KOLKATA: Bengali OTT platform Hoichoi’s first independent property, Tangra Blues, premiered on the platform on Saturday a month after its theatrical release while simultaneously being available in multiplexes.
Directed by National Award-winning director Supriyo Sen, along with National Award-winning cinematographer Ranjan Palit, and music director Nabarun Ghosh, the film is an underdog story of a band that refuses to die and rewrite its destiny through music.
Ahead of its World Premiere on Hoichoi, Tangra Blues had opened to an overwhelming response and rave reviews in theatres a month back on 15 April. The film is inspired by the lives and struggles of Sanjay Mandol & group, Kolkata’s most popular waste band group, who went on to become a runner-up in a popular talent reality show in the country.
The film stars renowned actors Parambrata Chatterjee and Madhumita along with Saimul Alam, Oishani Dey, and Atmadeep Ghosh among others.
Hoichoi revenue & strategy VP Soumya Mukherjee said, “With our huge bank of World Premiere movies and Original Shows, we are prepared to provide entertainment to our user base even at a time like this. Tangra Blues being our first independent property, we are excited for our users across the globe to enjoy it from the safety and comfort of their homes. At Hoichoi, we endeavour to bring great content and latest releases on our service for our users to experience.”
Mumbai: Post the coronavirus outbreak, the OTT platforms in India have witnessed a rapid surge in popularity. As people remained confined to their homes, they turned to the streaming platforms to binge watch some of their favourite shows and films. With the second wave of pandemic ravaging the country, the restrictions on movement will continue and so, will the influx of new viewers on these platforms.
Indiantelevision.com presents you with a list of five most-anticipated movies and shows that audiences can watch this week on the OTT platforms.
Army of the Dead (Netflix)
After the mammoth success of Justice League: Snyder’s Cut, acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker Zack Snyder is revisiting his favourite zombie genre with Army of the Dead. Starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighofer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Tig Notaro in the lead roles, this film will be premiered on Netflix on 21 May.
Apart from the stellar Hollywood star cast, Indian actress Huma Qureshi is also playing a crucial role in this film. Army of the Dead is set in the backdrop of a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas. As the entire city is quarantined, a group of mercenaries plans the greatest heist ever to secure their lives.
Sardar Ka Grandson (Netflix)
Bollywood movie Sardar Ka Grandson will have its premiere on Netflix on 18 May. Directed by Kaashvie Nair, this romantic drama stars Arjun Kapoor, Rakul Preet Singh, and Neena Gupta in lead roles, while Bollywood superstar John Abraham and Aditi Rao Hydari will be seen playing extended cameos.
The film is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Divya Khosla Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani, Nikkhil Advani, and John Abraham under the banners T-Series, Emmay Entertainment, and JA Entertainment.
Solos (Amazon Prime Video)
Produced by Amazon Studios, Solos is an American anthology drama directed by David Weil, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Zach Braff, and Tiffany Johnson. The seven-episode series is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on 21 May.
Solos has an ensemble star cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren, Uzo Aduba, Anthony Mackie, Constance Wu, Dan Stevens, and Nicole Beharie.
Who Killed Sara (Netflix)
It was on 24 March that Netflix premiered the first season of Who Killed Sara. In an unexpected move, the OTT giant is now all set to premiere the second season of Who Killed Sara on 19 May.
The first season of Who Killed Sara took the audience on a lurid journey through the dark underground of the powerful Lazcano family, and the second season is expected to begin from where the first season ended.
Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous: Season 3 (Netflix)
The much-anticipated third season of the animated series Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous will premiere on Netflix on 21 May. The series which won the award for Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects at the 48th Annie Awards is expected to offer an ultimate visual treat to young audiences in the nation.
Mumbai: The growing power of Netflix, Disney and Amazon and other larger media entities is forcing strange alliances on the industry. US telecom giant AT&T, which acquired Warner Media (then named Time Warner) for around $85 billion in 2018 is all set to fuse Warner Media with Discovery Inc, which itself is valued at around $16 billion with an enterprise valuation of $30 billion. That’s according to a report by US business news channel CNBC.
The purpose: the two want to stay relevant in the new media ecosystem in which billions of dollars are being spent on content on customer acquisition and retention.
