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Soap boss to bring cinemas to rural areas
Movie exhibitor PT MVP Indonesia, owned by Indonesian soap opera baron Raam Punjabi, has decided to stand out from the crowd by establishing cinemas this year in small rural areas where they will face zero competition from big players
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ovie exhibitor PT MVP Indonesia, owned by Indonesian soap opera baron Raam Punjabi, has decided to stand out from the crowd by establishing cinemas this year in small rural areas where they will face zero competition from big players.
MVP, formerly known as PT Tripar Multivision Plus and famous for producing tear-jerking soap operas, plans to open five new cinemas with a total of 35 screens by year-end under the brand Platinum Cineplex, including ones in Lahat and Baturaja, both in South Sumatra, and in Palopo, South Sulawesi.
“Indonesia has a population of 258 million people and we have only 1,000 screens, while India has 10,000 screens. So there is still a demand for cinemas in the country. However, it’s already too crowded in Jakarta. That’s why we are going to other places,” Punjabi, MVP’s president director, told The Jakarta Post recently.
From 2012 to now, MVP has operated five cinemas with a total of 21 screens, namely in Magelang and Sukoharjo in Central Java, Sidoarjo in East Java, Cibinong in West Java and Bitung in North Sulawesi.
“We are emotionally attached to our locations because it’s a passion that drives us to be in these small, small rural areas, where other big players may be still considering [opening businesses].”
The company also operates Platinum in various Southeast Asian countries, namely Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Timor Leste. It is even the biggest cinema operator by screen in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is one of the region’s leading buyers and distributors of independent Hollywood and Asian films, releasing titles across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia and Timor Leste.
Nonetheless, MVP is facing a serious challenge to overcome the domination of the big traditional players in its hometown. PT Nusantara Sejahtera Raya, the operator of Indonesia’s largest movie theater network Cinema 21, currently has 864 screens in 157 cinemas in 36 cities.
In December 2016, GIC Pte, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, agreed to invest Rp 3.5 trillion (US$260 million) in Nusantara Sejahtera Raya to help expand its theater chain across the country. Cinema 21 was established in 1986 by businessman Sudwikatmono in partnership with Raam Punjabi.
Meanwhile, publicly listed cinema operator PT Graha Layar Prima, the operator of movie theater network CGV Cinemas — formerly known as CGV Blitz — aims to provide 270 screens at 40 cinemas nationwide by the end of 2017, up from the current 185 screens in 27 movie theaters.
“To compete with other operators, we’ll keep giving more options to customers, including by screening alternative movies from India, South Korea and Japan in our theaters. We have also dedicated one screen in Jakarta specifically for local Indonesian movies,” Graha Layar Prima corporate secretary Mutia Resty told the Post late last year.
CGV expects to operate 1,000 screens in 100 cinemas by 2020. Cinema 21 welcomed more than 25 million moviegoers and CGV Cinemas 10 million last year.
On the other hand, publicly listed media company PT First Media, owned by the Lippo Group, is also on its way to boost the market share of subsidiary PT Cinemaxx Global Pasifik, which operates movie theater network Cinemaxx.
Cinemaxx currently has 100 screens in 14 locations and aims to control 2,000 screens in 300 locations within the next 10 years.
Commenting on such a tight competition in the domestic movie industry, Punjabi was optimistic his company could gradually increase its market share in the long run.
“We don’t want to take them down. Instead, we want to accelerate our speed so that eventually we can be on the same level with them,” Punjabi said. “It might take another 10 years to meet that target, unless the government issues some policies to support the idea of equality [among players in industry].”
Earlier last year, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration announced the removal of the movie industry from the nation’s negative investment list (DNI), as part of its 10th economic stimulus package aimed at reversing sluggish growth. The government expects the new policy to allow greater foreign investment in the industry.
