ITV

Category: Over The Top Services

  • ZEE5 adds ‘Saand Ki Aankh’ to its movie library

    ZEE5 adds ‘Saand Ki Aankh’ to its movie library

    MUMBAI: India’s largest video streaming platform ZEE5 is all set to premiere one of the most critically acclaimed films in recent times Saand Ki Aankh. The film showcases the inspirational story of the world's oldest sharpshooters – Chandro and Prakashi Tomar portrayed by Taapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar. Directed by Tushar Hiranandani the film will go live on the platform on 27 December 19.

    The film is produced by Anurag Kashyap and Nidhi Parmar. It also stars Prakash Jha, Vineet Kumar, and Shaad Randhawa in pivotal roles.

    Saand Ki Aankh did very well at the Indian box office and was later also declared tax free by Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan government. The film will now be available exclusively on ZEE5.

    Sharing her thoughts, ZEE5 India programming head Aparna Acharekar said, “It has been a fantastic year for us where we have strengthened our content library with original content as well as acquisitions. We are constantly striving to curate a complete experience for our viewers and Sandh Ki Aankh is our latest addition. We have a range of content available for our audiences to watch this festive season.”

    ZEE5 has a robust film library with a fantastic curation of films. From URI- the Surgical Strike, Dream Girl, Simmba, Sonchiriya, Kedarnath, PADMAN, Veere Di Wedding, Mulk, Parmanu, The Tashkent Files, The Accidental Prime Minister, Judgemental Hai Kya, Jabariya Jodi to name a few.

  • Amazon Prime Video to premiere exciting titles as year-end festive treat

    Amazon Prime Video to premiere exciting titles as year-end festive treat

    MUMBAI: With the Christmas and New Year festivities are round the corner, Amazon Prime Video has come up with the treat of exciting titles and all-time favourite international classics.

    Prime members can stream a selection of recently released Indian films, including Telugu biopic George Reddy on 25 December, Malayalam cop-chase Jack and Daniel on 24 December and a Malayalam title Sullu on 27 December shortly after their theatrical release.”

    Amazon Prime Video to have a digital premiere of Ujda Chaman, exclusively, on the platform within weeks after its release, the statement added.

    Ujda Chaman is the story of 30-year-old Chaman Kohli, who suffers from a lack of self-confidence due to premature balding. The film touches upon a social topic of an ordinary bald man.

    Ahead of Xmas celebrations, the platform is about to release, some of the popular international titles including New Year’s Eve, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Polar Express and many more.

  • MX Player’s strategy to lead the OTT game in 2020

    MX Player’s strategy to lead the OTT game in 2020

    MUMBAI: The bets on the Indian OTT market have seen an exponential rise over the last few years. However, only a handful of companies have been able to make a mark. One of them is Times internet’s daring bet MX Player. In the coming year, MX Player is looking at strengthening its vernacular focus as well as gaming.

    When the company shifted its focus this year, there was a doubt about its transition from utility to service. However, MX Player CEO Karan Bedi says that the platform has exceeded all the targets and the target for March 2020 has already been achieved in September 2019. Bedi says that original content has performed well. The platform is still learning about things like which content works, what the user likes, how they react to a product, how to improve, etc.

    The year 2020 will see another 35-30 new original shows with 15-16 in the first half of the year in different genres. Out of these, three to four are big regional shows.

    “There is a whole slate of exciting shows coming up. We obviously continue to work with our partners who bring exciting content in the regional and Hindi side. We have already originals in Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, and we will continue to do more in Bhojpuri, Kannada, Malayalam, and in Bengali. You will see originals across languages. In the coming year, probably 40-50 per cent of content will be regional. It’s exciting. And gaming is a big focus in 2020,” he says.

    MX Player hosts other platforms’ content as well including Arre, ShemarooMe, Pocket Aces, Ms. Malini, QYOU Media, EPIC channel, etc. It says that this strategy of partnership doesn’t hamper its own image building. Instead, it wants to be the destination that people come to for any content they like.

    “I think we are happy to be in a situation where there is content that we produce and content that our partners produce. There is no reason why I should deny my audience what they want to watch. And all the relationships we have are win-win. It grows the market. So I think that we are not in any way worried about that,” he comments.

