Scam-hit Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that P.S. Saminathan, who was barred by the capital market regulator Sebi recently, is stepping down as chairman of the company. He will, however, continue as managing director. N. Narayanan, a promoter-director of the company, will take over as…

Balaji Telefilms Ltd, the Mumbai-based producer of television software, posted its first quarterly loss yesterday. The company swung from a net profit of Rs23.85 crore for Q408 to a net loss of Rs14.62 crore for the corresponding quarter this fiscal. Consolidated net profit dropped 99.14% from Rs95.59 crore, to Rs47…

Negotiations this afternoon failed to resolve the month-long impasse in India’s Hindi film industry, where Bollywood producers and multiplex chains are locked in a tussle over sharing revenues. The standoff has affected both sides badly, with multiplex occupancies down to a trickle and more than 15 films awaiting release. “There…

Business Standard reports that Reliance Big TV, the direct-to-home service of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, is in talks with a clutch of marquee private equity firms such as Sequoia Capital, Carlyle Group, KKR as well as US-based DTH firm Direct TV, to offload a 49% stake. Indian laws allow…

The rebelling shareholders of The Indian Film Co. Ltd, the AIM, London-listed speciality film investment firm part owned by Network18 Group promoter Raghav Bahl, may be able to gain some concessions at the extraordinary general meeting scheduled for Feb. 5, including their own representative on the board, reports The Economic…

It’s a boomtime investment during a slowdown. Bollywood portal Chakpak.com which hopes to make money from advertising and merchandising has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Canaan Partners and the existing seed partner, Accel India, formerly Erasmic Venture Fund. ET puts the funding amount at $5 million. What prompted…

Shemaroo Entertainment, the studio, distribution and production conglomerate has tied up with the Israel Mobile and Communication Association (IMA) to ‘explore mobile entertainment’. IMA claims to be the “nucleus of the Israeli communications industry” and represents 100 portfolio companies that offer solutions and services in communications technologies. Although the report…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is close to formally launching its iTunes store in India states this BS report. A truncated version of the India store, featuring only iPhone apps has been live for a while. The main meat, which includes music, movies, podcasts and TV shows are conspicuous by their absence.…

—Anil Ambani is one busy man. Dreamworks SKG is near an agreement tbe funded by Reliance ADAG reports Bloomberg. As with an as yet un-finalized deal, the reports are conflicting. While in one place it states the funding is to the tune of $550 million, a sentence later it states…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is planning to host Bengali movies on YouTube as well as post literary works of renowned novelists on the web. As per the release, West Bengal IT Minister Debesh Das is quoted as stating Google has evinced an interest to include Bengali classical literature and movies in…

P2P TV platform Babelgum is adding what it says is the largest collection of online Bollywood films to its catalogue. Its Colours Of Bollywood channel includes over 100 hours of titles like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naan and Ishq Hai Tumse, thanks to a deal with distributor WEG India Pictures. Well-financed…

The Sanjay Gaikwad led Indian tech-media group Valuable Group has announced the acquisition of MovieBeam. The release claims the acquisition includes all assets, including trademarks and intellectual property rights which its past suitors, including Disney (NYSE: DIS), Intel (NSDQ: INTC) and Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) amongst others, reportedly spent $200 million…

Its hard to resist a headline like that. Reliance ADAG’s love affair with the Bachchan’s continues, this time in the form a mobile blogging application called MoBlog developed especially for Amitabh Bachchan. The re-designed blog features a mobile shaped left navigation featuring twitter-esque updates from Big B (or possibly his…

Eros International, the film production and distribution giant, posted 47% rise from 2007 in pre-tax profits $45.5 million. Its sales were 70% higher in the last financial year to 113 million dollars. 5 out of the top 10 box office successes were Eros releases with Om Shanti Om becoming the…

Nimbus Communications has officially launched its home video entertainment rental and sale business called Showtime. The stores, which distribute DVD, VCDs and Game CDs, are currently only Bombay centric with 8 distribution centres. The release states an investment plan of over Rs 1.5 billion in the next 3 years with…

Film and television production house Moving Picture Company intends to digitize its library of rare archival footage, as per a release. The company has tied up with Movico Technologies, which intends to launch a video aggregation website (yes, another one for the list). Moving Pictures Company is listed on the…

Jaman, the international online and video service which is trying to develop a niche in Bollywood/Indian content, has done a large size content deal with Eros Intl., the biggest distributor of Indian movies. The three year deal with a minimum guarantee and backend royalties, gives Jaman access to 100 films…

Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra has set up an entertainment media fund, reports IANS. There’s no formal announcement yet, but the company has acquired world distribution rights for the film “Mumbai Chakachak” and will co-finance Mansoon Films’ Buddha. Our film industry sources have also ratified the deals, though not the…

Kolkata Knight Riders has tied up with Contests2win.com for its website, Kolkataknightriders.com. According to the release, 6 contests are currently live and another 5 are in the pipeline. I tried out Hangman, and failed on all counts. Definitely not an KKR expert. The games will be plugged into a loyalty…