Videovan and Gobel to distribute Fox's films

JAKARTA (JP): Singapore-based Videovan Entertainment Industries Pte Ltd will tie up with the Gobel Group of Indonesia to market and distribute in Indonesia the home entertainment products of a major Hollywood film studio.

"We have appointed PT Bahtera Kencana Internusa of the Gobel Group to become the sole distributor of Fox's films here," Videovan's managing director, Peter Lim, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Lim said his company, which holds the license to market and distribute the video products of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment International (Fox) in Indonesia, had also formed a joint venture with Gobel Dharma Cipta Yasa, called PT Gobel Videovan Distribintang, to be the marketing consultant for product sales, he said.

He refused to say the composition of the share ownerships in the joint venture but said that Gobel had a major interest.

Lim said the company expected a turnover of US$3.5 million from the sales of the videos here during the first year.

He said he was optimistic that the licensed products would be able to compete with pirated products, which currently dominated 95 percent of the domestic market.

"People buy pirated products now because there is hardly any other choice, but once there are more legally licensed products available, with better quality and competitive prices, they would turn away from the pirated products," he said.

He said the company, which begins operating in September, would distribute about 50 titles from Fox's films in the first year.

The film products would be distributed in all formats -- video cassettes, video compact disks, laser disks and digital video disks.

Videovan, established in 1983, is the first license holder of a major Hollywood studio home entertainment for the Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia region.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is a unit of the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, which has produced over 1,200 films, including the well-known Star Wars Trilogy. (das)