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Cable Technology Feature Article

April 22, 2014

Wheelings & Dealings: FilmOn Acquires One of the Largest Privately Owned Film Libraries

By Anil Sharma, TMCnet Contributor


FilmOn Networks, a free TV service and live TV app with 40 million downloads and counting, has acquired CineBx Library, which has 40 other collections including Allied Entertainment, A1 Entertainment, Four Star, and HanVideo.

Together, these collections include over 10,000 films and 10,000 hours of historical television footage.

“Our global audience of tens of millions of users has made it clear that they want more and more quality content to be available on FilmOn,” said Alki David, CEO of FilmOn.

FilmOn offers over 600 live TV channels including original programming, 600 video and audio podcasts from premium brands. The company also has over 90,000 video on demand titles at FilmOn.com and other destination sites online, including BattleCam.com.

“In addition to our ongoing licensing of content, the CineBx acquisition is the first step in our 2014 push to add entire libraries to FilmOn's free VOD service as well as expanding other distribution channels and technologies,” said David.

Officials with FilmOn said that the company has created a state of the art restoration and digitalization facility in Irvine, California to preserve these rare films and videos and prepare them for the public's consumption.

According to company officials, the largest part of the acquisition is the Allied Entertainment Library, originally formed in 1982 before it joined with Viacom (News - Alert) and Gill Cable to program the early cable channel Classic Movie Channel.

There are 640 Westerns, 150 Broadway musical films, 50 Blaxploitation titles, 18 Bruce Lee related titles, and countless war films and television documentaries and there are comedies too. Classic television is represented with shows from pioneers like Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle.

The acquisition also includes one of the largest catalogues of Olympic sports documentaries.

The collection has a robust section of music documentaries with rare footage of hundreds of artists. It also includes the archives of the Beatles' first music company, founded before Apple (News - Alert) Corp.

"We have music historians going through our vaults cataloging this great collection of original recordings from the sixties and seventies," David said, adding that the historic music and sports libraries are also part of FilmOn's transformative push into live events with its new hologram business.




Edited by Alisen Downey


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