Hindi
Pyramid Saimira buys 51% in Dimples Cine Advertising; plans UK subsidiary
MUMBAI: Pyramid Saimira Group has acquired a 51 per cent stake in Mumbai-based Dimples Cine Advertising and Dimples Cine Activations for an undisclosed amount.
Dimples Cine promoter Kamal Karamchandani will further dilute 23 per cent through private placement. “We will retain 26 per cent and dilute the rest to other investors. The valuation is confidential at this stage,” says Karamchandani.
Pyramid Saimira expects the topline to benefit by Rs 1.5 billion in FY‘09 due to the acquisition of the cinema advertising company. “Dimples Cine will automatically reach out to 1000 theatres and have geographical and customer diversity. Besides, they will also be targeting business from non Pyramid theatres. We are aiming at a topline rise of Rs 1.5 billion from this in FY‘09, says Pyramid Saimira Theatre MD PS Saminathan.
Dimples Cine, which offers services for both on-screen as well as off-screen advertising, has rights to 250 screens for advertisements. Pyramid currently has 703 screens.
The target is to have access to 4,000 screens by 2010, Saminathan said. Pyramid plans to have grown to 2000 screens by then. “We plan to ramp up Dimples‘ access to 4000 theatres. We will have signage as well as out-of-home content. The advantage is that we will have content, distribution and marketing under one umbrella. This also brings a huge ability for us to cross promote on the platform because we have theaters, films, TV news media as well as the magazines. So to an advertiser Pyramid is a complete media company, which can give a huge amount of eyeball mileage across different segmental platforms,” says Saminathan.
Dimples Cine Advertising would continue to remain headquartered in Mumbai, while becoming a part of the Pyramid Saimira Group universe.
Keynote Corporate Services was the advisor to Pyramid Saimira for this transaction.
As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Pyramid Saimira Productions Ltd (PSPL), a subsidiary company for film and TV production business, is planning to float an initial public offering (IPO) to raise Rs 1.5 billion.
Recently, Pyramid Saimira acquired Texas-based FunAsiA through its subsidiary – Pyramid Saimira Entertainment America Inc.
Pyramid is also planning to float a subsidiary company in London to target the European market. “We may look at acquiring a company in the range of $100 million. For the US and Europe operations, we are going to reach out to the Asian diaspora. In the South East Asian region, on the other hand, we are setting up native theatre chains,” says Saminathan.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
