ITV DVD SIGNS DOWNLOAD TO OWN
DEAL WITH ARTS ALLIANCE MEDIA
LONDON, 15th October 2007 – Arts Alliance Media (AAM), Europe’s leading provider of digital film distribution services, and ITV DVD, part of Granada Ventures; the consumer products division within ITV Plc, have announced a deal that will see a range of films from the ITV DVD archive available to download. The agreement will allow viewers to download-to-own classic films such as the Carry On… series, Brief Encounter, and contemporary hits such as The Shawshank Redemption.
The titles will be available via AAM’s download site Vizumi, www.vizumi.com and also from AAM’s partner sites in the Vizumi Network such as LOVEFiLM (www.lovefilm.com), AOL (www.aol.co.uk) and Emap’s Empire (www.empiremoviedownloads.com).
Customers will be able to download a copy of the films to keep for as little as £2.99.Mark Livingstone, President of Arts Alliance Media, commented “The addition of ITV DVD’s fantastic library of classic films to the Vizumi Network means that people now have a convenient, easy way to buy copies of some of their favourite movies instantly.”
Steve Gallant, Publishing Director, ITV DVD said “DTO is an exciting area of the video industry, and we are keen to establish ITV DVD as a major player. ITV DVD owns one of the largest English speaking film collections in the world and the deal with Arts Alliance Media will enable a broad distribution for some of our best loved film classics. This is just the first tranche of content and we intend to add some prime TV catalogue in due course.”
Arts Alliance Media has the largest aggregated online distribution rights collection in Europe, with the Vizumi Network currently carrying content from 5 of the 6 major studios. Vizumi also provides content for, and powers downloads on a number of partner sites - a complete list of which can be seen at www.vizumi.com.
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Notes to Editors:
About ITV DVD
ITV DVD is part of Granada Ventures, the consumer products division within ITV Plc. It is the company behind one of the UK’s most comprehensive film and video collections with over 3000 titles and is a major player in the home entertainment market. The range includes titles in contemporary and classic film (Shawshank Redemption, Fabulous Baker Boys, Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes), children’s titles (Numberjacks, Thunderbirds, Pocoyo, Engie Benjy), drama (Inspector Morse, Cracker, Prime Suspect, Murphy's Law, Lewis, Ultimate Force) sport (Arsenal, and Liverpool football clubs) and interactive DVDs (Rovers Return Pub Quiz, Top of the Pops Ultimate Music Quiz, Little Britain Interactive, Classic Bullseye Interactive). ITV DVD also owns the video rights for the Rank and ITC film collections which contain over 1500 classic British films.
About Arts Alliance Media:
- Arts Alliance Media (AAM), based in London and Paris, is Europe's leading provider of digital film distribution services, dedicated to building a European digital network to deliver film to the cinema, to the home and between industry players. AAM was founded in 2003 by Thomas C. Hoegh who serves as Chairman of the Board
- For European Download-to-Rent and Download-to-Own services, AAM provides ISPs, media companies and e-tailers with turn key solutions for acquiring rights and securely distributing digital video content over the internet to their audiences. A complete list of content and distribution partners can be seen at www.vizumi.com.
- AAM is the largest single shareholder of LOVEFiLM International, and provides the technology and content for their movie download service.
- For digital cinema, AAM provides end-to-end digital cinema solutions encompassing equipment selection, financing and integration, operator training, installation and support, and content management and delivery. AAM has signed long term Virtual Print Fee (VPF) agreements with Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures International for digital cinema deployment across Europe, for close to 7000 screens over the next few years.
- AAM completed the UK Film Council digital cinema rollout of 240 screens on April 30th, 2007. The company is also participating in two digital cinema trials in Europe, one in the UK at the Odeon Surrey Quays multiplex, since February 2007, and the other in Norway, in various cinemas across the country, since April 2006. To date, AAM’s in-house digital cinema lab has encoded over 200 digital cinema titles and shipped over 3500 digital prints.
For further information, please contact:
Kate Pidgeon: Arts Alliance Media
020 7751 7512 / kate@artsalliancemedia.com
Alice Burden: ITV DVD
0207 389 8609 / Alice.burden@itv.com