ITV

Category: Cable TV

  • Shemaroo TV presents ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ – A narrative of the God of justice

    Shemaroo TV presents ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ – A narrative of the God of justice

    Mumbai: Shemaroo TV, the family entertainment channel known for its diverse storytelling, especially in the mythological genre, is set to release its second original mythological show, ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev,’ on 11 December 2023. The new series aims to captivate viewers by exploring how Shanidev serves as the dispenser of justice, intricately maintaining a balance between the realms of Devta and Asur. Unravelling the lesser-known aspects of the often-misunderstood God of Indian mythology, Shanidev, the series promises to shed light on his multifaceted character and offers a nuanced exploration of his divine significance in Hindu Puranas.

    Produced under the banner of Triangle Film Company, ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ promises to unravel untold stories from Shanidev’s life, delving into various narrative threads from revered epics such as Ramayan, different avatars of Lord Vishnu, Samundra Mathan, Piplaad Katha, Dashrath & Raja Harishchandra Katha, among others. The stellar cast includes Vineet Kumar Chaudhry as Shanidev, Sandeep Mohan as Surya Dev (Shanidev’s father), Suhasi Dhami portraying the roles of Sangya and Chaya (Shanidev’s mother), Aparna Dixit as Damini (wife of Shanidev), Danish Akhtar as Hanuman, and Deblina Chatterjee as Goddess Laxmi, promising impeccable portrayals.

    On the launch of the show, Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd COO of broadcast business Sandeep Gupta stated, “As we embark on this new chapter with the launch of ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev,’ we are excited to unfold the diverse narratives woven into the rich tapestry of Indian mythology. The show aims to provide a fresh perspective on Shanidev, shifting from a feared deity to the god of karma, justice, and retribution. We are hopeful that the engaging storyline of ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ will surely make a lasting impact.”

    Speaking about the show, Triangle Film Company producer Nikhil Sinha said, “Triangle Film Company is renowned for bringing the stories from our revered scriptures to life. Our previous shows such as ‘Mahadev,’ and ‘Siya Ke Ram,’ among others have been highly appreciated for their accuracy and portrayal, with the talented actors in the industry depicting the characters to perfection. With ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev,’ we hold similar expectations. I am confident that Vineet, Suhasi, Aparna, and others will do an amazing job. I believe with Shemaroo TV’s reach in the Heartland of India ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ will become a household name in no time.”

    As Shemaroo TV continues to carve a niche with its diverse and compelling content, ‘Karmadhikari Shanidev’ stands as a testament to the channel’s commitment to delivering premium quality programming. With this new show, the channel aims to dispel common myths associated with Shanidev, encouraging the audience to embrace the positive aspects of his character and principles. It explores the profound impact of karma and justice in everyday life.

  • Siti Networks CFO Vikram Singh Panwar resigns

    Siti Networks CFO Vikram Singh Panwar resigns

    MUMBAI: Even as all eyes have been focused on the drama at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, there’s been some developments at the troubled Subhash Chandra-owned Siti Networks too. Chief financial officer Vikram Singh Panwar put in his resignation a couple of days ago. The company filed a notice to this effect with the Bombay stock exchange on 9 August 2023. Panwar will continue with Siti Networks until the end of his notice period.

    Panwar had joined the company as CFO as recently as 15 April 2023. A chartered accountant with more than 18 years of experience, Panwar has been part of the digital and structural transformation journey of various companies in telecom, IT, apparel and textile, chemicals and consulting. Among the firms which he has worked with include:  HFCL, HCL Tech, PwC India, Raymond and PI Industries.

  • KCCL signs subscription agreement under NTO 3.0

    KCCL signs subscription agreement under NTO 3.0

    Mumbai : The interconnection subscription agreement with the broadcasters was signed by MSO Kerala Communicators Cable Ltd (KCCL) in accordance with the Trai-mandated NTO 3.0 after UCN.

    Now that the Trai’s new rate order has been modified, KCCL has joined a growing group of MSOs, including Siti Cable, KAL Cables, Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV, and Thamizhaga Cable TV, that have agreed to negotiate interconnection agreements with the broadcasters.

    Even as the legal dispute between cable operators represented by the AIDCF (All India Digital Cable Federation) and the broadcasters continues in the Kerala High Court, there now appears to be a rift within the cable fraternity in its fight against the broadcasters regarding signing the interconnection agreements under the NTO 3.0.

    Den, Fastway Transmissions, GTPL Hathway, Hathway Digital, and other MSOs are among those that are still engaged in this conflict with the broadcasters.

