euro news_news 28/11/2013 18:09 Page 2
Education, innovation key to end
movie piracy
ducating current and
prospective movie
fans and innovating
with accessible, affordable
business models are key to
combating online movie
piracy, according to
panellists at a debate on the
topic organised by procopyright consumer
education body the Industry
Trust for IP Awareness as
part of the BFI London Film
Festival.
Noting that the Trust had been
set up some 10 years previously,
Liz Bales, director general, said that piracy
had “hugely changed, and with that, the way
that we talk to audiences and the way that we
engage with audiences, that changes as well.
Education is one of the things the Trust does,
and it’s important to put the whole picture
together.”
Referring to previous initiatives regarding
rights and protecting intellectual property,
Bales said this continued to be an important
part of what the industry did in terms of
curbing the impact of piracy. “The other most
E
important thing the industry does around
reducing the impact of piracy is about
innovation; ensuring that there are fantastic
services out there that offer state-of the-art
cinema experiences, fantastic quality on discs
and that the product, increasingly so in terms
of digital offering, is out there. That’s where
we’ve seen real growth and real change over
the last 18 months. There’s a whole load of
ways consumers can engage in content.” She
said the message should not be negative in
terms of the detrimental effects of piracy, but
should be on the basis that
“film is fantastic. It’s about
inspiring people and directing
them where to go.”
Mark de Quervain at
FindAnyFilm produced
research which suggested that
the cinema industry was highlyreliant on a small number of
cinephiles for its revenues, also
accepting that among that
number were a percentage of
illegal downloaders.
Orlando Parfitt, of Yahoo!
UK noted the prevalence of
illegal sites when carrying out
simple movie title searches on leading search
engines. “There was nothing on any of those
front pages from iTunes, or LOVEFiLM or
Netflix, which are the obvious three legal ways
to watch those films. It’s something we all
have to look at. It’s a huge battle. A huge
amount of traffic is being sucked up by pirate
sites,” he admitted, adding that it was the
responsibility of legal providers of movie
content to get their house in order in terms of
optimising websites so that the first option in
such searches should be a legal option.
AMC buys Chellomedia channels for $1bn
iberty Global
International (LGI) is
selling its international
content division Chellomedia
to AMC Networks for
approximately $1 billion.
The assets being sold
include Chello Multicanal,
Chello Central Europe,
Chello Zone, Chello Latin
America and the broadcast
solutions unit Chello DMC.
In addition, Chellomedia’s
stakes in its joint ventures
with CBS International, A+E
Networks, Zon Optimus and
certain other partners are
also part of the deal. Liberty
Global will retain its Dutch
premium channel business,
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8 EUROMEDIA
which consists of its Film1
and Sport1 channels.
Mike Fries, president and
CEO of Liberty Global,
described the deal as “a
great transaction for all
parties”, noting that
Chellomedia was one of the
largest international channel
groups with distribution to
more than 390m households
in 138 countries. “I have no
doubt that the management
team will continue to build
tremendous value as part of
AMC. For Liberty Global, this
transaction is attractive from
both a valuation and
liquidity perspective. It also
simplifies our business and
allows us to focus on our
core markets and more
strategic programming
opportunities.”
“Chellomedia has
developed a remarkable
portfolio of popular
channels that reach
hundreds of millions around
the world. As AMC Networks
has expanded
internationally, we have had
a great desire to do
something we consider
fundamentally strategic,
which is to take our content
and put it on channels we
own. This acquisition allows
us to secure a large, global
platform on which to
distribute our increasingly
successful original
programming through a
collection of strong, wellestablished and wellmanaged assets worldwide,”
said Josh Sapan, president
and CEO of AMC Networks.
“Together, we can grow
these assets and make them
even more popular and
valuable around the world.”
The agreement includes
the acquisition of
Chellomedia’s operating
businesses including: Chello
Central Europe, Chello Latin
America, Chello Multicanal,
Chello Zone, the ad sales
unit Atmedia and.
The transaction is
expected to close in the first
quarter of 2014 and is
subject to limited closing
conditions. The transaction
is not co nditioned on any
regulatory approvals. The
assets were put up for sale
in May 2013 and it is
understood that other
interested bidders included
Scripps Networks Interactive,
Turner Broadcasting System
and Discovery
Communications.