A new publicly traded company holding the combined assets is to be created with ownership lying with the two media giants’ shareholders. CNBC stated that insiders had informed the channel that a deal is likely to be announced Monday sometime. But it also said no one was willing to come on record on what the stock holding split would be like. It also added that the deal – while it was in the final stages – may even fall through.
Earlier Bloomberg had reported that the two were in talks to combine the two firms to form a giant media conglomerate.
AT&T houses brands like CNN, HBO, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, and the Warner Bros. studio. Discovery owns networks such as HGTV, Food Network, TLC, and Animal Planet. If such a deal were to be completed, it would be the largest media merger since Viacom and CBS combined their businesses to form ViacomCBS in December 2019.
Both companies have recently entered the streaming wars. With a platter of content in entertainment, lifestyle, the combined company can create a better international footprint. Moreover, it can emerge as a strong rival to players like Disney, Netflix which are turning out to be more aggressive every day in the streaming war.
However, there is no information yet on how the assets will be combined. Despite the ongoing discussion, there is no certainty at this moment that it would lead to an actual transaction, Bloomberg reported.
The report also comes amid the speculation over Comcast’s NBCUniversal and AT&T’s Warner Media merger after research firm LightShed Partners said both the entities should be spun off and merged for long-term health.
Back in February, AT&T sold 30 per cent of satellite pay-TV operator DirecTV to private equity firm TPG to offload its debt, largely caused by its acquisition spree in the last few years.
New Delhi: In a global first for Amazon, one of the country’s largest online store, Amazon.in on Saturday announced the launch of a free, ad-supported video streaming service, miniTV which is available within the Amazon shopping app.
miniTV has professionally created and curated content across web series, comedy shows, tech news, food, beauty, fashion, and more, the company announced on its blog on Saturday.
The list includes leading studios such as – TVF, Pocket Aces, and leading comedians – Ashish Chanchlani, Amit Bhadana, Round2Hell, Harsh Beniwal, Shruti Arjun Anand, Elvish Yadav, Prajakta Koli, Swagger Sharma, Aakash Gupta, and Nishant Tanwar. Viewers will be informed on the latest products and trends by tech expert Trakin Tech, fashion and beauty experts such as Sejal Kumar, Malvika Sitlani, Jovita George, Prerna Chhabra and ShivShakti. Food lovers can enjoy content from Kabita’s Kitchen, Cook with Nisha, and Gobble. In the coming months, miniTV plans to add many newer and exclusive videos.
With this launch, Amazon has two video entertainment offerings – miniTV and Prime Video. miniTV is completely free and does not require a separate app. Prime Video requires a Prime subscription and offers a collection of award-winning Amazon Originals, latest movies, and TV shows, in English and 9 Indian languages. Viewers can access Prime Video on the app or stream it on their smart TVs.
With the launch of miniTV, Amazon.in has stepped up its reach as a shopping app that offers customers a one-stop center to shop from millions of products, make payments and watch free entertainment videos.
miniTV is available on Amazon’s shopping app for Android phones. It will also be extended to iOS app and mobile web over the coming months.
KOLKATA: Actor Salman Khan’s much awaited film Radhe has opened to a thunderous response from the audience. The movie proved to be yet another Eid blockbuster garnering over 4.2 million views across various platforms.
In India, the film was released on Zee5 with Zee’s pay-per-view service ZeePlex, along with leading DTH operators. It was also released theatrically in international markets on 13 May.
Right from fans cheering for the film in theatres overseas, to massive bookings on streaming platforms, the fans of the superstar watched the film as soon as it released making it the most-watched movie on the opening day itself.
With theatre capacities running at 50 per cent in UAE, the film has collected $379,000 on its opening day, which is not only higher than Salman Khan’s last film Dabbang 3 (2019) but also a higher opening day collection than Godzilla vs. Kong. The collections are likely to go up given the festive weekend.
Radhe’s emphatically demonstrates the success of a hybrid release and shows an effective model of releasing a film during these very tough times. This would be important not just to the stakeholders of Radhe but to the entire film industry at a time, when the country is reeling under the most severe wave of Covid-19. The release also reinforces the belief that multi-platform simultaneous release is the future of entertainment and will grow multi-fold in the years to come.
