The Hindu Business Line : Shemaroo to market home videos on cricket

Shemaroo Video Private Ltd is expanding its portfolio to include sports, mainly cricket. It recently launched the India Pakistan Samsung Cup as two DVD/VCDs - the Test series and the One Day Internationals. Shemaroo is planning to launch another two products in cricket shortly but company officials declined further information.

``Early October, we will be launching in India as a part of a worldwide release a home video on football. Shemaroo is the India distributor for this product. It includes some of the best live action football shots from some of the world's best players,'' said Mr Hiren Gada, Vice-President, Shemaroo Video Pvt Ltd.

According to Mr Gada, the cricket DVD/VCDs have been going off the retail shelves at a pace anticipated by the company. ``We realised that cricket is an extremely popular form of entertainment especially at the home level. No doubt that live action brings in the maximum number of viewers but a large number of consumers now want to relive some of the memorable matches,'' he said. Shemaroo bought the video distribution rights of the 2004 India-Pakistan Samsung Cup.

While cricket is hugely popular, there is a good market for football too, according to Shemaroo.

The need for expanding the home video portfolio as well as product offering stems from the fact that VCD/DVD player sales have been on a rise. ``This increase in sales is helped by the fact that prices of VCD and DVD have fallen by around 50 per cent. Besides, prices of VCD and DVD are also on a downturn,'' Mr Gada said adding that his company now offers VCDs in the range of Rs 88-99 and Rs 149 as compared to the price range of Rs 199-249 offered a year ago.

However, cricket as a home video content is an emerging category and any further foray into it would largely depend on the sales of existing products. Currently, 90 per cent of Shemaroo's revenues come from home videos of Hindi films. Home video releases of Hindi films are usually done from four to eight weeks of the theatrical release of a film. ``Any further delay could hamper our sales mainly because of the piracy problem,'' Mr Gada said.

In recent times, Baghban is one of the biggest selling home video products. ``Normally, a film which does well at the box office, repeats its performance in the home video segment to a large extent. But in 2004, Murder has been the top selling video,'' Mr Gada said.

Shemaroo does not rule out the possibility of entering the South Indian film market for home video distribution. ``However, this is an unknown market, we have to assess it before making a foray into it,'' the official said.