Arts Alliance's Thomas Høegh
Anyone who has been following the motion picture exhibition industry for the past few years should know that digital cinema is not for the faint of heart nor light of wallet. Just ask Thomas Høegh, the founder and CEO of London based Arts Alliance, the parent company of Arts Alliance Media, a leading European integrator.
Last week I was forwarded a copy of an article about Mr. Høegh and Arts Alliance Media which ran in DagensNæringslev (or Today’s Business), the biggest business trade paper in Norway. Translated to English, the headline reads “Red Figures On All Screens” and the sub-headline stated:
Thomas Høegh’s film company Arts Alliance Media has lost a total of NOK 258m over recent years. Accounting figures for DVD company Love Film also shows a three-digit one million kroner deficit.
It’s always fascinating to see how mainstream media outlets cover the worldwide exhibition industry’s transition to digital cinema, especially when they turn their attention to the equipment vendors and service companies facilitating the conversion. Despite the superficial and often naive approach most outlets take when writing about the subject, the DagensNæringslev piece was interesting in that it detailed Arts Alliance Media’s finances by boiling down the company’s 2009 annual report.
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After completing VPF deals with six studios last June, Film & Kino has announced the selection of Unique Cinema Systems as an integrator for nine out of the ten sub-contracts it is awarding to convert cinemas across Norway to digital. Film & Kino put the contracts out to tender at the end of last year and numerous integrators, including Nordic Digital Alliance which won the tenth contract, had been vying to land a portion of the work. As well, by December of 2009 it seemed as if just about every equipment manufacturer had sent representatives to Oslo.
It was highly anticipated (at least by me) that Unique, based in Bergen, Norway and Dublin, Ireland, would wind up with a lions share of the contracts. After all, they are one of the few, if not the only, digital cinema integrators and deployment entities in Norway. According to Unique’s press release, the value of the Film & Kino contracts is estimated at NOK 300 million (EUR € 37 million or USD $50.13 million) and represents 300 screens.
Film & Kino had split the tender into ten different groups and then assigned each of Norway’s cinemas to one of the groups. Four of the groups were reserved for the four largest theatre chains in the country. Five of the groups were divvied up among each of Norway’s primary geographic regions and comprises of independent cinemas. The final group is for temporary cinemas, some of which are seasonal or travel between smaller towns. The contract for each of the groups was awarded separately by Film & Kino as well as individual committees made up of local participants with a working knowledge of the cinemas in their respective groups.
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