ITV

Tag: Asia Vision

  • Home video major consortium Asia Vision being disbanded

    MUMBAI: Asia Vision, a consortium of home video majors Bombino, Indus and Time, will soon become a defunct company.
     

    The business activities of Asia Vision will be pursued independently by the three companies. “We will be phasing out Asia Vision. We will be pursuing these interests in our individual companies,” says Time Group promoter Dhiraj Shah.
     
     

    Asia Vision’s exclusive licensee deal with Columbia Tristar to distribute the Hollywood major’s home video products in India ended on 31 July. “We have been licensee holders of Columbia Tristar for the past four years. The contract is not being renewed,” says Shah.

    Asia Vision has also stopped purchasing and selling cable TV rights of movies. “The cable TV business is piracy driven. We decided to get out of it. Asia Vision doesn’t indulge in trading of movie rights to the cable TV industry anymore,” says Shah.

    A few years back, the company had sold its 49 per cent stake in Cable Video India Ltd (CVIL) to Hinduja TMT. CVIL, in which HTMT already held 51 per cent stake, owned and operated CVO, a cable Hindi movie channel.

    Asia Vision has also stopped acquiring satellite and terrestrial rights to movies. A major chunk of the library has been sold to Zee Telefilms, Star India, Sahara, and Doordarshan. “We have 200-300 movies still remaining in the company. We plan to sell them and exit,” says Shah. Asia Vision had major activities in trading on satellite and terrestrial rights of movies.

    All these activities will be pursued individually by Time, Indus and Bombino. Time Group continues to be involved in movie production and acquisition of multiple TV rights of movies.

    Asia Vision also runs commercial video copyrights under which it issues movie licenses to video parlours across the country.

  • Columbia Tristar & Asia Vision launch international quality DVDs

    MUMBAI: Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, along with Asia Vision Home Entertainment yesterday launched international quality DVDs in India at the Times Group owned music store Planet M in Mumbai’s Andheri suburb.
    Columbia Tristar is the first Hollywood studio to manufacture quality DVDs in India and that too at an affordable price. Present on the occasion were Columbia Tristar country manager N Muthuram and Asia Vision director Dhirubhai Shah. Asia Vision is the sole licensee in India of Columbia Tristar.
    Muthuram said, “It is a momentous day for us as we are launching a totally new format which is the DVD format in the country. DVDs have been in India, but the quality is not like the international ones.” He also said that Columbia Tristar will from now on bring DVDs in India on an ongoing basis and will also manufacture them here. “The quality is going to be international class because of the high standards that we have set for ourselves,” he added.
    Talking on the occasion Shah said, “This is the first time that a Hollywood studio has brought DVDs for India. The master copies are made in Australia and will be replicated in New Delhi.”
    “At present we have come out with four movies but very soon we are going to release the DVDs of Stuart Little 2 and Men in Black 2. Within the next three months we are also planning to release all time classics like The Guns of Navarone and McKenna’s Gold,” Muthuram added.
    The first lot of DVDs that the companies have come out with for the Indian market are Tobey Maguire starrer Spiderman which is the biggest home entertainment product in the world, Jodie Foster starrer Panic Room, Steven Segal starrer Half Past Dead and The One. The introductory offer is that on purchase of every DVD, one VCD will be given free and the DVDs are available at an inaugural price of Rs 599.