Creative Eye to foray into film production

Praveen Chandran
23 July 2002

Mumbai: Creative Eye Ltd, the television production and marketing company, has decided to foray into film production business. The media company will produce three feature films with an investment of around Rs 10 crore and its first Hindi feature film, Tum Jo Mil Gaye, is expected to hit the market by mid-2003.

Creative Eye chairman and managing director Dheeraj Kumar says: We have decided to diversify into film production. Initially, Creative Eye will produce three feature films in Hindi, Hindi-English and Hindi-Kannada. The budget of all these films will be in the range of Rs 3-4.5 crore and the production work of the first film will start by end-2002.

Creative Eye is a listed company on the Bombay Stock Exchange and its promoters hold 56.4-per cent stake. Non-resident Indians have a 13.08-per cent stake, while overseas corporate bodies and financial institutions hold 13.73-per cent stake. The public holds a 12.69-per cent stake, while banks and the employee welfare trust of the company have 2.3-per cent and 1.12-per cent stakes, respectively.

The company was incorporated in 1986 and was registered as a public limited company in 1996. The market for television production today includes, among others, Shri Adhikari Brothers and Balaji Telefilms.

Kumar says during the last financial year, his company has performed well mainly due to the shift from Doordarshan (DD) to satellite channels. In 2000-01, the company earned 93.61 per cent of its revenue from DD, while the satellite channels contributed only 5.25 per cent of the revenue.

In 2001-02, DD contributed only 26.36 per cent of the revenue and the contribution from the satellite channels was 64.34 per cent, he says. During the current financial year, Creative Eye is once again shifting its focus back to DD because of its market-friendly policies. The new Prasar Bharati polices are to be appreciated; they allow private production companies to run the programme with the same telecast charges of Rs 3.5 lakh from the beginning to the end of the programme. It has also removed the minimum guarantee charges, Kumar adds.