    He also mentioned that they have had over 100 brands for MX Player from Airtel to Godrej, Amazon to Flipkart, even FMCG companies like Dabur. There are a total of 150 clients now. He added that many of them are repeat clients who continue to spend on the platform on a regular basis as they are seeing ROI.  According to him, there is a good split of brands coming on OTT platforms. While FMCG is huge in traditional media, the ratio is not equal on OTT as the audiences are totally different. Though e-commerce and BFSI brands are early adopters, FMCG is also catching up.

    “I think everybody is in investment mode. I have to say that it takes time to build large consumer businesses. Even if you look at the TV industry in India for the first 10-12 years in-fact I don’t think profits came. I don’t think we will take that long. I think OTT will take much less because overall the ecosystem has evolved now. The ad and payment ecosystems are much more evolved compared to when TV started in India. Certainly, there was a long period of investment before the business became sizeable. I don’t think profitability or break-even is that far away,” he concludes.

  • ZEE5 launches progressive web app to increase reach by 5x

    ZEE5 launches progressive web app to increase reach by 5x

    MUMBAI:  ZEE5 has turned its mobile website into a Progressive Web App (PWA) to increase web reach by 5x. The refreshed version of mobile web app will help users add ZEE5 icon to their home screen, instant and smooth page loading in poor network areas, quick user interaction for a smoother experience, hassle free offline browsing and works without difficulty on mobile devices with low storage.

    Being country’s largest producer of original content, which offers 100+ originals in 12 languages across genres, it was a natural progression for ZEE5 to turn into a PWA and offer seamless content viewing experience for consumers on the go. Earlier this year, ZEE5 had announced a slew of announcements with leading technology start-ups from Israel that accelerated the superior technological experience it wanted to bring to its 8.9 million peak DAUs who consume content on our platform. The PWA version of the website is now made possible due to the tie-up with Kaltura player, allowing users a brand-new immersive web experience of the robust content library on ZEE5.

    The updated PWA version of the platform will allow users to access 1,00,000+ hours of content seamlessly. Since it is a lighter form of an app, the player loading will be faster than before. Other advantages which PWA brings to the fore are overcoming issues such as poor network connectivity and low device storage. This technological advancement by ZEE5 will play a key role in enhancing the consumer experience by carrying out all functionalities of a full-fledged app.

    ZEE5 India CEO Tarun Katial commented, “We are in the business of entertaining India on-the-go, 24×7. After changing the content game in the Indian OTT ecosystem, we were keen to bring an incomparable viewing experience that can complement both our largest library of content in the country as well as the wide array of users who log on to our platform from all corners of the country. PWA (Progressive Web Application) is a fantastic model because it loads faster and does not require space on the phone. In tier 2 and tier 3 towns, where many users’ phones are not as equipped with the right hardware, people have lesser space on their phones and comparatively slower data connectivity. PWA version of our mobile web will enable the content to be loaded instantly and smoothly even in poor network conditions. We will continue to invest in creating original content, high-tech and big data to meet India’s ever-growing demand of consuming content in their preferred language on ZEE5.”

    ZEE5 India head technology Tushar Vohra said, “PWA stands in between native apps and a website, providing the smooth and seamless experience of a native app while allowing the benefit of not taking any space on the device. We have developed an agile and lightweight compute platform, reducing the first paint impression duration from 30+ seconds to 10 seconds on a slow 3G network, a reality in Indian Telecom. Our experience has seen that the premium audience prefers to consume content via mobile web rather than the app, and this makes it even more important for us to provide consumers with a superlative viewing experience that will do justice to the superior screens they will access it from. Now with the payment gateway embedded into the new version, there is literally no compulsion for even our SVOD viewer to log onto our app. We are confident that every viewer will be spoilt for choice and experience henceforth on ZEE5.”

    ZEE5 has rolled out 100+ originals so far (Feb 2018 to Nov 2019) across genres, and the platform is committed to launching 15-20 OCs by March 2020. It has crossed 100 million+ downloads since launch on the Play store and has recorded a peak 8.9 million DAUs as of September 2019.

