Given his lineage, one expects to meet a rakish go-getter son of soil. But you are in for a surprise when you see a smiling gentleman, quite unlike the imagery you have conjured. An easy conversationalist, Goel is Zee Telefilms' founder Subhash Chandra's younger brother and Zee News director-news Laxmi Goel's son.

He took the reins of E-City and the Fun Republic entertainment chain of the Essel group as CEO in 2002, when the company moved back to a family-run model. Although a strong advocate for family-run businesses, Goel doesn't take relations for granted. "We might be brothers and I can call upon them to do a favour, but at the end of the day we are running a business and we should never forget that," he says.

In a conversation with indiantelevision.com's Trupti Ghag, Goel speaks about E City, Fun Republic and interestingly even real estate.

Excerpts…

Have you floated a separate company for distribution of English films?
E-City Films will be the company for distributing Hollywood movies. We have acquired Alexander and Mask II for $250,000 each. The current list of movies we have includes Million Dollar Baby starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, The Truth about Love, an offbeat and bittersweet comedy starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jimi Mistry and Dougray Scott, Joel Zwick's Elvis has left the Building, and One dollar Curry, amongst others.

Is it a subsidiary of E-City Entertainment?
No. E-City Investments and Holdings is the holding company for both E-City Entertainment and E-City Films. While E-City Entertainment will focus on film exhibition business, E-City Films will be the distribution arm.

What prompted you to get into distribution of international films?
With nearly a 100 multiplexes coming up in the country, the market is now ready for international films in a big way. It is an excellent business arena to broach upon. Also, there has been a pressing need to market the English films well in this country.

The English movie market in India can be pegged at approximately Rs 1 billion and another Rs 400 million for the dubbed film market. Earlier, a territory was sold barely for Rs 5,00,000. But now, with multiple screens available, a larger audience can be tapped. We are looking at a 30 per cent growth in this business.

Who are the key players in Hollywood movie distribution business in India currently?
The aggressive player is Columbia Tristar, which distributes 20 to 25 movies per year. Another key player is Warner Brothers and they distribute roughly 10 to 12 movies per year. But Warner Brothers rather play it safe.

The total count according to you is 100 multiplexes. How many theatres will Fun Republic have? Are you investing Rs 3 billion for 13 multiplexes as you had stated before?
We are on it and now we have a three-year plan to launch about 18 family entertainment centres by March '07. I will not give you specific dates now (laughs). All I can tell you is that about 12-13 Fun Republic multiplexes would be functional by 2005-end. We would have four screens in Delhi, one in Vaishali, one in Lucknow, one in Hyderabad, one in Chembur (Mumbai) and one in Bangalore. Three multiplexes - in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai - are already functional.

What about the non-distribution business? E-city has been taking the locally produced content for TV overseas for some time now.
It is a business avenue that is working quite well. There is significant demand for Indian programmes in non-traditional markets such as China, Greece, Thailand and Indonesia. We have been taking locally produced content for TV to the non traditional market for some time now. Recently, we have succeeded in breaking newer ground in terms of targeting new countries including Israel and Russia.

We did $ 4,00,000 in the last Fiscal and are targeting $9,00,000 this year.

But why non traditional markets? What is the kind of content that such markets demand?
Zee is already strong in the traditional markets, so it makes no sense for us to take our software there. If we are approached by a client from traditional market and Zee wants us to handle them, we would. We have the capability to distribute and access great content and it is a value-add to Zee's business. But we are not looking at treading on Zee's territory; we wouldn't want Zee's share holder to get riled!

Shows like mythological serials, cookery shows, travelogues, movies based show, dramas, family soaps and real life documentaries have worked well in the non traditional markets. Interestingly, it is the mythological and cookery shows that are in great demand.

Going back to movie business, it was also reported that E-city was planning to get into Hindi film distribution in early '03 in collaboration with Padmalaya Telefilms. Are you looking at implementing that plan?
(Laughs) I am never getting into quoting dates again! Yes, we were looking at distributing Hindi films earlier with Padmalaya. But later we didn't think it would be wise.

