ITV

Category: eNews

  • CCI fines Google for Rs 1 crore

    CCI fines Google for Rs 1 crore

    NEW DELHI: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a fine of Rs one crore on Google for failure to comply with the directions given by CCI’s director general seeking information and documents relating to a case of online search and advertising. 

    The DG was investigating the information filed by Matrimony Com and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) against Google for alleged abuse of market power in the relevant markets of online search and search advertising. 

    CCI also directed Google to cooperate with the investigations by furnishing such other information and documents which may be required by the DG. 

    The order was passed on a reference made by the DG to CCI alleging non-cooperation by Google in the pending investigations. 

     

  • Ronnie Screwvala bets big on Oximity

    Ronnie Screwvala bets big on Oximity

    MUMBAI: Entrepreneurs Ronnie Screwvala, Krishnan Ganesh, Sashi Reddi and Anand Ranganathan have co-invested in Oximity, a unique news website that crowd-sources opinions and developments on social and economic issues at a global level. The four Indian investors have jointly co-invested to raise the seed round of $620,000 for this innovative crowd sourced news website.

     

    Oximity goes beyond commercial concerns and concentrates on the latest trends like social, mobile, location based services, cloud computing and big data. “For Screwvala, Ganesh, Reddi and Ranganathan investing in Oximity and actively supporting it with personal networks is a validation of the website’s attempt to bring in systemic change in the news industry,” said the company statement.

     

    “The news media landscape is shifting rapidly, and in a few years there will be an entirely new set of players dominating this space. We believe Oximity has the potential to be one of such dominant players,” said Ronnie Screwvala. 

     

    “The paradigm shift that Oximity is planning is huge. There is a clear and present need to replace the Buzzfeed generation with meaningful journalism direct from the source. Oximity’s focus on pertinent news from the community is much-needed and I’m excited to see this collaborative platform grow,” added K Ganesh.

     

    With its modus operandi of crowd-sourcing news, Oximity aims to transform the traditional top-down structure of news media with a bottoms-up approach in writing, reporting, editing and distributing news. By allowing people and organisations to report their news in over 180 languages, and facilitating automatic as well as manual translation, Oximity is removing language as a barrier to the flow of news information globally.

     

    Additionally, it is partnering with various existing user generated news networks worldwide to create one large network of self-empowered news writers and readers.

     

    “We believe all human beings are equal, without exception. The disenfranchised can now have a voice, on a level playing field with the already empowered. And users get to set the news agenda, instead of a few people who run global news media organisations”, said Oximity co-founder Sanjay Goel.

     

    The website has more than 8,000 likes on Facebook and over 6,000 followers on twitter. This only goes on to say that there is space for such news websites where common man becomes the source! 

  • India ranks sixth among top ten spammers for Feb

    India ranks sixth among top ten spammers for Feb

    NEW DELHI: India stands at sixth position in terms of spam distribution in February 2014, while China has been ranked number one.

     

     According to Kaspersky Lab study, the countries that feature in the top 10 worldwide spam distribution list are: China (22.9 per cent), United States (19.1 per cent), South Korea (12.8 per cent), Russia (7 per cent), Taiwan (5.1 per cent), India (3.4 per cent), Vietnam (3 per cent), Ukraine (2.3 per cent), Romania (2 per cent) and Japan (1.8 per cent).

     

     The study said that internet users in India should start taking digital security seriously. With the number of threat vectors increasing alarmingly along with the rise of cybercriminal activities, it is imperative that internet users in India protect themselves with genuine internet security or anti-virus software. “With regards to spam, the government should initiate spam laws that will deter spammers from making India their safe havens,” the study stated.

     

     In February, social networking sites remained the most popular phishing target. Email services were second in the rating of targeted organisations, while financial and e-pay organisations came third with a slight increase of 1.1 percentage points in their share of phishing attacks.

     

     Kaspersky Lab – South Asia MD Altaf Halde said, “Spammers are becoming more intelligent in masking their messages under the garb of offering something genuine to the recipients – be it Valentine’s Day discount or news about Ukraine, etc.”

