Home Entertainment Week
18th October 2007
AAM signs host of digital deals
Arts Alliance (AAM) has been busy in the download market having signed deals with Pathé and ITV DVD.
The AAM deals come as a new report predicts digital downloads in the UK will top £163 million in 2007. According to market analysts Verdict Research, the figures, which include music and video, will be up a sizeable 45.5 per cent on last year and are expected to soar ever higher, reaching £600 million by 2012. The ITV DVD deal will see a range of movies from ITV’s archive available to download, enabling viewers to download-to-own classics such as Brief Encounter, the Carry On series and The Shawshank Redemption at prices starting from £2.99. The digital distributor has also signed a deal that will see Pathé movies such as Talk To Her, Memento and The Queen added to its download library. The titles will be available via AAM’s download site Vizumi, as well as partner sites such as Lovefilm, AOL and Emap’s Empire. AAM already has the largest online distribution rights collection in Europe, with deals in place with major studios such as TCFHE, Universal, SPHE and Warner.
In addition to that, AAM has also joined forces with Paramount Pictures International (PPI) over digital cinema deployment. The non-exclusive long term agreement means PPI will supply its films in digital format to AAM deployed DCI-compliant digital cinema screens in the UK and Ireland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Nordic region and Benelux. Earlier this year, AAM, which is the only studio-backed digital cinema integrator in Europe, made similar agreements with Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures International.