We might be interested in looking at distributing Hindi films as well. But that is if I find right people. I am not going to do a mistake of investing in a business that I don't have manpower or support system for. We are not going to repeat what happened with Zee Telefilms and Rajshri.

I am currently talking to some strong names in distribution industry and hope that they would come on board. But then, it would also depend on success of our English film distribution.

As for the English movie distribution, how much are you investing this year?
We have invested $700,000 in acquiring nine movies. The plan is to roll out 10-12 international movies a year for distribution in India. We are looking at a bouquet of three to four big movies and rest small budget films. We are relying on building relations with cinema owners.

We hear that you are not looking at distributing movies from bigger banners. Why?
We would be essentially looking at movies produced by independent producers. Big studios already have their distribution arm in India. And there are many interesting movies produced by independent banners, which have good business proposition but fail to work as they are not marketed well.

What are the marketing initiatives you have taken to promote Alexander?
It was the closing film at IFFI's. That served as a big publicity push. Additionally, we have a host of events around it. We are spending a good amount on media promotions. We have a TVC and a contest around the movie, which is splashed across all channels.

We are also dubbing it in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and releasing it across the country.

Why 'Alexander'? Does it have to do anything with 'Troy'? We hear it didn't do good business in the US. How are you assured of Alexander's success?
Why not Alexander! I do not speak with any bias when I say it's a great film. Owing to Alexander's relation with India, it is likely that the audience will connect well with the story. Also owing to the controversial storyline (Alexander is portrayed as a bi-sexual and with Oedipus complex), it has that shock value to it.

But Troy has absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, Troy didn't do as well at the Indian box office. We are not bothered about US box office records, the movie has done well in Russia.

What genres of English movies generally work well with the Indian audience?
Interestingly, it is the faceless, or disaster movies that work well with Indian audiences. Hence you have likes of Anaconda or Twister working well here. After that it is the dramas, period films and comedy that work well.

How has the multiplex business evolved?
E-city is a profitable business and ditto for Fun Republic. Our box office collections for the week are usually Rs 20 lakh including tax. In the last fiscal, our turnover in Mumbai was Rs 275 million (27.5 crore). We didn't have a full operational year. The figure that I have quoted is inclusive of the revenues from the rental spaces.

Real estate and cinema. That is a quirky combination?
We believe that real estate and entertainment go hand in hand. We are already on a look out for spaces to renovate and rent out.

Has competition from Fame Adlabs, which is located nearby, affected your business in Mumbai?
Contrary to common assumption, the competition has grown the market. We have not eaten into each other's pie and neither have we poached on single theatre audiences. Both Fun Republic and Fame Adlabs have created a different breed of audience. In fact, Andheri has become an entertainment hub.

Could you give me an idea about Andheri's exhibition business? What is the general occupancy like for a week?
On any normal day, occupancy is generally 40-70 per cent. The good time for business is generally Diwali time. It is the Ramzan month that generally spells low business.

It has been some almost 18 months since Madison began to handle your AOR (Agency of Record). How has that helped the business?
Honestly speaking... Madison has been only helping us with brand building.

But it is often observed that Fame has much better publicity and does a better business than Fun Republic in Mumbai. Comment.
I don't agree with you. We are quite aggressive on our promotional front. In fact, 20 per cent of our revenue comes from our promotional activity, Republic Rewards programme. We have around 18,000 members in that programme and it is growing further. We have worked on a television commercial on Rs 300 million budget to promote our chain.

I wouldn't disagree that Fame Adlabs Andheri does a better business than Fun Republic Andheri. But that is mainly because they have five screens operating and we have four.

Multiplex chain is a local entertainment centre. How will a TVC across national broadcast channels promote it?
But we are looking at establishing the multiplex chain across the nation, so we would benefit from such a brand building exercise.

Also, multiplex has now ceased to be just an urban consumption. Small towns are lapping it up. In fact, we do much better business in Chandigarh then in Mumbai. We are therefore seriously considering small towns like Sangli, Indore, Nasik and Nanded for our next multiplexes.

What next on the distribution front?
We will be distributing Leonardo Di Caprio starrer Aviator next.