Dentsu Inc. (President: Yutaka Narita; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 58,967.1 million yen) and Tohokushinsha Film Corporation (President: Banjiro Uemura), Japan's largest company selling television broadcasting rights for foreign films and television productions, signed a joint agreement with the Walt Disney Company to purchase terrestrial and basic pay broadcasting rights for its productions in Japan. Walt Disney, a major Hollywood entertainment company, handles Walt Disney and Touchstone movies and productions.

The agreement covers exclusive broadcasting rights of new theater movies, older movies, television dramas and television cartoons, as well as the sales of these rights to broadcasting stations. The sales will be in sets of Walt Disney's latest movies released in theaters between 1999 and 2001 in the U.S., Disney feature animation and animated TV series, older movies and TV dramas.

Productions included in the agreement are theater movies to be broadcast on terrestrial TV for the first time, such as The Sixth Sense, Pearl Harbor and 102 Dalmatians, and Disney feature animation and television series such as "Peter Pan" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

In addition to its marketing expertise and network with the media, Dentsu will seek collaboration from Tohokushinsha to augment its network with foreign companies dealing in the production and distribution of content, particularly major Hollywood film companies, and domestic sales channels. Dentsu will continue to acquire broadcasting rights and promote sales activities for "killer" content geared toward the digital multimedia age. The specific activities include (1) sales of broadcasting rights for Walt Disney's productions; (2) acquisition and sales of broadcasting rights for other major Hollywood films and productions; and (3) planning and development of digital content.

Dentsu hopes to assist content holders by increasing their business opportunities, and both content holders and media by ensuring the reliable distribution of entertainment content by expanding the number of channels in the broadcast media. With an eye toward distributing content other than in the broadcasting field, such as broadband content, Dentsu will support the further development of media.