    Leading three broadcasters (Sony, Disney Star India, and Zee Entertainment) cut off their signals to nearly ten MSOs on February 19 who are AIDCF members.

    Broadcasters are justifying the increase in price after a four-year hiatus. Cable operators, on the other hand, claim that the price increase is exorbitant and will raise consumers’ monthly cable bill. They have also filed numerous petitions against the amended tariff regime in the country’s high courts.

    AIDCF claims that despite the fact that the case is in court, these major broadcasters disconnected their signals.

    Meanwhile, AIDCF has warned advertisers, media planners, and ad agencies, against advertising on Disney-Star, Sony and Zee, because their recent actions have “deprived more than 25 million households across India from watching their channels since Saturday, 18 February 2023.

    The federation claimed that the 25 million homes account for nearly 35 per cent of the pay TV market in India.

    “Are you still getting the reach that you have paid for? Your advertisements are not reaching more than 200 million consumers across all states and Union Territories in India for the past three days. More than 46 billion minutes of viewing time are being lost per day across India on the largest cable networks in India including GTPL, DEN, Hathway, Fastway, In Cable, NXT Digital, Asianet, KCCL, UCN and many more. These networks cater to large audiences in HSM as well as South with dominant presence in Punjab/Haryana/ Chandigarh HP, UP Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal Odisha, Madhya Pradesh/Chhattisgarh, Bihar/Jharkhand, North-East, AP Telangana, Kamataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc,” said a release by AIDCF.

    The industry body warns the advertisers to take an informed decision when they advertise on any of the channels including Star Plus, Zee TV, Sony.

  • Hathway Cable and Datacom Q1 FY23 revenues at Rs 447.2 crore

    Hathway Cable and Datacom Q1 FY23 revenues at Rs 447.2 crore

    Mumbai: Hathway Cable and Datacom on Friday reported its first quarter results for the financial year FY23. The company reported gross revenue of Rs 447.2 crore and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of Rs 102.6 crore.

    The company reported profit after tax of Rs 21 crore as compared to Rs 28.4 crore in the preceding quarter. Its broadband business brought in revenues of Rs 157.2 crore and its cable TV business stood at Rs 290 crore.

    The company’s total expenditure stood at Rs 360.2 crore, and its pay channel cost stood at Rs 172.7 crore.

    Hathway Cable and Datacom reported 1.12 million broadband subscribers at the end of June. Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) increased from 62 per cent in the first quarter of FY22 to 84 per cent in the first quarter of FY23.

    The company augmented its fibre-to-the-home capacity to accommodate another 1.2 million customers. It also finished next-generation. Docsis speed complaints were reduced by 80 per cent in all cities following the Docsis upgrade. It reported that 65 per cent of Docsis customers have been upgraded to 100 Mbps plans.

  • GTPL Hathway Q1 FY23 consolidated revenues up 10 per cent YoY at Rs 645.4 crore

    GTPL Hathway Q1 FY23 consolidated revenues up 10 per cent YoY at Rs 645.4 crore

    Mumbai: Digital cable TV and broadband company GTPL Hathway announced its financial results for the first quarter of FY2023 on Thursday. The company reported consolidated revenue of Rs 645.4 crore a growth of 10 per cent year-on-year (YoY).

    The company reported subscription revenue of Rs 272.7 crore up by three per cent YoY. Broadband revenue was up by 24 per cent YoY at Rs 113.9 crore. It reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 43.3 crore.

    GTPL Hathway’s broadband subscribers grew by 29,000 quarter-on-quarter. Its total active broadband subscribers reached 8,45,000 and homepasses reached 4.85 million.

    GTPL Hathway managing director Anirudhsinh Jadeja said, “We have been consistent in achieving our goals across all business segments. We are the largest multiple-system operator (MSO) in India and continue our strategy of expansion in new geographies & deeper penetration in our existing markets. The key highlights of Q1 FY23 are stable digital cable TV subscription revenues and growth in subscribers as well as revenues in the broadband business. GTPL has again been listed amongst ‘India’s Top 500 Companies 2022’, the second year in a row, as released by Dun & Bradstreet. We have entered FY23 with a positive outlook for our businesses and confidence in our ability to continue its successful evolution.”

  • MIB revokes 12 and grants 6 MSO licenses between April & July

    MIB revokes 12 and grants 6 MSO licenses between April & July

    Mumbai: The ministry of information and broadcasting has granted six new licenses to multi-system operators (MSOs) between 21 April to 4 July and cancelled 12 licenses between April and 4 July. The total number of registered MSOs stood at 1753.

