SAB Group dedicated entities for movie production
The company has earmarked investments worth Rs 500 crore across the three companies over the next three financial years. The group has demerged wholly owned subsidiaries TV Vision Ltd and SAB Events and Governance Now Media Ltd into independent listed entities.
Markand Adhikari, vice-chairman and managing director, SAB Group, said: “We don’t want to restrict ourselves to the broadcast business and so we decided to operate in three verticals, with dedicated teams for each. This will also help unlock shareholder value for the various businesses under the entertainment umbrella.”
The group currently operates five channels (which are now under TV Vision) in the music and regional space. It has already carried out a test launch of its Northeastern channel Se7en (pronounced ‘seven’) which will feature international and locally produced music content. The channel is expected to be launched by the end of this month.
By December this year, the company will launch its comedy focused brand Happii. The brand will operate in four verticals – on television as a comedy focused Hindi general entertainment channel Happii, on-ground as Happii-G, on digital as Happii-Fi and as an audio only-mobile entertainment vertical in the form of Happii-Me.
On the movie production front, the company will launch three to four slate from next year, and intends to produce small-to-medium-budget films. “Keeping in mind the financial duress in the industry right now, we’ll be launching the slate next year when things have stabilised and will focus on films in the Rs 20-30-crore budget range,” said Adhikari. This year, the company co-produced Pyaar Ka Punchanama 2 and Great Grand Masti.
SAB Events and Governance Now Media currently brings out a fortnightly English magazine that focuses on policy and governance issue and is targeted at Tier-II and Tier-III markets. Events are also conducted on these topics by the same company. Currently these events have been focused on Delhi and Mumbai. The magazine will also have digital presence in the near future.