     

     Once unsuspecting users have clicked or downloaded the email attachment, Trojans are downloaded without the user’s knowledge, which are capable of stealing data or even holding the data at ransom (encrypting the data and demanding money to decrypt the data, like CryptoLocker).

     

     February’s love-themed malicious spam was dominated by Trojans, as the cybercriminals’ mass mailings targeted credulous users with a Trojan-Dropper. The Trojan installs two malicious programs on the system – one is spyware that steals all document files (Docx,  Xlsx, Pdf) from the computer and sends them to a specific mailbox; another is IRC-bot/worm called ShitStorm which can carry out DDoS attacks on websites and spread copies of itself via MSN and P2P services.

     

     If recipients respond to these emails, their computer can easily become part of a botnet. In addition to Trojan spyware this month’s malicious spam included ransomware – a type of malware that blocks the user’s computer and then demands money to unblock it. The explicit photos also turned out to be malicious programs and among them was the Andromeda backdoor that allows cybercriminals to secretly control a compromised computer.

     

    Messages allegedly sent on behalf of Facebook informed recipients that a lot had happened on friends’ news feeds since they last visited the site and they were prompted to open the attached archive to find out more. The archive contained the backdoor from the aforementioned Andromeda family.

     

     Meanwhile, ‘Nigerian’ scammers could not pass up the opportunity to exploit the situation in Ukraine and the tragic events that followed in order to cheat users out of their money. They cited some familiar stories about unfortunate tourists in Kiev who had all their money stolen, followed by a request for financial assistance.

     

     The proportion of spam in email traffic in February increased by 4.2 percentage points compared to the previous month and averaged 69.9 per cent – 1.2 percentage points less than in February 2013.

     

     China (23 per cent) returned to the top of the rating, followed by the USA (19.1 per cent) and South Korea (12.8 per cent). Russia (7 per cent) ended the month in fourth place with an increase of 1.1 percentage points. Taiwan (5.1 per cent) dropped to fifth place after its share decreased by 1.1 percentage points compared to January.

     

     India (3.4 per cent), Vietnam (3 per cent), Ukraine (2.3 per cent) and Romania (2 per cent) all experienced an average decline of 0.2 percentage points in the proportion of distributed spam.

     

     In February, Japan’s share (1.8 per cent) fell 0.3 percentage points compared with the previous month, resulting in a drop of one place in our rating to tenth place. South Korea remained the leading source of spam sent to European users (48.6 per cent) in February.

     

     Next came the USA whose contribution also increased by almost 3 percentage points, pushing it up one position to second place. In January, the USA was third with 5.3 per cent of all spam sent to European users followed by Taiwan (5.5 per cent), Russia (5 per cent), China (3.9 per cent), Ukraine (2.3 per cent) and Vietnam (1.8 per cent).

     

    India rounded off the Top 10 with 1.6 per cent of spam sent to European users. The UK and Germany’s figures are slightly lower – 1.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively.

     

    Top three types of organisations targeted most frequently by phishers were: social networking sites (27.3 per cent), email services (19.34 per cent) and e-pay organisations (16.73 per cent).

     

     Kaspersky Lab specialists also came across fraudulent notifications in February that claimed to be from the Malaysian HongLeong bank.

  • Outbrain signs strategic partnership with Times Internet

    Outbrain signs strategic partnership with Times Internet

    NEW DELHI: Outbrain, a content discovery platform, has signed a multi-year strategic partnership agreement with Times Internet. The move will help Times Internet to advance its native content strategy that the group has pioneered for many years.

     

     Outbrain’s Engage, which is a platform that helps publishers deliver personalised content recommendations to its audiences, will be used across desktop, tablet and mobile devices on all of the Times Internet’s web properties including Times of India, Economic Times and India Times.

     

    “At Times Internet, we have always strived to give our readers what they wanted. We are delighted to announce TIL’s association with Outbrain, to fortify the values which we stand for. Outbrain’s proven technology places the right content in front of the right people at the right time enriching the users’ content experience,” said Times Internet CEO Satyan Gajwani.