“The film has won over audiences and through this unique and never-seen-before distribution strategy we could ensure the widest possible ‘opportunity to see’ this high-on-entertainment, quintessential Salman Khan movie at a place and time of audiences’ choice,” said Zee Studios CBO Shariq Patel. “With unprecedented circumstances comes the responsibility to make innovative choices that will pave the way for future business models and Zee is at the forefront of it.”
KOLKATA: With a higher-than-ever growth of streaming services in the last year, The Walt Disney Co.’s (Disney) direct-to-consumer venture Disney+ has also grown quickly to surpass 100 million subscribers.
Although its overall subscriber addition in q2 has fallen short of the Wall Street expectations, Disney+ paid subscribers have reached 103.6 million subscribers. Disney+Hotstar currently has nearly 34.5 million subscribers.
In the same quarter a year ago, Disney+ had 33.5 million subscribers. Although it has not been able to reach the expected 109 million subscriber base, the growth is indeed fast amid an array of big-ticket rivals. Along with the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, a bunch of new entrants HBO Max, Apple TV+ is also betting big on their streaming services.
“Results at Disney+ were comparable to the prior-year quarter as an increase in subscribers was largely offset by higher programming and production, marketing, and technology costs. The increases in subscribers and costs reflected the ongoing expansion of Disney+ including launches in additional markets,” the earnings press release mentioned.
Disney+ touched the milestone of 100 million subscribers in early March. It indicates the last month of the quarter has seen faster growth compared to the first two months, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said in the earnings call.
“Between q1-q2, Disney+Hotstar was the strongest contributor to net subscriber addition and made approximately a third of total Disney+ subscriber base as of the end of q2. However, ARPU at Disney+Hotstar was down significantly compared to Q1 due to lower ad revenue as a result of the timing of the IPL cricket matches and impact of Covid in India,” McCarthy added further.
In the quarter, Disney+ reported an ARPU of $3.99 falling 29 per cent over the same quarter of last year. The decline in ARPU has been attributed to Disney+Hotstar as overall Disney+ ARPU excluding it was $5.61. However, the average monthly revenue per paid subscribe for Disney’s other streaming services ESPN+ and Hulu grew slightly.
Direct-to-Consumer revenues for the quarter increased 59 per cent to $4.0 billion and operating loss decreased from $0.8 billion to $0.3 billion, the company stated. The decrease in operating loss was due to improved results at Hulu, and to a lesser extent, at ESPN+, it added. Overall, the media conglomerate has around 159 million total subscribers across its streaming services as of the end of the q2.
KERALA: SVOD subscriptions in India will almost triple between 2020 and 2026 to 155 million, thus representing 10 per cent of the world’s total, according to a report published in Digital TV Research.
The report suggested that the total number of global SVOD subscriptions will reach 1.5 billion within the next five years, which represents a 65 per cent jump from the 2020 number of 591 million.
The year that marked a peak in SVOD subscriptions was 2020 where 201 million new subscribers were added. The total number of global SVOD subscribers is expected to cross one billion by the end of 2021.
It should also be noted that SVOD subscription growth is faster than for SVOD subscribers (an SVOD subscriber pays for at least one SVOD subscription). According to the study report, an average SVOD subscriber will pay for 2.14 SVOD subscriptions by 2026, up from 1.74 in 2020.
The report also noted that the United States will overtake China as the subscription leader in 2021. If the trend holds, China and the United States will together account for 48 per cent of the global subscriptions by 2026.
“There will be 700 million SVOD subscribers by 2026; up by 35 per cent from 518 million at end-2020. The 2026 total represents 39 per cent of TV households, increasing from 30 per cent in 2020,” said Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray.
Kolkata: TikTok Middle East, Turkey, Africa (META), and south Asia head Nikhil Gandhi has quit, according to media reports.
Gandhi joined TikTok in 2019 as India and south Asia CEO. He was redesignated to his current position in January 2021 after parent company ByteDance decided to fold it’s TikTok operation in India following the ban on the short form video app.
“After much reflection on my time here at ByteDance and looking at my future goals, I have made the difficult decision to leave my role in the company,” Gandhi said as quoted in media reports.
