MUMBAI: Shemaroo has entered into an exclusive agreement with Novex Communications for licensing rights of all its movies to cable TV operators. The home video player, which also has a huge movie library for satellite telecast, was earlier selling its cable TV rights directly to multi-system operators (MSOs).
The movies for cable TV telecast which are already with Hathway Cable & Datacom will also be transferred to Novek after the expiry of its term. Hathway had bought five year rights in a bulk deal, a majority of which are expiring by the end of this year.
Shemaroo will, thus, be doing away with the fixed fee model whereby it was selling cable TV rights to MSOs. "We will be able to maximise our revenue through the licensee model. We are given a minimum guaranteed amount and on increased growth, will have a revenue share," says Shemaroo Films MD Raman Maroo.
Already in the kitty is a collection of over 500 Hindi movies, while at least 15-16 will be added every month. "Almost 80 per cent of what we had sold to Hathway would expire by the end of this year. We will be assigning all our movies to Novex for cable TV exploitation. We have struck a two-year exclusive deal with them," confirms Maroo.
Novex Communications plans to charge cable operators a fee of Rs 35 per subscriber, though in reality most of the agreements will be lumpsome deals. "We will enter into annual deals with cable operators. Unlike most of the other movie content suppliers, we will provide actual software to cable operators. We will have at least 700 movies for licensing," Novex Communications promoter Ketan Kanakia says.
Novex has already signed a deal with the HFCL Infotel subsidiary Connect Broadband Services Ltd for J&K, Himachal, Punjab and parts of Haryana.
MSOs, who run cable movie channels bank on the acquisition model. Cable movie channels CVO and CCC, promoted by MSOs Indusind Media and Hathway respectively, acquire movies for cable TV telecast. On the other hand, it is the licensing model which is popular with bulk of the cable TV operators.