     

    “Outbrain’s mission is to help people discover the most interesting, relevant and trusted content wherever they are and so this deal is a major milestone. Our deep partnership with Times Internet showcases the full capability of our innovative technology which firmly demonstrates to the Indian publisher and media market that Content Marketing is here to stay. We are looking forward to working with Satyan and his team to grow this new space very quickly in India,” said Outbrain regional director Anthony Hearne.

     

     Outbrain Engage serves Times Internet viewers with the most interesting and personalised content recommendations possible.

  • Starsports.com targets 10 mn unique visitors during ICC T-20 World Cup

    Starsports.com targets 10 mn unique visitors during ICC T-20 World Cup

    MUMBAI: To say cricket is a religion in India could be an understatement. Cricket fanatics who are unable to watch live action on television find help in mobile phones and sports websites to get near live updates. These cricket devotees now have a whole new comprehensive experience on offer in Starsports.com.

    Ever since its launch in June 2013, starsports.com has drawn nearly 28 million unique visitors for all its sports properties and the average time spent is 45 minutes per match. Starsports.com claims these numbers – comparable to television – are the highest ever on a digital platform.

    “During the recently concluded Asia Cup, we witnessed 4.5 million unique visitors, and with over 10 million video views, the numbers are really humbling,” says Star India digital head Ajit Mohan. “The average time spent on video content was 32 minutes. Thus, Asia Cup was an affirmation that if someone is willing to create a great video experience there is a great appetite for it out there.”

    Heading into the ICC T-20 World Cup, Starsports.com is going through a fairly major revamp. “It all began in June 2013 with Starsports.com and our major pull was the proposition of watching live matches on the go or on desktops for a subscription price with a great video player having timelines and data integrations with the option of tracking data without leaving the live video,” adds Mohan.

    Now the portal is expanding the proposition with the insight that when sports fans are not in front of their TV sets there is a huge interest in following the matches. And of course the interest is higher when India is playing.

    “So far, most companies for sports on the web will give the option of text commentary, or give ball by ball commentary. Over the last six months with the onset of Starsports.com with live video available on subscription and text commentary, we have changed the way sports is perceived on the web,” explains Mohan.

    Starsports.com believes that there is a whole new space in between which can be shaped by it and create an experience that is way better than text commentary.

    The three major changes that will be experienced on the revamped site, as Mohan puts it, will be Zip Clips, Graphical Representations and streaming of live action with a 5-minute delay.

    Zip Clips: Starsports.com is creating a new match centre, where sports fans will be able to enjoy the live match through a series of clips. Almost ball by ball we will have ‘Zip Clips’ to catch up with the game or follow the game. So one doesn’t really have to sit and read the scores but gets to experience it with a series of short clips. And the clips will be almost in real time.

    Graphical Representations: The other thing added to the mix is a lot more graphical representation during the match and provide nuggets and insights. There will be experimentation with capturing in graphics where the match stands at that point in time.

    5-minute delayed live stream: And the third and most promising proposition for sports fans is streaming of the live action with a five-minute delay. This should encourage increased video consumption also in homes that do not have more than one TV screen.

    Cricket fans pressed for time and also those having low bandwidth can watch ‘zip clips’ to catch up with the near live action or when in leisure, cricket fans can watch the match with a five minute delay. For those wanting to watch live streaming, there’s a small charge to be paid.

    Starsports.com carried out loads of tests for nearly four months on how to make the best use of the zip clips feature and created the work flow from both the content and the technology point of views. Taking into consideration the fact that there are bandwidth constraints across the nation, Starsports.com strives to provide the best in video content at great quality.

    “Essentially, we are shaping a new service for fundamentally addressing the need for following a match. When the sports fan is not in front of the television, and therefore, to create a full video experience that is beyond what they are used to in terms of text commentary but also addresses the issue of time and convenience,” expounds Mohan. “It’s still a world where people are concerned about data charges and bandwidth and we are saying let us help you solve the concern by reducing the duration of the clips.”

