ZEE5 has finally given in to the wishes of its subscribers and RRR fans. The homegrown streaming service will now release RRR on OTT as free to watch for all its subscribers. RRR releases on ZEE5 on May 20, in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada languages.
With this new development in place, global streaming giant Netflix has also preponed the release of RRR in Hindi on its platform. RRR in Hindi will now stream on Netflix from May 20, instead of the earlier announced date of June 2.
Readers may recall that ZEE5 had earlier announced that RRR will be available to stream on its platform only in the TVOD format, which is the pay-per-view format. This effectively meant that viewers would have to pay a certain amount to watch RRR on ZEE5, even if they were paid subscribers of ZEE5.
This announcement from ZEE5 had invited massive outrage from paid subscribers of the platform. Many had questioned the reasoning behind charging extra for watching RRR. ZEE5 subscribers raged, “Why should we pay more to watch RRR on ZEE5, when we’re already paying to subscribe to the platform?”
ZEE5 charging pay per view for RRR for the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada versions is also not fair for Netflix, which holds the streaming rights for RRR in Hindi. Netflix had already announced that it would stream the Hindi version of RRR free to watch for its subscribers. So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. We feel there should be parity between the different platforms streaming the same film.
The public backlash has forced ZEE5 and RRR producers to rethink their release mode. ZEE5 is now releasing the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada versions of RRR free to watch for its existing subscribers.
However, there’s a catch for new subscribers to ZEE5. Normally, the annual subscription for ZEE5 costs ₹500 for new subscribers. However, today onwards, the cost of the ZEE5 subscription is ₹699. The ZEE5 website is offering a combined pack of ₹699 which includes rent for watching RRR + annual subscription.
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