Says Rajnish R., Head - Digital Marketing Revenue and Strategic Business, MSN India: "People who use the Internet are twice likely to go watch movies in multiplexes (than those who do not). Indians abroad go online to read movie reviews before they book a ticket or buy the DVD. So, the adoption of online media is attractive to new-age producers, who themselves are Net-savvy."

Online promotions on large portals such as MSN India typically cost between 800,000 and one million rupees ($17-25K dollars). Promotions on Indiafm, Bollywood's #1 movie portal vary from 50,000 to 1.2 million rupees ($1100 -$26,100) depending on the targeted regions and audience.

Individual film sites are also become more common, and traffic has been booming – Hungama, a top online promotions company for Bollywood, noted that some of their larger sites attract up to 12 million page views a month. Online interactive contests are also becoming popular, and are now sporting major corporate sponsors.

The migration to more sophisticated online marketing methods mirror’s Bollywood’s increasing marketing savvy in other channels. Recent calls for more integrated marketing have increased lately, even culminating in top talent calling for the emulation of Hollywood-style marketing.

The Indian film industry sold more than 3.8 billion tickets in 2005, grossing over $1.14 billion dollars, according to a recent article on Bloomberg. By comparison, Hollywood grossed nearly $9 billion dollars during the same calendar year.