    The prices for the tournaments and matches are quite reasonable given that they will get to watch it in high definition. ICC T20 World Cup 2014 Pass: Rs 100; The FA Cup 2013: Rs 100; Premier League Season Pass: Rs 500; Formula 1 – 2014 Season Pass: Rs 500; La Liga Season Pass: Rs 500; Football Season Pass: Rs 800; All Sports Day Pass (floating): Rs 20; Match Week Pass (floating): Rs 30 (which starts from Friday).

    The zip clips will be supported by ads but they would only feature on the clips of particularly longer duration, and it has a great value proposition for advertisers. “I believe advertisers increasingly value ads when the fans are really engaged in a full video experience. So our aim is to let them target engaged sports fans, so there is no point in cluttering the clips with ads. But there will be ads against these clips and for the delayed five minute stream, only the live stream will be ad free,” expounds Mohan.

    Thus with these three offerings Starsports.com is trying to keep sports fans pleased with the proposal of watching shorter clips to play catch-up with the live action or to watch the five minute delayed stream at leisure or if you are really keen to watch M S Dhoni smack the ball out of the park live just shell out a few extra bucks.

    “We have always had a tournament pass, season passes on soccer and our objective has always been to keep the prices reasonable and we believe in delivering quality content at that price,” beams Mohan.

    Speaking on Starsports.com’s association with Vodafone, Mohan adds, “They are a very valued partner for us, I think as a telco looking to shape data and video consumption, they are acutely aware of the power of sports, so we are powering Vodafone Sports with our curated content and all of what we are doing here will help us shape that service as well.”

    Social media acts as a catalyst for driving viewers from all over the web to the content on offer. These clips will be made available for easy sharing, “But I guess primarily people want to watch the matches and the shorter clips and for us to deliver a great video experience, we don’t want to clutter our social media with the buzz word like most providers do,” explains Mohan.

    Looking at the kind of brands that the portal has on board and already in talks with some of the leading brands for the ongoing T-20 World Cup, industry sources estimate that starsports.com generated ad revenue of around Rs 7-8 crore during the recently concluded Asia Cup and would generate around Rs 15-16 crore from the ongoing ICC T-20 World Cup.

    “We have received a great response from the advertisers and a lot of brands are looking for a great video experience on the web. It’s no longer about banner ads and they are keen to grab the attention of engaged sports fans,” says Mohan.

    Starsports.com is gung-ho about touching the 10 million unique visitors mark during the ICC T-20 World Cup tourney. “Our target has always been to hit the 50 million unique visitors mark between the major tournaments namely the recently concluded Asia Cup, the ongoing T-20 World Cup and the upcoming big-ticket tourney the Indian Premiere League,” says Mohan.

    There are three major things that one looks at when delivering the best experience through a sports service – one is having great storytellers, great infrastructure and the video player.

    Expanding on these three aspects, Mohan says: “We have a dedicated sports team working on the digital front, focusing on how to communicate stories on the web. We have learnt a lot over the past year to deliver the best in sports experience on the web and finally our video player is something that we are proud of after investing so much on building one of the best players in the market currently that can support great graphic content as well.”

    Starports.com is clearly living up to its claim of being the YouTube of sports in India and is focused on building a strong backbone for video content delivery and continuing to invest in improving the experience even further.

    “For us, the response we receive from the ICC T-20 WC and the IPL will be a good trial of (whether) we are able to both communicate and bring in a sports fan,” says Mohan.

    “Sports fans have been used to something else and it’s not easy to bring a change in habits as most people have been following a text scorecard over the years and our challenge is to tell them that there is a better way to consume sports,” concludes Mohan.

  • starsports.com witnesses huge traffic during IPL 7 auction

    starsports.com witnesses huge traffic during IPL 7 auction

    MUMBAI: The digital arm of Star Sports – starsports.com – seems to be living up to its claim of being known as the YouTube of sports in India. The portal witnessed a huge traffic when it streamed the two day auction of the Pepsi Indian Premiere League (IPL) 2014 with five-minute delay.

