When media consolidation is good

When multiplexes came in with a cleaner, better experience, it forced single screens to either refurbish or to become part of a chain

Now here is an industry where consolidation has been a force for good.

In the financial year ending March 2019, the total number of tickets sold by the top three multiplex chains in India — PVR Cinemas, Inox Leisure and Cinepolis — rose 23 per cent over the previous year to more than 200 million. For many years now the cinema going habit has been in decline. The box-office growth you read about has come, largely, from raising ticket prices. Going by back-of-the-envelope calculations Indian films sell close to a billion tickets. But in the absence of any proper numbers,