Bharti Airtel announced yesterday, a partership with Reliance ADA group owned online streaming and DVD/VCD rental service BigFlix, to offer consumers the ability to watch a stream of 500 movies, 100 TV shows, 100 Trailers and 100 music videos at Rs 229. The first question that came to my mind was - if the content is already available on live streaming on BigFlix, then why would anyone pay for it? Switching To Subscription Reliance Entertainment COO Manish Agarwal told MediaNama that the company is removing 500 select movies from its free streaming website - those that get maximum views on free streaming - into a subscription model. Airtel movies is the first subscription service that has been rolled out, and they are talking to other telecom operators as well. There is a change in business model in the offing, and Agarwal says that they're taking their cues from the US (where NetFlix has also adopted a subscription based streaming model). Agarwal agreed that advertising supported live streaming isn't feasible or profitable, and while, with the popular content being removed from its website, views and hence advertising will be impacted in the short run, but the company now believes that subscription is the way forward. Additionally, Agarwal believes that "the only way to ensure a quality consumer experience is through partnership with telecom operators." Airtel has assured the company that consumers will be able to stream movie content at 2mbps, something it also did for the streaming of the Indian Premier…