     

    The reach of the auction managed to outmatch Sony Six’s 2013 Pepsi IPL player auction numbers, claims the website as it attracted close to 680,000 visits over the two days.

     

    Last year, the IPL auction on Sony Six witnessed traffic of 404,000 viewers with average time spent being 25 minutes in the male SEC ABC 15+ demographic.

     

    In comparison, starsports.com reached 387,000 viewers with average time spent on the web being 31 minutes on each day.

     

    Star India EVP and head new media Ajit Mohan said: “We had decided to produce a high quality show around the auctions, with commentary and analysis from Harsha Bhogle and Sourav Ganguly. This is a vindication of our approach. The Indian consumer is evolving fast and more and more consumers want to catch action while on the move. We are convinced that this year, the mobile screen will be where the action will be for IPL.”

     

    The highest growth in traffic was seen in the first session of the auction on 12 February when marquee players like Yuvraj Singh and Kevin Pietersen were going under the hammer. The traffic peaked at 3 pm on 12 February. And almost 60 per cent of the traffic was from sports fans between the age of 18-24 years, and almost all of the traffic was in the coveted male demographics.

     

    starsports.com is India’s first multi-sports digital service with availability across the web and mobile. Powered by live and video rights, it covers the best of world sports including major cricket tournaments, BPL, La Liga and Serie A in football, F1, hockey and tennis. This year, for the first time, all IPL matches will be available on the portal after it won the online streaming rights from Indiatimes.com this time around.

  • Separate Copyright Board soon for authors, performers and creators of various works

    Separate Copyright Board soon for authors, performers and creators of various works

    NEW DELHI: A separate Copyright office and a permanent Copyright Board is being set up to provide better services to the authors, performers and creators of various works. 

     

    This was stated by Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju here while unveiling the logo of the Copyright Office and launching the web portal with e-filing facility for Copyright Registration. 

     

    The website of the Ministry of Human Resources Development’s IPR Chairs was also launched.  Higher Education Secretary Ashok Thakur was also present.

    Dr. Raju said the logo for the Copyright office will establish a unique identity for this office and will create a distinct relationship with the public. The interactive copyright web portal having facility of e-filing of applications with payment gateway is going to be the major step in delivering public services in a more efficient and effective manner. 

     

    He added that the Ministry has already initiated the process for ‘online search facility’ for the users to see the details of works registered since 1958. This will eliminate wasteful expenditure and will save time and energy on long travels to come to Copyright Office in Delhi to search the Copyright register. 

     

    Similarly, e-filing facility for registration of ISBN numbers is going to be operational in the current year and will assist the authors and publishers in getting prompt services. 

  • starsports.com to stream 2014 Pepsi IPL Player Auction

    starsports.com to stream 2014 Pepsi IPL Player Auction

    MUMBAI: starsports.com, India’s first multi-sports digital service, will stream the action from the 2014 Pepsi IPL Player Auction to be held in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13, 2014. In a first of kind initiative for the digital platform, a full broadcast quality show will be produced with expert analysis from a stellar roster that includes Sourav Ganguly, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Harsha Bhogle, Akash Chopra, Sanjay Manjrekar and Deep Das Gupta.  Streaming of the auctions will start at 9:30 am on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 and will be available with a delay of 5 minutes.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Ajit Mohan, EVP and Head, New Media, Star India, said, “It is likely that the most incisive coverage of the auction this time will be online. This shows our commitment to make IPL the biggest online sporting event in the world. And, this is just the beginning. We have far bigger plans in store for the full IPL coverage.”

     

    starsports.com’s revolutionary video timeline, that allows the viewer to keep track of live events with ease, will be used for the streaming of the auction. The timeline will allow even those coming in late to catch up on the most important events of the day with editorially curated markers that allow users to easily control their viewing experience. Users will also be able to follow a detailed text commentary alongside their video experience. The auction will be available to all consumers for free.

