The Pyramid catalogue includes 440 Tamil films, 195 Carnatic classical/devotional and 45 Malayalam films. Pyramid group company Music Master Audio and Video Manufacturing Co (P) Ltd deals with audios while Pyramid Audio India Ltd deals with the CDs of these numbers.

Addressing a media conference on the agreement, GCIL vice-president - Commercial N Sathasivam said that his company had recently acquired the rights to sell the Pyramid catalogue in international markets (excluding India) through its subsidiary RPG Global Music Ltd headquartered in Mauritius and operating in Singapore. This company will oversee sales of the Pyramid catalogue in the Asian countries and will also enter Africa.

Saregama Plc, another company in the UK where GCIL has a 71 per cent holding will take care of demand for these songs in Europe, the US, Caribbean Islands and Canada.

While the music will be sold under the HMV brand, owners of the copyrights Pyramid will be acknowledged and the Pyramid logo displayed.Pyramid started making an entry into the Tamil film world after GCIL started slackening in this market on account of some financial constraints. This was in the late '80s. Pyramid gained a rapid entry and virtually got a stronghold into Tamil films in the 1990s. This was a good period for the group, according to director Ghanshyam Hemdev. ``We had 40 hits in seven years when one in a year is enough for comfort levels,'' he said.

However, the Pyramid group did not have a wide distribution infrastructure available and could not cater adequately to pockets of demand from overseas as also outside of Tamil Nadu. Demand also came from unexpected places like Japan and Spain. The tie-up was therefore found mutually satisfactory. The Tamil film music has got a market second only to Hindi in the country, the size being 25 million cassettes.