  • ShortsTV OTT app to launch in Q2 FY 2020

    ShortsTV OTT app to launch in Q2 FY 2020

    MUMBAI: In November 2018, ShortsTV entered the Indian market with the concept of showcasing the world's largest catalogue of high quality short films and series. In partnership with various distribution platforms like Tata Sky, Airtel Digital, DIsh TV and D2H, the channel reached over 60 million households in India. The next big move coming from the company is to launch a video streaming app in the second quarter of 2020. Another focus of ShortsTV in 2020 will be on creation and acquisition of regional contents. 

    "We’re thrilled by the response we’ve received so far by audiences in India. People here love short films," comments ShortsTV chief executive Carter Pilcher. 

    In an interaction with Indiantelevision.com, Pilcher informs, “We are very excited about the coming year as we have a lot of plans for the Indian market. We will be focusing a lot on content creation and acquisition including adding to our growing portfolio of regional language content. Another key initiative is the launch of our video streaming app which is expected by the second quarter of 2020 in India.”

    The app will mainly have short films and series in all formats and genres including live action, animation, dramas and  documentaries.The company is currently testing the app in beta mode in the US. He says, “There are huge opportunities in India around mobile, as more and more people are streaming content on their mobile devices. Short films are perfect for this, as they can be enjoyed anywhere and anytime. We are looking forward to providing the best short film content to mobile viewers in India.”   

    He said that the big focus in 2020 will be the launch of ShortsTV’s app, which uses a machine-learning algorithm like Spotify. Viewers will be able to choose from categories based on director, language, mood and genre. 

    In 2020 ShortsTV will also be seen investing heavily in producing regional content in Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam apart from Hindi and English languages. 

    Pilcher comments, “We see regional content as hugely important as there are many emerging filmmakers producing exciting short films in different parts of the country. Our existing catalogue offers shorts in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil and our acquisitions team is always on the look-out for more regional films to add to our service. Next year we plan to add more content in local languages like Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam and beef up our existing regional portfolio.”

    ShortsTV launched in India with 150-175 hours of Indian titles with another 500 hours of international content. Over the next year it aims to add another 200 hours of Indian origin shorts and have 50 per cent of the library of Indian short films.

    It has a growing catalogue of more than 13,000+ Indian and international short movies. Top of the list are award-winners from all the biggest international award franchises: Oscars, BAFTAs and Cannes with the biggest Hollywood and Bollywood stars: Benedict Cumberbatch to Jackie Shroff and Judi Dench to Radhika Apte. “In India, currently about 30 per cent of our content is Indian produced and we’re working to increase that amount by acquiring content from leading producers around the country,” opines Pilcher.

    Pilcher believes, in India, the most popular genres are horror, thriller and crime. He says, “Millennials are inclined to watch all kinds of content. They are more open to edgy and provocative films than earlier generations, which short films are great at delivering and which we have a lot of on ShortsTV.”

    ShortsTV has partnered with some of India’s short film producers, including Large Short Films, Terribly Tiny Tales and Humara Movie. Some of the popular titles in its catalogue include Chutney, Ahalya, Kheer, Int. Café Night, Half Full, etc. featuring some of the leading Bollywood actors like Radhika Apte, Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, amongst others.

    It has also partnered with Bollywood directors like Anurag Kashyap and Subhash Ghai’s film school Whistling Woods to bring alive more creative shorts content. 

  • Eros Now uses Verizon Media’s streaming network to reach global audiences

    Eros Now uses Verizon Media’s streaming network to reach global audiences

    MUMBAI: Verizon Media and Eros Now have partnered to meet global consumer demand for high quality streaming of Indian cinema.   With more than 140 points of presence globally and 100Tbps of capacity at the end of 2019, the Verizon Media platform provides Eros Now with a high performance streaming network to reach consumers in India and worldwide.

    Eros Now chose the Verizon Media platform to simplify its video workflow and provide an end to end managed service from ingest to delivery. Verizon Media’s workflow includes encoding, storage, delivery and provides support for all major DRMs including license server management. The cost and time-consuming nature of constantly updating these services individually is mitigated by delivering them all seamlessly via the Verizon Media platform.