     

    starsports.com is India’s first multi-sports digital service with availability across the web and mobile. Powered by live and video rights, it covers the best of world sports including major cricket tournaments, BPL, La Liga and Serie A in football, F1, hockey and tennis. 

     

    For further information, please contact:

     

    Sameer Bajaj
    Corporate Communications
    STAR Sports India
    +919811222700
    bajaj.sameer@startv.com

  • Starsports.com: YouTube of sports in India?

    Starsports.com: YouTube of sports in India?

    Barely a year old and starsports.com could well qualify as an example of the limitless possibilities of the World Wide Web.

     

    Ever since its launch in June 2013, starsports.com, has been drawing nearly 28 million unique visitors every day with as many as 45 minutes spent per match. These numbers – comparable to television – are the highest ever on a digital platform.

     

    starsports.com’s meteoric rise is not for nothing as the website has always been about giving sports fans a rich, immersive video experience a la YouTube and becoming a one-stop shop for them.  

     

    Star India digital head Ajit Mohan puts it well when he says: “The philosophy of the design and the service itself was to make video the hero; we believe we have become the YouTube of sports.”

     

    Drawing attention to how sports coverage has evolved from print to radio to television and now the digital medium, Mohan says: “The idea was to create a new immersive experience around sports on digital for fans. The best way to attract the viewers was to add a lot of video elements that allowed getting data and analytics into the experience in a very meaningful manner. So we wanted it to be fully relevant to the digital medium, rather than what consumers were being served.”

     

    Starsports.com has a 20-strong content development team and leverages the network’s production and broadcast team. Explains Mohan: “The idea is to keep delivering content on-the-go and report as events take place. The team creates video stories as well as columns and articles, but the point is to create a lot of video during the course of a live match as people would love to listen to someone’s point of view on the state of the match, thus driving home our point of an immersive experience.”

     

    Speaking of design, starsports.com isn’t cluttered with irrelevant content like other sports sites. “We have kept the design experience for the consumer in mind where it becomes easy for viewers to discover a live match. Having said that, we have had a lot of learning over the past 12 months and we want to further improve on the experience for consumers,” says Mohan. “We work with a lot of world-class platforms and partners to help out with execution on the video as well as platform development.”

     

    Apart from content and design, the revenue model too has evolved with time. At the time of the beta launch in December 2012, the streaming was free and had a little delay but post the launch, the live streaming experience was taken behind the pay-wall. “Just to give an idea about the conversion rate, it’s been in the range of three to five per cent – depending on whether on the web or the mobile app or any other operator service. Looking at the current subscriber base, if we exclude the telecom world, we probably have one of the largest subscription base of content subscriptions in the digital world,” says Mohan. “We are currently in a dilemma trying to figure out what services to charge for and what to keep free access for. So if we are asking people to pay, then there has to be something really exceptional and a high value proposition.”

     

    Mohan believes the site’s success owes to two big leaps: firstly, high quality streaming of an even higher standard than YouTube or a comparable platform and secondly, advertising which allows a deeper engagement with sports fans on the back of very high quality video and content created exclusively for starsports.com.

     

    “We have provided a much customised backbone to serve a very good video experience in live viewing. The response for the streaming quality has been very good and users find it very reliable and of high quality. So if the user has access to even a 1 mbps net connection, the video is of HD quality. That is something that is unprecedented and no other sports company has managed thus far,” Mohan exults. “We already had Adidas and Red Bull being associated with Starsports.com and within the next four to six weeks, we are sure to get more brands on-board with the announcement of the IPL streaming rights. Also, we will be having a lot of action for fans with the Asia Cup, the ICC T-20 World Cup in March and moving onto the IPL in April and May. So with a fully packed calendar for the next three and a half months, advertisers are keen to come on board.”

     

    On the subject of IPL streaming rights, Mohan believes that despite the five-minute delay in streaming, IPL is sure to generate a lot of viewership on the digital platform.