    MIB granted licenses to M/s Infotainment Service & Communications Pvt Ltd, Softech Infosol Private Ltd, Bhumi Cable, Shabkha Taqnia Private Ltd, Tribeni Entertainment and Binodan Digital Ltd

    MIB cancelled the registration of Yadav Cable, Sri Laxmi Local Cable TV, Thulasis Technology Private Limited, Surbhi Diginet, Sahya Digital Networks LLP, LD Family Network, Krishna Cable Network, South Star Digital Network Private Limited, RK Digital Cable TV Network, Panduranga Cable Network, Rallyon Technology and Shivam Cable & Broadband Ltd.

    Four MSO registrations including Kailash Cable Network, Bhawani Rajesh Cable and Digitech Services, Asiant Network and Ashiana Communication Mcr expired in June. 

  • GTPL Hathway reappoints Anirudhsinh Jadeja as a MD for three years

    GTPL Hathway reappoints Anirudhsinh Jadeja as a MD for three years

    Mumbai: GTPL Hathway has reappointed Anirudhsinh Jadeja as managing director for three years, at its 16th annual general meeting held on Friday.

    His reappointment will take effect from 8 December on the expiry of his present term of office. The AGM also approved terms and conditions of his appointment, including remuneration.

    The board also extended independent director Divya Momaya’s term up to 27 September 2024.

    The company declared dividend on equity shares at the rate of Rs 4 per equity share of Rs 10 each for the financial year ended 31 March 2022.

    It also appointed Amit Shah, a director retiring by rotation. The board appointed Deloitte Haskins & Sells, Chartered Accountants as the statutory auditors of the company for a term of five consecutive years and fixed their remuneration.

  • FY 2022-23 will be a transformational year for the company: Hathway Cable & Datacom MD Rajan Gupta

    FY 2022-23 will be a transformational year for the company: Hathway Cable & Datacom MD Rajan Gupta

    Mumbai: On building a profitable business, Hathway Cable and Datacom managing director Rajan Gupta stated that he believes FY 2022–23 will be a transformational year for the company.

    The provider of Cable and Internet services in its annual report mentioned the annual gross revenue up by 4 per cent to Rs 1,793 crore in FY 2022 as compared to FY 2021. After this, Gupta seems confident in increasing the company’s market share.

    Gupta said that with the worst of the pandemic effect seemingly behind us, and sports & other live entertainment events fully back in action, the environment looks favourable for the revival of the cable TV business currently.

    The company is confident that the efforts being made to prepare the platform for making deeper inroads into the market will significantly yield benefits in the increasing market share in the cable TV segment, going forward. It is focussed, committed and motivated to play a pivotal role in helping India’s media and entertainment industry bounce back, stronger than ever.

    Simultaneously, he also mentioned that the company acknowledged the current business environment has changed dramatically in the post-Covid world. In this difficult year, the company invested in building organisational competencies to align them with the evolving market and consumer demands & aspirations. “We have focussed on developing our capabilities in crisis management, enterprise agility, cost management, workforce resilience and innovation, which we believe to be the pillars of our growth-centric business model. Initiatives are also underway to leverage digital platforms to enhance the competencies of our partners in the cable TV business, as more than 90 per cent of our consumers in this segment are being serviced through our local cable operators,” Gupta added.

    He further noted that with the pandemic catalysing a new surge in demand, the FTTH (fiber to the home) segment of the business saw a healthy 20 per cent growth in revenue earning customers in these challenging times. “However, our cable TV business health was challenged due to a multitude of extraneous consumer and environmental factors. Limited original content, financial stress experienced by consumers in the Covid world, and multiple lockdowns led to many of them moving from metros to their home towns in this period. This, in turn, caused the bottom of the pyramid consumers to shift to value offerings, thereby limiting our ability to monetise this business,” Gupta said.

    Armed with in-depth industry knowledge and consumer understanding, Hathway responded to the situations with a powerful thrust on cable TV network expansion and transformation. Coupled with digital innovation, customer delight and workforce agility, the company is able to navigate successfully these unprecedented times.