    India is a home to bollywood. Global demand for bollywood content is growing rapidly and Eros Now has attracted more than 177 million users to its service by housing over 12,000 movie titles, TV shows, Eros Now Originals and short-format content – Eros Now quickie. In order to retain its market leading position in India and also futureproof its ability to penetrate additional markets, Eros Now chose to migrate from its technology-dense streaming stack to a fully managed streaming service.

    “As we continue our mission of bringing bollywood content to a global audience, it’s crucial that we invest in cutting edge technologies to maintain high quality online experiences for the millions of users accessing our service from a range of devices and locations. Verizon Media’s platform is renowned for its unparalleled streaming capabilities and high performance network, which will play an important role in helping us deliver an unrivalled user experience to our customers around the world,” said Eros Now chief executive officer Ali Hussein.

    “One of the biggest challenges content service providers face is being able to deliver high quality experiences to international audiences,” said Verizon Media president Ralf Jacob. “Eros Now is meeting this challenge head-on by using the Verizon Media platform to simplify its video workflow so it can focus to deliver compelling user experiences. We’re honored that Eros Now chose Verizon Media to help further elevate the visibility of bollywood content among an international audience.”

  • DocuBay gets into Xmas mood; launches 14 days free trial

    DocuBay gets into Xmas mood; launches 14 days free trial

    MUMBAI: Xmas – it's the season to give. And the Aditya Pittie run In10 Media has announced a 14 day free trial for its documentary OTT/app  DocuBay. Launched earlier this year, with fanfare, DocuBay has been gaining traction slowly but surely. The media firm has released a slate of new titles worldwide in tune with the holiday season. The trial period is for December and available for both Android and iOS devices.  

    Says DocuBay’s chief executive officer Akul Tripathi: "DocuBay thrives on creating various avenues to engage with audiences on a regular basis. The 14-Day Free Trial is an opportunity for us to interact with different types of viewers and for them to sample our premium content library.” 

    DocuBay has added an exclusive ‘ChristmasBay’ for viewers to trace the origin of the holiday and discover the story behind the birth of Jesus Christ. It features a number of documentaries that cover places mentioned in the Bible and the rise of Christianity.

    Tripathi said, “We highlight and launch films from topics that are trending globally and relevant to a specific region. A lot of research and user behaviour trends are worked upon to provide content that resonates irrespective of the time and place across age groups. ChristmasBay is yet another exclusive offering for our global audience.”

    According to a press statement, the new ‘OneTribe’ DocuBay members will have access to the platform’s premium library of international documentaries from 100+ countries, spanning a variety of categories, encompassing diverse human experiences, opinions, and narratives.

    The platform’s user-friendly, intuitive interface makes the discovery of films easy through specially-curated categories called ‘Bays,' including NatureBay, AdventureBay, TravelBay, CultureBay, ScienceBay and more.

    The titles take viewers on a tour of key biblical monuments like Wedding Church of Cana, Ashdod Citadel, The Dormition, and many such revered sites that have stood the test of time and witness events that changed the course of history. The premium catalogue also comprises of select titles in 4K.

    Along with the all-new ChristmasBay, members can watch one new documentary every day as well as some of DocuBay’s most popular films including Himalayan Gold Rush, Red Light Green Light, Trump Russia, Zoo Lovers, Diana: The Royal Truth, The People's Girls, Omo Child, Inside Facebook, Smile Pinki, The Man Who Skied Down Everest, and more.

  • ZEE5 now available on the Huawei App Gallery in international markets

    ZEE5 now available on the Huawei App Gallery in international markets

    MUMBAI: Further expanding its accessibility around the globe, ZEE5 has recently partnered with leading global smart device provider Huawei. The partnership makes ZEE5’s Android App available on the Huawei App Gallery, thereby reaching the platforms 570+ million global monthly active users across international markets.

    This partnership will reinforce and strengthen ZEE5’s presence not only in the Middle East as one of Huawei’s strongest markets, but also in the other markets as well. Huawei app gallery users will be able to access ZEE5’s huge library of more than 100,000 hours of on demand content across genres, 60+ live TV channels, latest Bollywood hits like Sandh Ki Aankh and Judgementall Hai Kya, popular Originals like Kaafir, Fittrat and Cold Lassi Chicken Masala as well as favourite TV shows like Kumkum Bhagya or Sembaruthi.