“Working with TikTok, I have seen our app shepherd in a new era of connection, communication and cultural appreciation,” he added.
The app which revolutionised short format video in India was banned by the government in 2020 along with multiple other Chinese apps amid rising geopolitical tension.
In a career spanning over two decades, Gandhi has been a part of leading media and entertainment companies and held leadership roles at Times Network, The Walt Disney Company, and Viacom Media Networks.
KOLKATA: In December 2020, Hollywood studio Lionsgate rolled out its independent video streaming app Lionsgate Play here and later expanded its presence in Indonesia. Distribution, payment mechanism, flexible strategy around ARPU – will be the three key factors to make a significant presence in emerging markets in India, according to Lionsgate South Asia and networks- emerging markets Asia managing director Rohit Jain.
Jain was speaking at Future of Video India 2021 organised by the Asia Video Industry Association. “Globally our view is that streaming is eventually going to settle into a three-tier structure which is no different from linear structure. Technologies will change and that makes it convenient for consumers to sort of watch content but the segmentation of customers and their behaviour don’t change,” he said.
He further revealed that Lionsgate Play is looking to position itself around the mid-tier. While a large network might be looking at 250-300 million subscribers, it may target 70-75 million subscribers. The OTT platform currently has around 30 million subscriptions worldwide.
“It is important to let go of the fixation around ARPU. It’s a very incomplete metric unless we look at volumes parallel to that,” Jain commented. Emerging markets like India have huge volume unlike markets like the UK, the US, the platforms don’t have to look at standalone metrics always, he detailed.
In addition to that, distribution is a key factor in these emerging markets as they are more fragmented markets with mobile-first consumers. Jain stated that distribution has to be far more layered compared to developed markets as the platforms need to work on various factors like b2c app, devices, collaboration with telcos, aggregators.
Lionsgate Play’s distribution strategy in India does not revolve around reach or access. The platform looks at how it can reach consumers as complementary services through collaborations – how the platforms come together, create data bundles, a-la-carte models etc.
Additionally, a large part of consumers in these markets are not frequented with net banking, credit cards. Hence, the workaround payment mechanism also becomes far more complicated, Jain noted. “In a sense, these markets will teach you more than western markets,” he added.
In terms of content strategy in India, the global ethos of cinema scale premium content, edgy, untold, provocative storytelling remains the same. Moreover, its content strategy is based on curated content rather than offering an ocean of content. Lionsgate Play is also looking at a well-rounded content slate for India focusing on multiple genres.
“Global productions will have audiences but you can’t take away the value of local productions especially in India where local language content always has been very strong. There are multiple things we can do starting from dubbing. We localise our content across seven to eight languages in India. Local originals are also important. Everybody at the end of the day wants to watch local stars. That market will be 10X larger than Hollywood content,” Jain noted.
KOLKATA: The competition in the short video ecosystem has been heating up for some time now, and YouTube has just upped the stakes with the announcement of a creators fund. Dedicated exclusively for those who create short form video content, the YouTube Shorts Fund is a $100 million pot that will be distributed over the course of 2021-2022.
The cash injection aims to reward the thousands of creators whose Shorts received the most engagement and views, YouTube said in a blogpost. The video viewing platform will also seek feedback from these creators to improve the product experience.
The Shorts Fund is not limited to just creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Any creator will be eligible to participate if they create original content for Shorts. Its biggest rival, TikTok, also rolled out a creator fund last year, followed by Snap a little later.
“The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetisation model for Shorts on YouTube. This is a top priority for us, and will take us some time to get it right. We are actively working on this, and will take the feedback gathered from our community to help develop a long-term program specifically designed for YouTube Shorts,” read the blogpost.
The company has qualified the grant of the fund on the grounds that only “original” content would gain rewards. However, it didn’t clarify how it will go about checking to ensure the content isn’t already uploaded on another platform, like Reels, Snapchat or TikTok.
Further details about the payments and eligibility would be available closer to the fund’s launch, which is expected sometime in the next few months.
YouTube also plans to expand Shorts player across more surfaces on YouTube to help people find new creators, artists and Shorts to enjoy. It will also begin to test and iterate on ads to better understand creators’ performance.