    In line with this strategy, the company rolled out more than 140 new towns and added more than 3,000 kms of fibre network during the year under the community antenna television (CATV) business. With innovative next-generation high-definition (HD), high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) and over the top media service (OTT) set-top boxes delighting customers, Hathway scaled its consumer proposition for millions of new TV consumers. “These boxes host many new exciting industry-first features, such as time-shift – enabling users to watch a programme on one channel while recording a programme on another, radio channels, among others. We have also initiated a cable TV network transformation project, aimed at ensuring that our network is benchmarked to telco standards in terms of uptime, redundancies, resiliency and proactive monitoring,” he said.

    In the annual report, the company said that at the heart of its strategic thrust on continuous innovation lies a strong ambition to empower customers. “We invest in modern technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications and tools, to stay connected with our customers at all times. This helps us foster meaningful interactions with our customers,” he quoted.

    Taking its local cable operators (LCO) partnerships to the next level, the company also noted that amid the challenges of the year, Hathway’s marketing team pushed its efforts to improve communication with its LCO partners and assist them in growing the business. As part of these efforts, it identified the pain points of its LCOs, devised exciting ideas to pique their interest, and launched initiatives to raise awareness of its products and services.

    As part of these efforts, it identified the pain points of its LCOs, innovated exciting ideas to grab their attention, and took initiatives that helped create awareness about its products and services. According to the report, this triggered a new level of LCO activation and re-energisation of the stalled engagement.

    On the content front, the company plans to launch Kflicks, a dedicated channel for Korean content with dubbing in Kannada and Telugu languages for Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana markets. There will be English subtitles for the rest of the markets.

    The move is aimed at catering to the high demand from the new generation and the millennials. It also plans to launch an app, LCO LightHouse, to raise awareness about the LCO portal’s underutilised features, provide the necessary information, promote new or existing schemes & increase engagement.

  • Nxtdigital records revenue of Rs 1152.19 crore for FY22

    Nxtdigital records revenue of Rs 1152.19 crore for FY22

    Mumbai: Nxtdigital Ltd on Wednesday announced the results for financial year 2022. The media and communications company recorded revenue of Rs 1,152.19 crore for the year ending 31 March, registering a growth of 14.3 per cent year-on-year.

    The company clocked earnings before interest, depreciation, and taxes (EBIDTA) of Rs 256.22 crore registering a growth of 10.4 per cent YoY. The revenue and EBIDTA for the year include Rs 69.30 crore and Rs 43.88 crore, respectively, arising out of the ‘real estate’ segment of the company.

    The consolidated profit after tax for the year is Rs 1.91 crore as against a loss Rs 13.90 crore in the previous year.

    The company posted consolidated revenue of Rs 344.55 crore in the fourth quarter ended 31 March. It clocked an EBIDTA of Rs 100.41 crore.  Revenue and EBIDTA for the quarter include Rs 69.30 crore and Rs 43.88 crore respectively arising out of the ‘real estate’ segment of the company.

    The media and entertainment segment recorded an EBIDTA of Rs 56.53 crore for the quarter. The consolidated PAT for the quarter stood at Rs 84.46 crore. PAT for the quarter is inclusive of the profit from ‘real estate’ segment of the company.

    “We have remained singularly focused on the changing consumer preferences, in no small measure impacted by the lockdown periods; and have accelerated our digital transformation in line with the same,” said Nxtdigital managing director and CEO Vynsley Fernandes. “Our performance across all segments of our business reflects that mission. Offering a “combo” of digital television, broadband and OTT is now our norm, rather than the exception; whilst we will continue to expand our footprint through the launch of more Nxthubs.”

  • MIB cancels three MSO licenses in April

    MIB cancels three MSO licenses in April

    Mumbai: The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) reported that there are 1761 registered multi-system operators (MSOs) as of 30 April compared to 1763 registered MSOs on 22 March. The ministry granted one new license, cancelled three licenses and rejected two applications for license in the month of April.

    MIB granted Manipur-based Infotainment Service & Communication Pvt Ltd license to operate on 21 March. It cancelled the license of RK Digital Cable TV Network, Panduranga Cable Network for being non-operational as well as Dewshree Network Pvt Ltd. The ministry rejected the applications of Shivam Cable & Broadband Pvt Ltd and Rallyon Technology due to suppression of vital information.

    Previously, MIB had granted 13 licenses between 31 December 2021 and 21 March 2022 including the MSOs Sky Media, SGRA Satellite Cable Network, Dainik Savera News and Media Network, Sai Namo Digital Cable Network, Inishia Media, Ganapati Digital Network, Swastika, Grand Gumber Network, Digital Fusion Network, Raaga Communication, SSCN Digital TV and Broadband, Assistive Netspeed Technologies and Asiasat Channel and Consultancy India.