Celador filmsJessica White

Ownership

Celador is a global light entertainment company. It was originally formed as an independent production company and taken over by Complete Communications in 1983, which also bought out shareholders such as Paul Smith CBE and Jasper Carrott. Celador then proceeded to expand its fledgling radio, film and international business. Later, Complete Communications announced its intention to sell the company – around the same time as the sell of Celador International, the rights and associated properties of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? to a Dutch group called 2waytraffic, Celador Productions’ management completed a buy out of the company. In 2006 however, Celador offered the rights and UK programme library of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? For sale. Celador then became very successful and managed to buy themselves out.

Operating Model

Celador is quite a small production company and makes its films on a project-by-project basis, contracting with freelance staff ranging from directors and actors to lawyers and caterers to make sure a project gets made. Celador was set up and they produced the TV show ‘The Detectives’ – the BBC aired and paid for this. Jasper Carrot was given the money by the BBC, thus aiding him to set up the whole Celador company and produce ‘The Detectives’. Paul Smith (CBE) also assisted Jasper Carrot with the setting up of Celador and the production of the TV show, which was a success at the time that it aired. The film ‘The Descent’ was sold to Pathe, before it was even made by Celador. Pathe paid for the distribution rights so that it could be released in the UK on DVD and in cinemas. This was funded by Pathe because Celador were unable to fund it themselves – Celador then reinvested the money into the film so they were able to make and release it.

Products

Other films that have been produced by Celador are things such as: Dirty Pretty Things; Slumdog Millionaire; Separate Lies; The Scouting Book for Boys, Selma, The Decent and The Decent Part 2. Celador have also produced a lot of Television programmes such as: All About Me (BBC); The Detectives (BBC) and You Are What You Eat (Channel 4). They also manage and run around 18 different radio stations such as; The Breeze Network (in 12 different locations), Jack FM Stations (in 3 different locations), Fire radio and Palm 105.5. Celador also has a show that has been in the theatre – Slumdog Millionaire the Musical was produced and launched in London’s West End in 2012.

Market Position and competitors

Celador Films are a fairly successful but small-scale production company and therefore may be compared to other companies such as DNA Films, Film4 Productions and Sony Pictures Entertainment. DNA Films is very similar to Celador Films due to the fact that they are both fairly small production companies, being independent and UK based, yet they are both considered overall to be very successful. One of DNA’s most successful film is 28 Days Later which had a budget of £5,000,000 and grossed at $164,846. Film4 is part of a bigger British production company, similarly to Celador Films, they both make most of their products for film and television. The Inbetweeners movie is one of Film4’s top selling movies, which had a budget of £3,500,000 and grossed at $35,955. Sony Pictures Entertainment is a much bigger production company, producing films such as Spider Man 3 which cost around $258,000,000 to make. This film grossed at $336,530,303. Overall, I think Celador would be described as a very successful company for its size, compared to these other companies and their products – The Descent had a budget of £3.5 million and grossed at $57,051,053. Celador would be considered to be more successful than Film4, due to the fact that they made more money off The Descent, which had the same budget as The Inbetweeners movie. However, DNA and Sony Pictures Entertainment would be classed as being more successful than Celador.