• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Nithya Subramanian

NEW DELHI, Oct. 18

IF you love the old black-and-white Bollywood flicks, you could be in for some bad news. Star Gold — the old movie channel from the Star India stable — is in for a facelift. So move over Dilip Kumar-Madhubala starrer Mughal-e-Azam. Welcome Akshay Kumar-Urmila Matondkar's Aflatoon.

Rights to old classic films being unavailable and limited viewership seem to have been the reasons for the channel to shed its old vintage image and don a newer look. According to industry sources, the channel is now likely to feature newer movies and have programmes contemporarily packaged.

Star officials, while confirming that the channel was being revamped, declined to divulge details. They, however, said that the channel was being overhauled since the rights to most of the old movies had already been sold to some channel or the other. "There are no rights for old movies available. Everything has been sold out to some channel or the other,'' the official said.

Media planners said that the old movie channels were niche channels with limited appeal. "There are far fewer viewers for old movie channels. The greater demand for Cartoon Network prompted Turner International to wind up its Turner Classic Movies (TCM) sometime ago. The company seems to be in no hurry to bring TCM back,'' said a Mumbai-based media planner.

The flavour of the season among various channels, in fact, is to bring the latest blockbusters to the drawing rooms. Zee has bagged the rights to several of the latest blockbusters such as Road, Humraaz, Mujhe Kuch Kehena Hai and the yet-to-be released Hathyar, bringing down the lead time between the theatrical release and television premiere.

Mr Sanjay Bhutiani, head of Leo Entertainment (the specialised division of Leo Entertainment), said that while producers and television channels would benefit, distributors were an unhappy lot. "An earlier premiere on TV would prevent audiences from flocking to theatres, impacting distributors. But the producer makes money through sale of rights and the television channel hopes to earn advertising revenues through good viewership,'' he said.

The scramble for television rights has definitely inflated prices. Industry sources estimate that Zee could have doled out anything between Rs 1 crore and Rs 3 crore for an average movie. "The rates could zoom to anything like Rs 5-6 crore for a blockbuster such as Devdas, a price unheard of earlier,'' said an industry source.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Comment on this article to BLFeedback@thehindu.co.in

Stories in this Section
Old isn't Gold for Star movie channel

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line