Reliance ADAG lines up mega show in home videos

THE Reliance ADAG-owned Reliance Entertainment is in an overdrive. The group is entering the Rs 300-crore burgeoning, but yet unoragnised, home video market in both the sellthrough and rental format. Reliance ADAG plans to pump in around $100 million over the next couple of years — similar to its investments in the gaming space — for its three-pronged home entertainment venture, which will also include an internet presence.
The group will kickstart its home video venture from Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Pune starting June. The venture will be modelled parallel to the retail growth of its gaming cafes Zapak Zones through a franchisee route. Sources said the company is also looking at launching an internet portal which will allow for movie downloads to run in sync with the home video plan. Sources said Reliance ADAG will stick to competitive pricing, considering Moser Baer’s game charging less than Rs 50 prices for DVDs.
Reliance Entertainment is also working on growing its international presence, through Adlabs, in the film distribution arena and a strategic tieup in this space is on the anvil. There are plans to beef up Adlab’s screen presence in India and take it to 250 by 2008 end. With news of big Hollywood studios such as Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures scouting for partners, Reliance ADAG can emerge as a likely contender for these Hollywood biggies, although nothing has been finalised on this front as yet.
Sources added that Reliance will not get into a one-off movie distribution tie-up but instead will strike a long-term strategic partnership as a preferred way of entering into an alliance. The company has started liasoning with international studios and is setting up offices internationally.
In the online gaming space, where the group had earlier announced an investment of $100-million over the next three years, Reliance ADAG wants to spread the Zapak Zones, its gaming cafes, to 100 cities. These gaming zones will also double up as a retail space for DVDs and CDs and thereby facilitate the growth of the home video venture. Besides Moser Baer which has forayed into the home video market, Nimbus too has said that it will invest $34 million in the DVD rental business. With Reliance’s entry there could be more action in this space which is largely unorganised till now in India.