DCM snatches Vue sales contract from Pearl & Dean

Advertising sales house Digital Cinema Media (DCM) has secured the contract for the Vue cinema chain.

This was previously held by rival operation Pearl & Dean and the decision casts a shadow over the future of the company.

DCM is owned jointly by two of the three major cinema chains, Cineworld and Odeon. Pearl & Dean retained a contract with Vue, which holds 23% of the UK cinema market by revenue.

Pearl & Dean was sold by STV to Image, a company set up by the owner of cinema chain Empire Cinemas, in April for £1. Image is fully owned by Thomas Anderson, a non-executive chairman and shareholder of Circle Oil, as well as director and owner of Empire.

At the time, STV described the sales house as a “well known brand with longstanding screen heritage.”

For the year ending December 2009 Pearl & Dean had revenues of £19.9m and losses of £13.3m.

A spokesman for Pearl & Dean says: “Pearl & Dean continues to deliver engaging cinema activity for an exciting raft of upcoming film releases, and the company remains committed to creating innovative cinema communications platforms both on- and off-screen.”

DCM’s contract with Vue starts on 1 January next year. Steve Wiener, CEO of Cineworld, says: “Today’s news is an exciting development for DCM: we anticipate DCM benefiting from economies of scale over the mid-to-long term.”

DCM changed its name from Carlton Screen Advertising in 2008 when it was sold to Odeon and Cineworld by ITV.

Read Marketing Week’s recent feature on the cinema sector here

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