Here is why US is an attractive market for bollywood content. Vinod Bhat, co-founder of on-demand video service BODVOD, says in an interview: “The South Asian market in the country (US)...is probably the most affluent group out of any of the ethnic or even non-ethnic groups that exist...the median household income is $68,771 according to the last census update.”
As for the education levels, about 61 per cent of them have a college degree. They are overall Web and tech-savvy with 81 per cent of them having broadband access in their homes. Bhat says that it’s an “attractive demographic, as they number between 3-5 million people, and tends to be mostly concentrated in or around urban areas—but just across the country entirely.
So, Bhat says, in terms of this audience behavior, “bollywood is the content piece that really transcends all age groups. So it’s not really an older-skewing thing or a younger-skewing thing, it appeals to everybody in the demographic.”
There are other reasons too. There are only about 80 screens in the US that really show bollywood movies today. However, a bollywood movie will be in the top 20 of a weekend box office gross. “It’ll be like #18 or #19, but on a per-screen level, you’ll see that it has among the highest engagement numbers in the industry. So if the average screen pulls in, say, $2,000, the Bollywood movies would be at close to $5,000-6,000,” says Bhat.
The full interview here.