ITV

Category: Over The Top Services

  • Paytm launches android Mini app store

    Paytm launches android Mini app store

    MUMBAI: Paytm has launched its android mini app store to support Indian developers in taking their innovative products to the masses. Mini apps are a custom-built mobile website that gives users an app-like experience without having to download them. This would greatly benefit millions of citizens to save their limited data and phone memory.

    Paytm is providing listing and distribution of these mini-apps within its app free of charge. For payments, developers can let their users choose from Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments Bank, UPI, net-banking, and cards. 

    Paytm has created the digital infrastructure to enable small developers and businesses to set up low-cost, quick-to-build mini-apps that can be encoded using HTML and javascript technologies. The company provides Paytm wallet, Paytm 

    Payments Bank account and UPI at zero charges and levies a 2 per cent charge for other instruments like credit cards. As a local Indian app store, it aims to drive the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission while keeping the digital consumer spends within the country. 

    Read more news on Paytm

    Paytm Mini app store offers direct access to discover, browse and pay features without downloading or installing separate apps. More than 300 app-based service providers such as Decathalon, Ola, Park+, Rapido, Netmeds, 1MG, Domino's Pizza, FreshMenu, NoBroker have already joined the program. It comes with a developer dashboard for analytics, payments collection along with various marketing tools to engage with the users. This app store has been running in beta with select users and witnessed over 12 million visits in the month of September. 

    Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the mini app store creates an opportunity for every Indian app developer. "It empowers our young Indian developers to leverage our reach and payments to build new innovative services,” he added.

    Sharma guaranteed that for Paytm users, the mini app store will be a seamless experience that doesn't require any separate download, and where they can use their preferred payment option without hassle." 

    The company believes that through this initiative India would be able to build a sustainable and thriving local technology ecosystem that resonates with the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Growing technology companies will get the opportunity to rely on Paytm to contribute towards the overall growth of the Indian economy and create employment.

  • Industry bigwigs sound the alarm on piracy from OTT platforms

    Industry bigwigs sound the alarm on piracy from OTT platforms

    KOLKATA: Digital piracy is nothing new. But it has registered a massive uptick as millions of people have been forced to stay cooped up in their homes because of the Covid2019 pandemic. Illegal streaming could cost the industry around $12.5 billion by 2024 and the only way to curb the threat is a concerted effort by policy makers and service providers, according to experts.

    In a webinar hosted by Indiantelevision.com, panellists agreed that a 360 degree approach can help win the battle against piracy. ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra, SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma, Synamedia intelligence and security operations VP Avigail Gutman participated in the discussion, which was moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari.

    Gutman elaborated on how piracy from streaming platforms has come to be the most significant problem in the last five-ten years. Content is being extracted from the devices from where it is legitimately supplied, says Gutman. Along with that, another kind of copyright violation has emerged including identity theft and skimming of customer credentials. While there are many security solutions that prevent older forms of piracy, streaming is now “the lowest hanging fruit” for pirates.

     

     

    With more and more people switching to digital platforms, piracy is also increasing in tandem, states SonyLIV’s Manish Verma, agreeing to the fact that the issue is ever-evolving. He explained that it started with a very simple process like deep linking of content. It went one step further when people started using proxy and VPN to stream content illegally. This gradually devolved into credential theft, identity sharing, screen mirroring and copying the content on screen.

    Read more news on OTT

    Verma believes that the rise in content piracy has a lot to do with malpractices on social media platforms like Telegram, which allows people to share large multimedia files without supervision. The messenger app became immensely popular after the government crackdown on peer-to-peer file sharing sites, better known as torrents. While the company behind the app claims to have a zero tolerance policy on pirated content, its encryption makes it nearly impossible to find out what users are sharing.

    “With content acquisition and content production costs increasing – whether it is for original content or live sports events –it is very important for us to see what all we can do to stop piracy,” he added.

    ZEE5’s Vohra pointed out how they witnessed a big spike in piracy in the wake of Covid2019 crisis. As TV content dried up with the beginning of lockdown, the platform saw a huge increase in credential theft, and original content getting pirated. This is only going to increase as people have now already tasted original premium content, he warned. 

    “It is easy for pirate services to lure audience as they combine content from several platforms and offer it freely or for a much lower price,” Vohra said. Clearly, 360 investment from content owners, communities, governments and lawmakers is the need of the hour to tackle this challenge.

