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Come September, HBO to serve film feast

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Aug. 10

FOUR top US-based film production studios -- Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), Columbia Tristar, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros -- have teamed up to tap the potentially large English movie viewing public in Asia, which includes In dia.

Come September, there will be more Hollywood blockbusters on the channel, which currently airs only movies produced by Warner Bros. In a deft move, each of the four partners of Turner International, which has the rights to distribute and market the chann el in India as well as in the rest of Asia, have decided to hold 25 per cent stake in HBO Asia.

The Indian operations will be controlled by this new company which will operate out of Singapore, Mr. Dan Murrell, President and CEO, HBO Asia, said at a press conference.

The rights for telecasting the movies are exclusive to this region. For one year of its premier on HBO, the movie cannot be aired on any other channel, according to the agreement by the four partners.

AXN, which is part of the Sony Entertainment group and which has rights to show SPE (Columbia Tristar) movies in India, will also not air the same movies in the country, Mr. Murrell added.

``Owing to this arrangement, beginning September 1, 2000, HBO will bring viewers some of the popular Hollywood flicks such as Godzilla, My Best Friend's Wedding, Shakespeare in Love, Patch Adams and Forrest Gump. We now expect to dramatically expand view ership at a rate higher than we have in the last four months of our presence in India,'' Mr. Anshuman Misra, Managing Director of Turner International, said.

He said HBO will also begin accepting advertising from September, Mr. Misra said. But he declined to mention names of the advertisers who have already sought to reserve ad blocks on the channel.

Mr. Misra added that the charges of the pay channel would not be increased in the near future. According to officials, HBO reaches 8 million C&S (cable and satellite) homes in India.

Pic.:Mr. Dan Murrell, President and CEO, HBO (right), with Mr. Anshuman Mishra, Managing Director of Turner International, at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday.