Ticket charges: Theatre owners cry foul

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It might bring cheer for cinegoers if the maintenance charge and reservation charge in movie houses are done away with and thereby ticket fares come down, as promised by Minister K B Ganesh Kumar. But the plan to cut fares may have an adverse impact on the owners of cinema halls, who stand to lose further in an already-struggling business. It was while addressing an Assembly session the other day that Minister K B Ganesh Kumar made the statement. “Even though the theatre gets the maintenance charge out of the ticket fare, we still find it difficult to make both ends meet. These charges somehow provide a small relief for meeting the expenses of a theatre. Theatres at present have to pay exorbitant electricity charges and salaries to staff. Not less than 15  permanent and a few others appointed on a temporary basis are essential to run a theatre. Maintenance cost will have to be met from our pockets once these charges are taken away,” according to Murugan S, owner of Sreekumar-Sreevishakh theatres at Thampanoor. As per the Minister’s statement, cinema halls are not doing the maintenance work properly though they have been levying the maintenance charge for the past 12 years. Gireesh Chandran, owner of Sree Padmanabha theatre, said that in order to run a film theatre in a good condition, a nice share of the amount received from the exhibition charges has to be invested for the theatre. “The owner takes only a paltry sum into his pocket. The major turnover of a cinema theatre comes from four major sources; the exhibitor’s share, maintenance charges, reservation charges and money received by running the canteen. When two of these channels get completely blocked, the theatre owners have to shell out more money from their pockets to maintain the theatre in good condition”, he says. Murugan points out that some filmgoers may take out their ire on the seats in cine halls if they feel the film is boring or think that it is a flop. The damage has to be rectified within one day. However, Gireesh says that cinegoers rarely resort to such activities if the seats are maintained in good condition. Cinegoers too have an opinion on the issue, as Rajesh R, a regular cinegoer from Jagathy, says: “It will be good if the reservation charge is taken away as we can watch the same movie some days after the initial rush is over. Though we are remitting the maintenance charge along with the ticket fare, many theatres are not maintaining even the toilets in a good condition. Some theatres switch off the air conditioner soon after the film starts,” he adds. Now, protesting against the State Government decision to cut ticket rates, the Film Exhibitors’ Federation has called for a token strike in the State on October 5.