    With the evolution in the nature of piracy, security solutions have also changed. Verma said that at the outset, the platform used to take basic steps earlier as the volume of traffic and impact wasn’t very high. Then they went from encrypting content, user URLs, using DRMs to blocking proxy and VPN access. Now, they’re looking at more advanced measures at different layers to make the service completely watertight against piracy.

    On the other hand, ZEE5’s Vohra said that the company believes in creating a barrier. It is trying to warn pirates that ZEE5 can catch them by figuring out their IP, user id, device etc. The platform is working on a forensic watermark to be launched on the web player in October. Later, it will be launched on all applications expect for KAIOS by end of December. He is optimistic that the OTT service will be in a better position after six months.

    “We were engaging with the government of India for data protection laws and we stressed content protection as one of the most important clauses that the lawmakers should take up. We are seeing good results from that engagement. We are hopeful that a new law that doubles down on copyright protection will be introduced by April,” Vohra added.

    Gutman concurred that there is great need for stricter law enforcement as hackers are attacking DRMs exploiting the loopholes, legitimate CDNs, video services. As piracy becomes increasingly sophisticated, it demands equally progressive regulations to check it.

  • Amit Bhandari joins Planet Marathi

    Amit Bhandari joins Planet Marathi

    KOLKATA: Just a few months ago, Planet Marathi announced the first-ever Marathi OTT platform that will curate exclusive Marathi content across various genres for the global Marathi audience. This announcement caused quite a stir in the Marathi film world. Ever since the big news, quite a few names are getting associated with the brand. The most recent name to join the bandwagon of entertainment changemakers is Amit Bhandari.

    Bhandari, who was the assistant vice president at Sony Marathi and also being a popular media personality, who has several accolades in the entertainment industry. He will now start the second inning of his career with Planet Marathi. 

    Bhandari’s collaboration with Planet Marathi brings great synergy as both the names are renowned for their path-breaking work in the entertainment industry. Akshay Bardapurkar, head and founder, Planet Marathi, created this brand back in 2017 and eventually made his way into film production. Amit Bhandari’s association with Planet Marathi promises that the caliber entertainment will see a peak.

     Bhandari will be managing the front of Planet Marathi film production, Planet Marathi OTT, and Planet Marathi Talent. While talking about this new chapter in his career, he says, “Today the audience is sensitive when it comes to the content they consume. Planet Marathi OTT recognizes these nuances and is committed to transforming the way Marathi content gets distributed, broadcasted, and the way users experience it. “म मानाचा, म मराठीचा” is the tagline of Planet Marathi OTT. I would love to contribute to Akshay’s vision and give Marathi content the long-overdue recognition it deserves on a global level. My goal is to enable the creation of meaningful content that moves people and promises value in entertainment." Amit also expressed his inclination towards meeting the pace of the fast-evolving talent-management and film production industry with Planet Marathi’s skilled team.

    Bardapurkar expressed his exuberance saying, “We have always believed in the pursuit of excellence. It is only with the right talent and a strong vision, that achieving excellence is possible. Amit has demonstrated his innovation and forward-thinking with Yuva Sakal, Mumbai Times, Star Majha (ABP Majha), and Sony Marathi. The expertise he brings to Planet Marathi along with the decades of experience in Marathi and Hindi entertainment, Amit will only add value to Planet Marathi.”

  • Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    KOLKATA: Of all the challenges, piracy is one major issue that has been bothering the over-the-top ecosystem for a long time. Video piracy tends to eat a major chunk of streaming services’ revenue, advanced security integrations can help the platforms to curb the piracy threat.

    Indiantelevision.com in its next webinar in partnership with Synamedia will host a discussion on security challenges faced by OTT platforms and content owners and how leveraging solutions can reduce piracy and increase platforms’ revenues. The webinar is set to take place on 1 October at 4.00 pm.

    Read more news on OTT

    Some of the esteemed speakers include Synamedia intelligence and security operations vice president Avigail Gutman; ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra; SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma.

    The panelists will discuss different types of streaming piracy, how to employ a layered security approach using a strong conditional access and OTT security baseline along with other issues.

    Don’t forget to tune in to know more! Register here

  • Fastest scale-up in insurance distribution: PhonePe sells 5 lakh policies in just 5 months

    Fastest scale-up in insurance distribution: PhonePe sells 5 lakh policies in just 5 months

    PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform, today announced that it has sold over 5 lakh insurance policies on its platform during the period April – August 2020. This makes PhonePe the fastest-growing insure-tech distributor in India within just 9 months of the Insurance category going live on the PhonePe app.