     

    “There is a habit of watching the event on the mobile and other portable devices, so the idea is to leverage our platform and provide a much better consumer experience and advertising solution and deploy it for IPL where there is already a habit and increase the numbers even more as against last year,” says he.

     

    Again, IPL isn’t the only such property available on starsports.com; the site also streams as many as six to seven matches of the Barclays Premiere League (BPL) at one time. “We also show Sierra and La Liga matches along with F1 and the Australian Open. During the grand slam, we witnessed a spike of 200,000 users in a day coming on the back of the Open. Cricket will continue to be our cornerstone but we will also generate focus and engagement in other sports,” says Mohan.

     

    Any discussion on the success story of starsports.com would be incomplete without a reference to ‘The Sachin Memory Project’, one of the website’s biggest and most innovative online campaigns around cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar.

     

    “The idea was to be distinctive at the same time connect the master blaster with his fans. So starsports.com believed that the best way to create that connect would be to make a timeline of all the major events of Tendulkar’s career and best innings with the support of archival videos,” recalls Mohan, pointing out that the engagement reached such levels that people tried to think back and see where they were when Tendulkar broke a certain record. “The reason for calling it ‘The Memory Project’ came across well and we achieved what we had set out for!” he exclaims. Starsports.com had nearly four million visitors during the India-West Indies series, largely on the back of this innovation.

     

    Mohan is happy with the way things have shaped up. “We have already made strides on unchartered territory and it would be really difficult for anyone to find a digital service on sports that has created a great video player and gives HD quality output,” says he. Currently, the site has video content across cricket, football, tennis, hockey and F1 but is looking at what consumers want and intends to bring back discontented sports fans who aren’t satisfied with the digital content provided by others. “We will add new sports and improve the consumer experience, and try and reach out to people with lesser bandwidth as well and provide equal quality of content,” says Mohan of the company’s future plans.

     

    Plans are afoot to provide short clips which allow consumers to pick up the best moments in the match which they either missed or would love to relive. Providing ample visibility for advertisers is also on the cards. “We do believe that going forward, a lot of the brands will be looking to build traction on the digital platform and we want to provide such a platform where advertisers feel their products and brands will get proper visibility and the right value,” he signs off.

  • ESPNcricinfo brings Gaurav Kalra on board to expand digital video content strategy

    ESPNcricinfo brings Gaurav Kalra on board to expand digital video content strategy

    MUMBAI: ESPNcricinfo, the world’s leading digital cricket brand seems to be strengthening its digital team. It has brought on board TV journalist Gaurav Kalra as the Senior Editor for the emerging video editorial and a part of the content development group.

     

    Kalra, who joins ESPN from CNN-IBN, will work with ESPNcricinfo’s in-house digital video production teams and acclaimed editorial team to continue to grow and develop the brand’s use of high-quality video in their journalism and storytelling, as well as original analysis and programming. Kalra will report to Editor of ESPNcricinfo Sambit Bal.

    Kalra will be based out of ESPN’s Bangalore office, where ESPNcricinfo also unveiled a new studio and control room built to enhance the production capabilities and quality for the site.

     

    The highly-flexible digital video production studio is designed with four different “pocket sets” that can be purposed for four entirely different programming uses – including a main set, smaller and more casual “discussion” space, a video wall and a “pitch” demonstration set. Each can be customised for different shows and sponsor elements. The studio features multiple HD camera positions, cutting-edge digital switcher and recorder equipment, an eight-line Telos audio system, professional grade talk back system and a live streaming encoder – allowing it to produce full TV-quality programme production.

    “ESPN has been at the forefront of developing world-class sports content and are known to have revolutionised the way content is delivered on digital platforms. The opportunity to keep pace with evolving tastes of sports fans and develop high-impact, share-able content in the process, is tremendous. ESPNcricinfo has enjoyed enviable brand loyalty from cricket fans thus far, and I look forward to enhancing the offering by looking at new series and video programming to take story-telling to the next level,” said Kalra.