Sony 1999 Annual Report Download - page 25

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23
page
The romantic action adventure
movie The Mask of Zorro generated
significant box office receipts
worldwide and was a leader in
home video sales.
market, was the leader in providing titles in the sell-through market in categories other
than “family entertainment,” and released over 170 current and library titles in DVD.
CONTENT LEADERSHIP AND NETWORK EXPANSION IN TELEVISION
During the year, Columbia TriStar Television continued to report consistently high earnings
with a total of 34 programs (including 17 network prime time series) on air in the United
States—more than any other independent supplier. Our game shows—Wheel of Fortune and
Jeopardy!—and soap operas—Days of Our Lives and The Young & the Restless—remain the
top-rated shows in their categories. The Nanny and Party of Five joined the long list of
other SPE hit series in syndication. SPE’s television business continued its commitment to
global content creation and distribution by successfully launching new shows, including
King of Queens, Dilbert, and LA Doctors, and new branded international channels, expand-
ing our action channel AXN into Spain and Japan and starting up a Japanese animation
channel—ANIMAX. Together with certain partners, SPE also acquired Telemundo Group,
Inc., a network and station group focused on the Latino audience in the United States.
GLOBAL PRESENCE, GROUNDWORK FOR THE DIGITAL FUTURE
SPE’s global content creation now includes local language film production in Germany,
Hong Kong, France, and the United Kingdom and television programming in eight lan-
guages. SPE has more than 25 international channel ventures with an existing global audi-
ence of approximately 120 million viewers. International revenues from licensing films and
programs from the studio’s library of more than 3,500 motion pictures and 40,000 televi-
sion episodes continue to make a significant contribution to SPE’s revenue strength.
Our Digital Studios group earned a technical Emmy® for high definition film mastering,
and expanded its computer generated imaging and DVD capabilities. We continued to ex-
plore digital content distribution strategies with other Sony units, preparing to fulfill our
role in the Sony family of the digital era.