    PhonePe forayed into the insurance segment in January this year and was the first digital payment platform to launch international travel insurance for business & leisure travellers. Since April, it has launched 5 more insurance products which include COVID-19 Insurance, Domestic Travel Insurance, Hospital Daily Cash, Dengue & Malaria Insurance, Personal Accident Cover in addition to International Travel Insurance.

    The short span of time within which these products were launched is significant considering the industry usually takes a few months to develop and launch similar products. What is also noteworthy is that PhonePe has timed its products based on market needs and has also partnered with leading insurers to offer customized products for its vast registered user base exceeding 23 crores. PhonePe launched a few cost-effective insurance products for COVID-19 in April & May when the pandemic was seeing a rapid spread across the country. With the lockdown ending and domestic travel gradually starting across the country in June, the company launched a comprehensive, industry-first domestic multi-trip insurance cover at just INR 499 for all domestic trips for a year. PhonePe soon launched sachet-based insurance products in July beginning with Hospital Daily Cash to enable customers to get an assured amount if they are hospitalized due to injury or illnesses including COVID-19. Keeping the upcoming rainy season in mind which sees a huge number of cases of mosquito-borne diseases across the country, it launched Dengue & Malaria Insurance in July.

    The PhonePe app has seen insurance purchases from over 15,000 pin codes covering tier-1, 2, 3 and beyond reflecting the deep penetration of its platform and tremendous customer response to its offerings. Over 70% of PhonePe’s users come from tier- 2 and 3 cities with many users buying insurance for the first time. The leading tier-2 and tier-3 cities for insurance sales on PhonePe are Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Nashik, Vijayawada and Aurangabad. 

    Commenting on the milestone, Hemant Gala, VP Financial Services & Payments, PhonePe said, “We are delighted to have achieved the 5 lakh insurance policies sold milestone on PhonePe within a short span of 5 months. This is by far the fastest scale-up seen in the insurtech industry. We are thankful to our partners who have worked closely with us to innovate and co-create affordable products for our customers to cater to their specific needs. Customers continue to repose their trust in PhonePe as they find buying insurance on our platform affordable, simple to understand and easy. This is in line with our goal to be a one-stop destination for all insurance needs of our customers. We are in talks with multiple insurers and have many new products in the pipeline which will be launched in the coming months.”

  • Mitron TV expands senior leadership team with new hires

    Mitron TV expands senior leadership team with new hires

    MUMBAI:  Indian short-form video app Mitron has expanded its leadership team with two senior hires. Chandan Chhabra joins as VP of operations and Nisha Pokhriyal joins as VP of marketing.

    In his new role, Chhabra will establish SoPs, drive efficiency across multiple departments and focus on strategic planning of the business. Pokhriyal will be responsible for leading Mitron’s overall brand marketing initiatives and accelerating the start-up’s growth trajectory. Both of them will work closely with Mitron’s co-founders Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal.

    Prior to joining Mitron, Chhabra was one of the founding members and director of customer experience and content quality at OLX India, where he led the content strategy and operations across South Asia markets. An IIM-A alumnus, Chandan comes with 17 years of experience spread across diverse industries such as BPO, Telecom, BFSI, E-Commerce, Auto and Edtech. He is also a certified customer experience professional (CCXP), an accredited customer experience master, a CX Mentor (ACXM, ACX-Mentor) and Asia’s first accredited customer experience specialist (ACXS).

    Read more news about Mitron

    Pokhriyal served as associate director – marketing of VMate, the short video app from Alibaba Mobile Business group. She has been responsible for managing end-to-end integrated marketing for well-known campaigns such as #VMateAsliHoliBaaz and #GharBaitheBanoLakhpati amongst others. She has a career spanning over 10 years, having worked at Dentsu Webchutney and IPAN. She is a certified usability analyst from Human Factors International. Nisha was also the official torchbearer for the Winter Olympics held in south Korea in 2018.

    Mitron co-founder and CEO , Shivank Agarwal  said: “We are thrilled to welcome both Nisha and Chandan to the Mitron family. With Nisha and Chandan’s appointments, we are laying the foundation for Mitron's rapid growth. Their expertise will foster and fuel our long-term expansion plans . I am confident that our portfolio of a strong team will chart a remarkable journey for the home grown short format video app space.”