    Commenting on the announcement, Archana Anand, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5 Global  said, “The Huawei App Gallery has a massive global reach and this partnership will ensure that ZEE5’s rich content library can now be accessed by Huawei’s user base across countries  At a time where we are aggressively ramping up our global presence, this partnership will only further accelerate our growth and accessibility.”

  • Amazon Prime Video in 2019: ‘The Family Man’ most watched; ‘Jack Ryan’ most loved

    Amazon Prime Video in 2019: ‘The Family Man’ most watched; ‘Jack Ryan’ most loved

    MUMBAI: As 2019 comes to an end, Amazon Prime Video releases its yearly report card on the most loved and binged shows on its platform.  The OTT platform, this year launched multiple Amazon Original series like Made in Heaven, Four More Shots Please, One Mic Stand and The Family Man.

    With Manoj Bajpai’s digital debut on OTT platform, The Family Man became the most-watched Amazon Original in India to date, a press statement said. Similarly, other Indian Originals – Four More Shots Please!, Made In Heaven were among the most-watched shows in India in 2019.

    In the international category, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan returned to Prime Video for its second season was most loved one by the members and had the biggest global premiere of any original.

    In its year-ender press statement, the digital platform said, “Prime Video India is now watched across the length and breadth of the country in more than 4,000 towns and cities of India.”

    Meanwhile, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel became the most awarded Amazon Original series ever with a total of 16 Emmys, 3 Golden Globes, 5 Critics Choice and 3 SAG Awards in 2019.

    ‘The Report’ had the biggest global premiere of any Amazon Original movie this year, the statement mentioned.

    Besides English, Prime Video is now available in 9 Indian languages Indian languages viz. Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi and Bengali.

    Similarly, the platform mentions that significant selection of Prime Video content now features show descriptions and subtitles in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages. 

  • Netflix Originals most in-demand among OTTs: Report

    Netflix Originals most in-demand among OTTs: Report

    MUMBAI: At the moment, the future of streaming services' uncrowned king Netflix has been over-discussed due to the entry of deep-pocket competitors. But till the third quarter of 2019 (July-September), Netflix has been able to retain its leadership position. A report from Parrot Analytics says that Netflix digital originals has the highest share of demand for digital original series around the world.

    According to the report, 61.3 per cent of the global demand for all digital originals is expressed for Netflix originals. However, despite the dominance of Stranger Things this quarter, the 61.3 per cent figure for 2019 Q3 is 1.3 per cent lower than the 62.6 per cent Netflix share in 2019 Q2. On the other hand, Amazon Prime Video has the largest demand gain in this period as its share grew 1.6 per cent from the previous quarter’s (2019 Q2) 10.8 per cent demand share. Across all other platforms the demand share has been relatively stable across quarters.

    The report also provided an insight into how the genres and subgenres of digital originals performed in the quarter. In all the markets, undoubtedly drama was the highest in-demand genre. While US has the highest digital original drama demand share at 66.9 per cent, with 63.8 per cent of demand, Columbia acquires the second position. Peru is one of the three most drama dominated markets in the report where drama captures a robust 62.3 per cent of demand share. In all the ten markets- United States, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, United Kingdom, Poland, Greece, Vietnam, Malaysia, The Philippines- Stranger Things was highest in-demand digital original in the quarter.

    Among the sub-genres, sci-fi genre dominated the top position in almost all the markets. In Malaysia and the Philippines superhero series just edged out sci-fi drama for the top spot in the most in-demand subgenre ranking. On the other hand, fantasy drama acquired the top spot in Vietnam. In Greece, Argentina and Peru crime drama peaked as the second most in-demand subgenre.

    In the US market, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu are neck and neck to be the platform with the second highest share of demand for digital original drama series. Prime Video surged in the final month of the quarter to overtake Hulu. Other than in the US, Prime video witnessed good growth in the UK, Greece, Vietnam.