Film Production
ETV plans mega movie rights deal
MUMBAI: In what could turn out to be a major bulk deal, Sony Entertainment Television is in the process of selling the single telecast rights for 207 Hindi movies to ETV Network.
Sony has signed an agreement with Goldmines Media Ltd, a Mumbai-based listed company which is primarily in the business of movie acquisitions. ETV plans to buy a bulk of movies from Goldmines Media for telecast on its four regional channels for the Hindi heartland – ETV Bihar, ETV Uttar Pradesh, ETV Madhya Pradesh and ETV Rajasthan.
The cost of the transaction for the satellite rights of the 237 movies that ETV intends to buy is put at Rs 13 million. Besides the 207 movies from Sony, Goldmines Media will provide an additional 30 movies to ETV.
“We have signed an agreement with Sony for extending the single telecast rights to ETV. We have also signed a letter of intent with ETV to supply 237 movies. We expect to finalise the deal with ETV soon,” says Goldmines Media managing director Manish Shah.
The movies from Sony include Rocky (Sanjay Dutt’s debut film), Johnny Mera Naam (Dev Anand and Hema Malini), Sadma (Kamal Hasan and Sri Devi), Utsav (Rekha and Shekhar Suman), Majboor (Amitabh Bachchan), Khoon Pasina (Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Rekha), Zamana Deewana (Shahrukh Khan), Zindagi Ek Jua, Dostana and Moksha.
ETV has earlier done bulk deals with Star India and Zee Telefilms for single telecast rights of Hindi movies. Broadcasters see syndication of movie content as another revenue stream which has opportunity to grow.
Film Production
Priyanka Kaur Dhillon joins SVF Entertainment as lead for music distribution
A seasoned content dealmaker with 16 years in digital and satellite media joins the Bengali entertainment powerhouse as it pushes into the pan-India music market
Mumbai: Priyanka Kaur Dhillon has made her move. The content acquisitions and commercials veteran, most recently commercial manager at Sony Pictures Networks India, has joined SVF Entertainment as lead for music distribution, stepping into one of the more interesting briefs in regional entertainment right now.
SVF is no ordinary regional label. Over 30 years it has built a formidable legacy in Bengali cinema and music, driven by culturally resonant storytelling and a catalogue that consistently punches above its weight. Its recent success with Chiraiya underlines the point. But the Kolkata-based powerhouse now has its sights firmly set beyond Bengal, most visibly through Legacy, a rap reality series produced in collaboration with hip-hop label Kalamkaar that signals a deliberate push into the pan-India music ecosystem.
Dhillon brings precisely the kind of muscle SVF needs for that expansion. At Sony Pictures Networks India, she led film acquisition and commercials and handled music licensing across the entire satellite network. Before that, she spent nearly 15 years at Hungama, rising to assistant general manager and leading strategic content licensing for the platform’s digital entertainment business, with a particular focus on international markets. Her label relationships span the full roster: Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, Believe International, Tunecore, The Orchard and a clutch of smaller aggregators. She has negotiated and closed deals with Hollywood studios, Bollywood production houses and regional content players alike, building pricing models and deal structures off data analysis rather than instinct.
Announcing the appointment, Dhillon said she was “thrilled to begin this journey with an iconic Bengali music label and content powerhouse,” adding that SVF’s “constant drive to push boundaries” was what drew her to the role.
SVF has spent three decades proving that regional does not mean limited. With a sharp commercial operator now steering its music distribution, its bid to go national just got a good deal more serious.