    Mitron VP operations Chandan Chhabra  said: “I am particularly impressed with what Mitron has achieved in such a short space of time. I look forward to being part of this amazing team as we scale the business and enter a new phase of growth.’’

    Mitron VP marketing Nisha Pokhriyal said: “This is an exciting time for short format video app space. I am pleased to be part of Mitron’s journey, as we continue to build upon the brand’s existing success and strive to attain new milestones.”

  • Alex Schultz named new Facebook CMO

    Alex Schultz named new Facebook CMO

    NEW DELHI: Facebook has named its former VP – product, growth, and analytics Alex Schultz as its new CMO. The news comes after former CMO Antonio Lucio moved on from the global social media giant last month to dedicate his time to “diversity, inclusion and equity.”

    The announcement was made by Schultz in a Facebook post, in which he wrote, “I am super proud to be Facebook’s next CMO. Antonio Lucio has left huge shoes and a great team behind and I’m really excited to get stuck in with them. I hope to build on this and bring my experience in segmentation, targeting, and measurement to bear as we work to reach people more meaningfully through our product.”

    Read more news on Facebook

    Schultz has been associated with Facebook since 2007, working across roles, starting off as an analyst. Prior to that, he was associated with eBay as marketing manager and also ran a  few websites of his own. 

  • How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    KOLKATA: As OTT platforms are making all the necessary moves to keep the users hooked, these players are realising that innovation is the key mantra to achieve this objective. To keep up with the pace with which users are adapting to streaming services, most of the players in the ecosystem are scaling up their offerings. However, innovation is more of a continuous process rather than a revolutionary change.

    In a webinar hosted by Indiantelevision.com in association with Accedo and moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, experts from the industry shared strategies and experiences around innovations.

    Hoichoi technology lead Aloke Majumder stated innovation is what should drive the OTT platforms. Innovation not only shapes the product but also strengthens the relationship with users. According to him, the platforms need to stay inspired by the users, other brands, all the current happenings in product offerings for the breakthrough. The largest Bengali platform has been adding new features in recent times including parental control. It is currently working around encoding to have seamless delivery of the videos even with low latency.

    Balaji Telefilm’s digital venture is also looking at a robust product offering. ALTBalaji chief technology officer Shahabuddin Sheikh said that the platform is highly focusing on metadata. “It’s a mix of both the worlds in terms of using technology and manual interventions where we can have more enriched metadata in terms of characters, keyframes, emotions which can be tagged and which is fed into the system. While the user is watching or viewing content, it can be liked back to his experiences and accordingly help to plan or program the content for him,” he added. Using experiences, the platform is also bringing other small changes like adding markers where users can identify content genres.

    "Epic On has done a couple of upgradations which are paying the platform good dividend now, " said Epic On chief operating officer Sourjya Mohanty. The platform has attempted to bring a multi-format experience by accumulating video, e-books, games, podcasts which has resulted into a good surge in mobile engagement. It is also factoring in the current situation while bringing new experiences. As more people are inclining towards smart TVs to enjoy in-home cinema experiences, the platform has brought few changes on that front which have yielded positive feedback yet, Mohanty said.

    However, innovations always don’t turn out to be fantastic if user need is not understood properly. Arre GM technology Rohit Bapat spoke of such an experience. While they ran a web series with an option to allow users to click on a specific character to provide information on that individual, they did not see any traction. Down the line, they had to take off the feature. Bapat acknowledged that it would have been more effective for events like sports tournaments where users would be keen to get match statistics.

    Like other players, fitness app Simple Soulful is also innovating user experience but more often as it has to deal with real-time issues. screen SSK Osmosis product head Soumik Solanki shared some examples. According to a users’ need, it is customising rest time feature during exercises. For users who don’t are already accustomed with various workouts and don’t want to watch the entire video, the app has come up with a complete programme list for that segment. It is also using a 360-degree camera view to help users exercise with correct postures.

    Accedo innovation director Niklas Bjorken agreed to the other panelists that innovation is key to a brand’s relevancy in the moving world. According to him, knowing users properly, adapting to new user behaviours, embracing technology, learnings from other services should drive the changes. 

