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overview
This
profile looks at Australian-based entertainment group
Village Roadshow.
It covers -
introduction
Village Roadshow (VR) was founded by Roc Kirby in 1954
as one of the first drive-in cinemas. It entered film
distribution in the 1960s and film production in the 1970s.
It now operates an international chain of cinemas, operates
in the film production and distribution sectors, is in
partnership with AOL Time Warner
in Australian theme parks and is a major Australian commercial
broadcaster through Austereo.
The group was 33% owned by Amalgamated Holdings Ltd (AHL)
- the hotels, cinemas, film-labs, ski-resorts operator
- from the 1950s to 2003. As of mid 2000 the Kirby family
owned another 32%. The UK ITV group,
which had inherited an 18% stake through the merger of
Village-shareholder Granada
and Carlton, sold its interest in Village in 2004.
Village announced the sale of its 50% stake in mall advertising
business Eye Shop to joint venture partner Ten
Network Holdings for $14.9 million in 2004.
In 2006 it restructured its Warner Bros theme park joint
venture, acquiring assets of Village-Warner Gold Coast
operations (including Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World
and a half ownership of Sea World Nara Hotel) for $254
million and licensing the Warner brands from Time-Warner.
New Zealand gaming company and cinema operator SkyCity
Entertainment Group Ltd announced that it would buy Village's
New Zealand and Fijian cinema business for $41.5 million.
That deal involves SkyCity gaining the remaining 50% of
its joint venture with Village (including) 69 cinemas
in New Zealand, and adding another 22 screens by lifting
its stake in Rialto Cinemas to 50% from 25%. In Fiji it
will add 10 cinemas by moving to 66.7% of Village Cinemas
Fiji.
The Village Roadshow corporate site is here.
cinemas
As of 2002 Village Roadshow and partners operated around
1,500 cinemas (there is a PDF
listing as of June 2001) in 15 countries. That number
has been substantially reduced. After significant losses,
like its major counterparts in North America, it disposed
of substantial cinema operations in Hong Kong, Germany,
Switzerland, Hungary and France.
Village is Australia's largest cinema operator, with an
interest in screens across all Australian states.
In 2002 a Village, AHL and Hoyts
joint venture acquired the Australian cinema advertising
group Val Morgan. In 2003 it moved to 50% ownership of
the cinema joint venture with Warner Bros and AHL subsidiary
Greater Union (319 screens in 29 multiplexes across Australia).
film production and distribution
The group has restructured its production arm, now based
in Los Angeles and apparently driven as a partnership
with Warner Bros.
Until recently it had 34.7% of shares in Hong Kong film
company Golden Harvest Entertainment. Its 50% stake in
animator Yoram Gross Studios (acquired in 1996) was sold
in 1999 to EM.TV.
Roadshow Distributors is a 50/50 joint venture with the
Greater Union Organisation (GU)
distributing theatrical movies to cinema, video, pay TV
and free to air television in Australia and New Zealand.
Roadshow Entertainment is a distributor of videos and
interactive software in Australia and New Zealand. The
group has a small distribution presence in Singapore and
Greece.
parks
The group is Australia's largest theme park operator,
with three parks on Australia’s Gold Coast in partnership
with the Time Warner conglomerate:
Warner Bros. Movie World, Sea World
and Wet 'n' Wild Water World. (The Time Warner
stake was acquired by the group in 2006 for $254 million.)
It also has a stake in Sea World Nara Resort, a 405 room
hotel adjacent to Sea World.
radio
A profile of Austereo is here.
studies
There is no major corporate history of the group.
For the film and television production arm see Australian
Television & International Mediascapes (Cambridge:
Cambridge Uni Press 1996) by Stuart Cunningham & Elizabeth
Jacka.
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page (chronology)
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