ADAG Group-led Reliance MediaWorks (RMW) on Thursday entered into a strategic business alliance with UFO Moviez, a digital satellite cinema network company. According to the alliance, UFO will set up an additional encoding and encrypting facility at RMW?s premises. RMW will pay a rental fee to UFO for the services.
Anil Arjun, chief executive officer of RMW, said, ?The alliance will ensure that the exhibitors can enhance their theatrical revenues as they could have hassle-free, timely release and greater availability of movies without issues of print quality or delivery dates.? He added that the primary benefit of this pact will be to ensure a more controlled environment for conversion of films to the digital platform in a standardised manner for uniform quality and security. Meanwhile, shares of RMV slumped 1.03% to close at Rs 216.70 on the BSE on Thursday.
RMW is currently looking at undertaking around 15 movie digitization projects on a weekly basis. ?With the right mix of programming, including digital ones, a film can be released simultaneously in several more screens, leading to over 20% increase in box office revenues, which benefit the producers, distributors and exhibitors,? he said.
Currently, there are 1,800 screens in India equipped with UFO?s advanced digital cinema technology.
Kapil Agarwal, joint managing director of UFO Movies India, said, ?The alliance will help us focus on our core business of technology development and greater proliferation of digital systems across cinemas, while creating a significant platform for producers and distributors to optimise their print costs and spend more on marketing and publicity within the overall release cost, resulting in accelerating of the recovery process.?
While RMW has dominant presence across the entire film and media services value chain, UFO movies is considered the largest chain of satellite-based digital cinemas globally.