very much welcome other content creators, to come into the space, its a very exciting new medium and it's almost like the first guy who made a TV show. He'd looked precedence, he had only cinema as precedence. The guy who first made a Hindi TV show, had only a three hour Hindi movie as a precedence. We said no, three hours will not work. On television you have distraction; it's not a captive audience. You have a 30 minutes span of attention. I am in that position today on the mobile and on PCs and I am saying, "I think 30 minutes is too long, it has to be 3 minutes." It has to be a snack and not a meal. It's something which you consume on the mobile, on the go. What would we like to watch on the mobile, on the go? So, it's fundamentally, a different way of thinking, when you think of consumption of entertainment content on the mobile, on the video iPod.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Now, let's talk Rajat, the person having a conversation with you a little earlier, you've been having some stellar educational qualifications, run us through those.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
I've had my MBA at RajShri Productions, which is my family concern. I am 32, I have been working since I was 16, because in our family -- I was very interested in the movie business and the entertainment business, especially in the globalization of the entertainment business. So, I was encouraged to be a part of discussions. I literally began with serving tea to my father and to my uncles in the office. I began with mundane things, like typing their letters and doing filing of their papers, but that taught me a lot. So, I used to overhear their conversations on the phone. I used to be sitting in a corner during that important meeting. So, I think I've learnt a lot at work. Education has played a very important role, but I think there is nothing which can substitute on the ground experience that midnight oil, which you are burning at the office, can never be substituted, by any kind of formal education. But, what it does is, it brings a method to the madness; it brings a theory to practice.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Right, right. And then you also did a stint at Harvard?

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Yes. I did a short course on International Business. That was more for the exposure; I don't think it's for the education, as much as it's about the experience of the education. I think I learned a lot with that short stint I did, but, I think everyday, every overseas trip you undertake, it just teaches you so much.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Sure. Rajat it's been absolutely wonderful speaking with you. Thank you so much for sharing all the knowledge and here's wishing you, RajShri and VIVAH the very best.

Rajat Barjatya - RajShri Media
Thank you very much, Kiruba, I need these inputs. I don't come from technology standpoint. I don't come from a back ground. We come from a pure play entertainment background and stepping into something, which is fusing entertainment with technology, is very challenging, but very scary as well. I need your good wishes, thank you.

Kiruba Shankar - The Kiruba Show
Definitely, thank you so much. You were listening to Rajat Barjatya, the Managing Director of RajShri Media. Thanks for listening in. Bye bye.