STUDIOCANAL Secures Two SVOD Deals in China

September 8, 2014 World Screen Top Stories

PARIS: STUDIOCANAL has inked two separate SVOD agreements in China, one with Youku Tudou and the other with BesTV New Media.

Youku Tudou signed a multiyear agreement with STUDIOCANAL for the SVOD rights for more than 50 classics owned by the studio. This includes About a Boy, Chaplin, The Pianist, Mulholland Drive and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The multiyear pact with BesTV New Media, which is a subsidiary of Shanghai Media Group, features several dozen titles from the STUDIOCANAL library.

Matthieu Zeller, the executive VP of international marketing, distribution and business development at STUDIOCANAL, said: “Our library contains more than 5,000 films that are emblematic of world cinema, particularly European and French. It is undoubtedly the richest and most diversified catalogue in the world. We are happy that this agreement will give the Chinese audience access to a film offering that is different from but complementary with the Chinese and American films that dominate the market. And we hope that it will be just the first stage of closer collaboration with our Chinese friends."

Allen Zhu, the senior VP of Youku Tudou, said: ”We’re excited to work with STUDIOCANAL to bring great movies to Chinese audience via web, to better serve our subscribers. Our subscription service has grown 379 percent in revenue in Q2 2014 year on year, this deal will undoubtedly strengthen our service offering.”

Zeller commented of the BesTV deal: "We are very happy with the signature of this agreement. BestTV will now be offering the Chinese audiences access to major films from the world cinema repertory. The greatest directors: Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), Akira Kurosawa (Ran) and James Cameron (Terminator 2: Judgment Day); the greatest actors (Catherine Deneuve in 8 Femmes) and the most emblematic productions of French and English cinema (Cloclo and Johnny English)—all the diversity and richness of STUDIOCANAL's catalogue will now be available on BestTV."

“The cooperation with STUDIOCANAL symbols that BesTV’s contents cooperation has not only covered the traditional U.S.-English, Japanese and Korean markets, but also expanded into Europe. BesTV will be happy to introduce more films to its platforms from different parts of world,” said Mingcheng Tao, the CEO of BesTV New Media.