MEDIA INSTITUTIONS: CELADOR

A01 | ZMINA HAWTHORNE

OWNERSHIP

Celador is a entertainment company which originally formed to be an independent production company in 1983 by Paul Smith CBE and Jasper Carrot. Celador was bought out by the larger company, Complete Communications which expanded their business in radio, film and television. Complete Communications planned to sell Celador to Two Way Media but instead Celador bought themselves back and are now independent.

OPERATING MODEL

Celador is a smaller company so they tend to make films project-by-project meaning that they hire freelance staff such as directors, actors/actresses, camera-men and more to make sure a project is successfully completed.Celador and Pathé, a distribution company co-funded the film ‘The Descent’ in 2006. As a small production company, Celador would tend to co-fund films with other similar smaller companies. This is common for smaller, independent UK or European production companies. Pathé bought distribution rights before ‘The Descent’ was made so that the movie could be distributed in the UK.

PRODUCTS

To date, Celador have produced twelve television series such as ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, ‘All About Me’ and ‘You Are What You Eat’, seven films including, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘The Descent’ and ‘Separate Lies’ and currently own eighteen radio stations across the UK, also they produce theatre shows, they are currently making a musical version of Slumdog Millionaire.

MARKET POSITION & COMPETITORS

DNA Films and Celador are similar in that they are both small independent film companies. DNA Films are known for making ‘28 Days Later’ which had a budget of $8 million, whereas ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ had a bigger budget of $15 million due to the fact that it was co-funded by Pathé. They are both similar in the fact they both make horror films.Film4 and Celador are similar in the fact that the Film4 is apart of a bigger company, Channel 4 who also make television shows. Film4 is a bigger company and co-produce bigger films such as ‘12 Years Of Slave’ which made a gross profit of $187.7 million whereas ‘The Descent only had a budget of £3.5 million, this clearly shows that Film4 is bigger company. Sony Pictures Entertainment and Celador are similar because they both make television shows and movies. Sony have produced all Spiderman films, for example the worldwide grossing profit for Spiderman 2 is $783,705,001 where as ‘The Descent’ produced by Celador a worldwide box office of is $57,051,053. But Sony is a much bigger company which makes other products such as online pictures, videos on demand and other products.The other production companies can’t compete with Sony Pictures Entertainment because they have to spend more to make more because they are not as big nor popular as the others. Celador is as big as DNA Films but not as big as Film4 just because Celador is a independent film company.