| MUMBAI:
Filmy has joined the movie acquisition race, bagging telecast rights to three
mainstream Hindi movies. Guru,
Umrao Jaan and Nishabd are the first major buys made by the channel,
indicating that bigger investments would follow.
 "When
we launched, we did not have many movies. So we acquired a
lot of older movies to enrich our library and this is our
next step forward. We want to develop in terms of movies as
well as viewership," said Filmy business head Ashutosh
Out of the three movies two have Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai in the star cast
and this according to Ashutosh will click well among the viewers.
"This year, so far there has been no bigger movie than Guru. And Umrao
Jaan has the rocking pair of Abhishek and Aishwarya. People would definitely
like to watch them," he says.
The
acquisition comes at a time when Sony has just pumped in huge cash to aquire big
movie titles.
Filmy recently premiered the Bhojpuri movie Ganga and this is a step towards
acquiring bigger Hindi movies. "
We are a new channel and we don't have the advantage like  our
competitiors who are already older than us in the business. We don't have many
movies. So our idea was to go for a few good movies rather than buy in bulk,"adds
Ashutosh. Filmy
is in talks to aquire more movies. "Every channel has a different phase of
development. Our economies are different from other channels. We want to buy a
few big movies," he says.
 Acquisition
costs have gone up three times, he admits. "Some movie channels have not
been as prolific in buying but acquisition is not the end. Looking at the trend,
in future channels may acquire a lot of economical movies out of which some might
do well. We feel that it is a good strategy to buy 3- 4 good movies and exploit
them well."
Facing
a stiff competition from other channels, Filmy concentrates on programming and
presentation. The channel recently had Ravi Kishen playing MJ while presenting
the movie Ganga on 29 April. "
Presenting movies in a way that hooks the viewer is very important. We have been
doing that really well. It is important that we don't look monotonous and that
is our USP," says Ashutosh. | 