  • ALTBalaji seeing rapid uptake in tier II & III cities during post-Covid period

    ALTBalaji seeing rapid uptake in tier II & III cities during post-Covid period

    KOLKATA: Going beyond the initial metro syndrome, over-the-top (OTT) platforms in India are seeing massive adoption in tier II, tier III cities, and even in rural areas. The massification is happening faster than it was predicted courtesy to content in Indian languages, better bandwidth, easier payment options. Meanwhile, homegrown platforms are becoming more relevant in the game.

    Unlike many other platforms, which had to tweak their content strategy, pricing models to attract the new section of OTT users, ALTBalaji has always focused on mass India. The strategy is reaping good results as the platform is seeing a rapid uptake of the platform in tier II and tier III cities post-Covid period.

    “As India is a price-sensitive market, we think consumers from tier II and tier III cities will need a very affordable price proposition and therefore our focus is on converting these first-time samplers into avid subscribers of premium content on the platform. ALTBalaji with its less than a rupee a day pricing has been successfully meeting this challenge and it is one of the lowest-priced video streaming players in the market, this has allowed us to quickly penetrate and grow our reach,” ALTBalaji management said in an earnings call after q1 results. 

    “Viewers spend an average of 60 minutes and 90 minutes per week in metros and non-metro markets respectively, the highest in its category in 2019, this trend continues in quarter one FY2021,” it added. According to a report from RedSeer Consulting, the OTT consumption to see 80 per cent share from tier I, tier III cities and rural areas by 2022.

    While ALTBalaji has recently made a strategic investment in fan connect platform Tring, one of the main reasons lies in the fact that the latter also wants to target tier II, tier III cities. “The synergies for this are the fact that both of us are in the area of getting onscreen talent and more importantly both Tring as well as Balaji want to target Tier II and Tier III cities of India. So, I think that is the synergy, it is kind of a talent representation business and we work with talent and so does Tring,” the management commented.

    At the beginning of the lockdown, the platform’s subscriber addition zoomed to 14000-15000 per day. However, due to lack in fresh content and the initial phases of unlock,  the number has come down to 10000 per day which is at per with pre-Covid period. However, the platform currently has 1.5 million active user base with a churn rate of 66 per cent.

  • SonyLIV’s KBC Play Along heightens consumer delight with KBC 12

    SonyLIV’s KBC Play Along heightens consumer delight with KBC 12

    KOLKATA: SonyLIV makes staying-at-home rewarding with an unprecedented offering of ‘Har Din 10 Lakhpati’ under ‘KBC Play Along’. As the most awaited reality show makes a grand comeback, SonyLIV takes audience engagement notches higher with this innovative extension. This season KBC Play Along’ is aimed at rewarding the Aam aadmi like never before.

    A crowd puller since its inception in 2018, ‘KBC Play Along’ registered more than eight million users (1 billion interactions) on the platform last year. This season, SonyLIV takes the excitement notches higher by upgrading it to ‘Har Din 10 Lakhpati’, where ten winners across India will stand a chance to win 1 lac each every day through the season. SonyLIV also adds on the feature of playing in teams this year. With this, users can invite their friends and family and form their own teams. The team score will be the total sum of the Individual players’ scores and the top-scoring team will win 1 lakh prize money every day. There is also the chance for referrals. A user can invite/refer friends and family to win additional points and earn a free subscription to SonyLIV for themselves.

    Adding further excitement to the competition are the numerous prizes like a car, television set, mobile phones, bluetooth speakers amongst various electronics and gift cards that the users stand to win through the season.KBC has always been a beacon of encouragement. In times like these, KBC Play Along is excited to offer moments of happiness to its users by winning big from the comfort of their homes. 

     “From the first ever digital auditions on SonyLIV to a resounding response online, this has been a year of innovations for Kaun Banega Crorepati. Our new feature ‘Har Din 10 Lakhpati’ is an extension in that direction to build the momentum around KBC Play Along and make winners out of our viewers. By gratifying 10 lakhpatis everyday, we not only intend to reward viewers sitting at home and expand winners’ numbers but also cater to aspirations of countless Indians for participating in India’s biggest reality game show,” SPN digital business marketing head Aman Srivastava said.

    “KBC Play Along this year brings together an interesting blend of the existing and the new. While we retain the magic of the game, we are also bringing alive new features like Teams to add another dimension to user experience and take second screen engagement to a new level. Therefore, to innovate further, this season with ‘Har Din 10 Lakhpati’ we are aiming to gratify the fans of KBC and turn home seats into hot seats,” SonyLIV digital business programming and new initiative head Amogh Dusad said.