PremiumBlink on OTT: After 3-week hiatus, Kannada sci-fi thriller picks up streaming momentum again
Director Srinidhi Bengaluru’s film led by Dia-fame Dheekshith Shetty, had notched up 10 million streaming minutes in its first four days on OTT, but then had a technical glitch.
Last Updated: 10.31 PM, Jun 26, 2024
The theatrical and OTT releases of the Kannada film Blink were not easy. In theatres along with a bunch of other Kannada films, Blink struggled for screens and shows and went without any for a week in between, before being able to get it back in theatres and eventually completing a 50-day run.
The hurdles Blink faced
The post-theatrical OTT deal did not come easily to them, and when it did, they were plagued by another issue. Blink had been put on Amazon Prime Video for a pay-per-view module, but what happened is that the streamer made the film available I the US and UK market at first, where it was pirated. Even before Blink began streaming in India, a crystal-clear print of the film was all over the internet.
Despite this setback, once the film was on Prime Video in India, it quickly got to 10 million streaming minutes in only 4 days. However, within days the team had to take Blink down , after they received a notice from a music label about the use of a couple of songs in the film, including as Dheekshith’s ringtone and in a sequence in which Gopalkrishna Deshpande and Chaithra J Achar sing old Bollywood tunes. Removing all of this took them three weeks and it was only on June 18 that Blink was eventually back on Prime Video.
A little while ago, producer Ravichandra AJ revealed that Blink has clocked a total of 25 million streaming minutes so far. “Just before we took Blink down, we’d got to 16.5 million and now stand at 25 million. There’s been a drop, but viewership is picking up again,” he says, adding that owing to the 3 week gap, the film no longer comes up in recommendation.