← Business Models: Industry Specific (Consumer, Services & Financial) (all topics)
VPF (virtual print fee) in film distribution
What it is
A payment from the distributor to the digital cinema service provider that installed the projection equipment, originally designed to let distributors fund digitisation out of the print costs they saved
It sustained the digital service providers who wired India's single screens, and remains a per-show or per-film charge in the exhibition value chain
Impact on industries
- Financed digitisation of thousands of screens that could not fund projection equipment, which is what made simultaneous nationwide releases possible
- For digital service providers it is a recurring, content-linked revenue stream requiring no further capital once equipment is installed
- A pure cost to distributors scaling with screens booked, and as single screens close in favour of multiplexes with owned projection the model's base shrinks
- The original justification has faded - print savings were realised long ago and equipment is largely amortised, so the fee is contested