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Even as CITV’s
Tamil channel is struggling to stay afloat in the UK market, B4U
Television Network has acquired 25 blockbuster Tamil movies from
the company at an undisclosed price. CITV is promoted by Tamil film
producer Dr Murali. B4U will telecast the films on its movie channel
for the Middle East and South African feeds. B4U Movies is introducing
one slot per week for the language movies. The Tamil films, which
have stars like Rajnikant and Kamal Haasan, have been acquired from
CITV for five years. “We have taken telecast rights of 25 big
Tamil movies from CITV. The opportunity came and we decided to grab
it for such markets as there is a substantial Tamil population in
these countries. We are trying it on an experimental basis. If it
works well for us, we will try out Malayalam language movies,”
said B4U Television Network global CEO Ravi Gupta.
B4U, however,
will not have rights to telecast these movies in India. Incidentally,
Sun TV has a huge library of Tamil movies and has launched a specific
channel, KTV, where it airs three movies a day. B4U Movies has a
programme called South Side Story, which is a round up of new movies
in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. CITV was available in the UK on
the Astra satellite as a pay service, but was pulled off air as
it faced competition from the launch of other Tamil language channels
in the UK. Deepam, a pay channel, gets syndicated Tamil content
from Sun TV. Facing a severe financial crunch, CITV sold its Tamil
movie library to B4U Networks and is trying to restructure operations.
A few days back, the Tamil channel resumed service, but as a free-to-air
operator. B4U, recently launched in Europe and North Africa has
a new platform put up by Ary Digital. The Indian beam of B4U Movies
also reaches the entire South East Asia and the company is close
to signing cable and direct-to-home deals in the region.
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