Spize TV Partners Pyramid Saimira

Spize TV Partners Pyramid Saimira

LONDON, March 14/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

- Launches DTH Services Across Europe, North Africa & Middle East

- ARY & B4U Join Soft Launch

Pyramid Saimira Entertainment Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd (NSE: PSTL; BSE: 532791), has entered into a strategic partnership with UK-based Spize TV, a direct-to-home platform. Through the partnership, Pyramid Saimira Entertainment Ltd will facilitate content agglomeration and new channels services, on Spize TV. An associate company of the Pyramid Saimira Group had earlier picked up an equity stake in Spize TV.

Spize TV is a pan-European direct-to-home (DTH) TV platform offering Asian and niche content to viewers in Europe. Spize TV is available on the EuroBird-9 (EB9) satellite, which allows viewers to benefit from the 500+ free-to-air channels on the HotBird satellite by a simple dual-LNB upgrade. The technical details of SpizeTV platform are EB9 @ 9(degrees) East, 11,843 V, Txp 56, Symbol 27,500 And 3/4 FEC.

Speaking about the tie-up, Ajoy Khandheria, CEO, Spize TV, said, "Spize TV is a very exciting prospect for us as this will enable us to offer niche content on a pan-European basis. We are extremely happy to work with Eutelsat to create EB9 as a new hot location for the region, and with Pyramid Saimira to capitalize on their extensive content expertise."

P. S. Saminathan, MD, Pyramid Saimira Group said "The partnership with Spize TV is a very crucial step in terms of our global entertainment strategy. With this venture, we will gain access into more new territories, which will help synergize and leverage our content significantly. This also sets us well on our way towards expansion in Europe. Personally speaking, this marks my re-entry into the cable & satellite space and signals the beginning of an exciting journey in this space."

Spize TV will offer numerous channels in the North Bouquet and South Bouquet categories. The North Bouquet will offer Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Bangla, Gujarati and other language channels while the South bouquet will offer Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Singhalese and Malay channels. Spize TV will also offer Chinese and Spanish bouquets shortly. Spize TV announces the launch of the platform with the complete suite of channels from the ARY Network (ARY Digital, ARY OneWorld, QTV, and The Musik), as well as two channels from the B4U Network (B4U Movies & B4U Music) in its North Bouquet. More channels will be added in due course. While the South Bouquet currently has DAN (Tamil) and TV Lanka (Sinhalese), more channels are being added to the bouquet. The fore-mentioned channels have been available since the soft launch of the channel, while the commercial launch for the viewers will be held in April 2008.

The Hot Bird platform is available to over 130 million households in North Africa and Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe (23 million in North Africa & Middle East, 30 million in Central & Eastern Europe, 77 million in Western Europe). Spize TV plans to target the 30 million strong European "niche and expat" viewers across these regions. Spize TV will have both, Viaccess and Irdeto conditional access systems, which will viewers to access both bouquets and also watch a mix of channels, including live international cricket matches that are played in India and Pakistan. Spize TV will arrange the installation of "dual-LNBs" on the existing viewers' of HotBird dishes to allow them to continue watching their other favourite channels on the HotBird satellite, as well as a large bouquet of channels on SpizeTV on the EB9 satellite.

Salman Iqbal, President & CEO, ARY Digital Network, commenting on the occasion stated, "We are happy and proud to be the first premier television network on the Spize TV platform. We trust Spize TV will build on the achievement and growth that ARY Digital bouquet has seen in Europe over the last five years, and further extend its reach to the wider spectrum of European customers, by adding a variety of new premium channels."

Sunil Rohra, CEO, B4U Group, says "Spize TV has ambitious plans and we are happy to join their platform to expand our presence in Europe, and to build and continue serving the Bollywood-loving subscribers that have been developed over the last 5 years or so."

The deal was advised by Elara Capital of UK and Keynote Capitals of India.

About Pyramid Saimira Group:

Pyramid Saimira Group operates in 5 countries. It is a holistic Indian Multinational Entertainment Company. It is present in film exhibition, film distribution, film production, TV content production, advertisement, Gaming & Animation, media, Food & Beverages and Realty etc. It has around nine group companies namely, Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd., Pyramid Saimira Production International Limited, Pyramid Saimira Theatre Chain Malaysia., Sdn Bhd, Pyramid Saimira Entertainment Limited, Singapore, Pyramid Saimira Entertainment America, Inc., Saimira Realty Private Limited, Pyramid Saimira Production Services Limited, Dimples Cine Advertising Private Limited & Aurona Technologies Limited.

Its group holding Company, Pyramid Saimira Theatre Limited, is publicly listed in National Stock Exchange (NSE: PSTL) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE: 532791). In the exhibition sector, it has over 53 multiplexes with approximately 800 screens across India, Malaysia, Singapore and North America. By 2010, the Group plans to operate 175 multiplexes with 2,000 screens in India alone. By its own estimates, Pyramid Saimira ranks as the world's third largest cinema operator, based on its number of seats and admissions with nearly 436,000 seats as of January 2008.

          More information is available at http://www.pstl.in          For further details:          Varsha / Srividhya,     Hanmer & Partners, Chennai,     Mobile no: +91-988-4082-774,     E-mail: varsha@hanmerpr.com / srividhya@hanmerpr.com.  

Source: Pyramid Saimira Group

For further details: Varsha / Srividhya, Hanmer & Partners, Chennai, Mobile no: +91-988-4082-774, E-mail: varsha@hanmerpr.com / srividhya@hanmerpr.com.

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Profile: International Entertainment