Shemaroo inks $6.6-million satellite deal with Zee

Monday, 31 December 2007, 16:49 IST
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Mumbai: Shemaroo Entertainment, one of India's largest aggregators of movies for broadcast, has entered into a 10-movie deal with Zee TV worth 260 million ($6.6 million) for satellite broadcast. Zee TV will telecast these movies on its satellite channel over a period of five years from 2008. The movies include "Dhamaal", "Dhol", "Manorama Six Feet Under", "Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar", "Raqueeb", "Yatra" and "Anuranan" (the Hindi version). This is said to be one of the costliest ever deals Zee has made with a content provider. "The deal is worth the cost, considering many of these movies which figure in the deal with Shemaroo will be telecast on television for the first time," a source in Zee TV told IANS, justifying the staggering cost of the deal for a bouquet of just 10 films. Shemaroo, which owns the different television rights of more than 1,200 films in Hindi and other Indian languages, had provided films for satellite broadcast to Zee and other channels earlier also. But its latest deal with Zee is considered most lucrative. "Content syndication involves a lot of thought and planning, keeping in mind the nature of content and the platform of syndication. We are certain that this satellite deal with Zee will prove beneficial to both," said Vinod Karani, vice-president, content syndication, Shemaroo Entertainment. According to Shemaroo director Hiren Gada, the company has India's largest library of films. "We own different rights of these films and part with them for specific period, ranging from 5 to 7 years, to different electronic media. We constantly replenish our library with new films," he said.
Source: IANS