ITV

Category: Over The Top Services

  • OTT: Blink Now taps Ooyala for video ads, live streaming & real-time analytics

    MUMBAI: Ooyala, a global provider of video monetization technology and services, is powering the complete video business of Blink Now, a leading premium OTT provider in the Philippines. With Ooyala, Blink Now is maximizing its business potential across three separate OTT properties with a single provider, powering ad operations, video delivery, data-driven insights and live streaming to more than 180,000 users nationwide.

    A US-based subsidiary of global telecommunications and IT services company Telstra, Ooyala’s comprehensive suite of offerings includes one of the world’s largest premium video platforms, a leading ad serving and programmatic platform and media logistics solution that improves video production workflows.

    A part of SM Lifestyle Entertainment, Inc., SMLEI, the entertainment arm and subsidiary of the Philippines largest property developer, SM Prime Holdings, Blink Now is the OTT division focused on providing the best entertainment content and customer experience. The company required a sophisticated video technology provider with a powerful analytics solution to help them understand their audience’s habits across its subscription-based (SVOD), transaction-based (TVOD) and ad-supported video services (AVOD).

    “Supporting multiple TV-monetization models demands rich data to guide decisions. Ooyala’s analytics ties our business decisions to our audience’s desires, giving us the confidence to know what we build is what they want most,” said SMLEI Assistant Vice President of Digital Media and Head, Francis Gerard R. Tupaz.

    He added, “when considering our options in the market, Ooyala stood out as they are the only video solutions provider with a comprehensive set of modern-day technologies. Backed by a local team for support and services, Ooyala immediately solved multiple challenges from reliable live streaming, audience measurement, premium content delivery and holistic ad-campaign management.”

    With Ooyala IQ, Blink Now has access to up-to-the minute analytics to see what content is trending at any given time, allowing them to feature well-performing content to attract even higher viewership. Real-time multi-dimensional reports gives Blink Now granular insights to track engagement over any period of time across all properties or even individual videos. The data helps ensure they are reinvesting in highly-profitable content for the business based on its audience’s’ viewing behaviors.

    Using Ooyala Pulse, the customer can see how ad-loads affect drop-off and completion rates against varying content lengths. This allows them to tailor the right amount of ads to every piece of content to maximize monetisation without sacrificing user experience.

    “Blink Now is great example of a modern entertainment customer in need of Integrated Video Platform solutions. With our technologies, they can grow in tandem with its audience’s appetite for video and with the industry,” said Ooyala General Manager of Asia-Pacific, Steve Davis. “And with our analytics, they now have the insights to see how audiences watch Hollywood titles versus globally-recognized TV episodes differently, what content is driving them the most money and how their audiences prefers to pay for and access content across devices.”

    Ooyala will be highlighting its set Integrated Video Platform (IVP) solutions at NAB 2017 and APOS 2017. With a common data set to drive insights and inform strategies, IVP is the next generation of OVP, evolving well beyond online video platform capabilities to deliver sophisticated solutions to understand the costs and return-on-investment of video content.

  • Amazon Fire TV: Autism channel now available free

    MUMBAI: The Autism Channel’s streaming video content is now available on Amazon Fire Stick, Fire TV and select Seiki, Westinghouse and Element televisions with Fire TV technology. Amazon’s Fire TV stick and Fire TV set top box have joined Roku and Panasonic Viera devices where viewers can watch The Autism Channel’s programming free on demand.

    The Autism Channel streams nearly 100 hours of digital video content featuring individuals on the autism spectrum and professionals in the field of autism spectrum treatment and research. The channel began streaming on Roku in 2012 and added the Panasonic Viera TV platform two years later.

    Users of Amazon Fire TV technology can now access the channel without charge by adding it to their channel list from the On-Demand Movie Streaming category of the Apps & Games section at amazon.com. Roku users can find the channel in the educational section of the Roku channel store.

    Panasonic Viera owners can find the channel in the channel store on most Viera television devices.

    The Autism Channel features programming designed for those who are parents or caregivers of people on the spectrum, professionals in the field, and those on the spectrum themselves. It offers a wide range of programming from movie reviews, mini-documentaries about autism and interview shows, to “Time Out” features designed to be calming and relaxing.

    This rollout is the first of many which will add several smart television set types, set top box and streaming stick platforms and phone and tablet devices to widen the availability of the channel. The Autism Channel is a privately owned media content developer and supplier based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

  • ALTBalaji to stream content to millions through Amazon Cloudfront

    MUMBAI: Balaji Telefilms’ video streaming service ALTBalaji has partnered with Amazon Internet Services to use Amazon Cloudfront, a global content delivery network (CDN) service. ALTBalaji will have access to multi-petabytes of bandwidth in preparation of the launch of the ALTBalaji service in mid-April 2017.

    “We have built our platform to serve Indians globally and wanted a service provider who could support us efficiently across all geographies. We use Xstream Mediamaker as our backend OVP and video delivery is entirely hosted by and built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which already serves numerous global OTT platforms with over hundreds of millions of streams. Thanks to AWS, our platform setup is capable of handling high volumes of traffic and media content per week, and at the same time stream content to millions of our customers every day through Amazon Cloudfront,” said ALT Digital Media Entertainment COO Sunil Nair.

    “Currently, all ALTBalaji distribution partnerships that use the content syndication system, payment partners and wallets available on ALTBalaji, including other middleware infrastructure, run on AWS. We use Amazon Redshift for our data warehouse, which allows for analysis of all the customer interactions to arrive at actionable inferences. We have found Amazon Web Services to be a very reliable and responsive service provider at a time when we prepare to take ALTBalaji global,” added ALT Digital Media Entertainment head of product Ashish Bhansali.

    ALTBalaji leverages a vast range of tools offered by AWS to empower its video streaming platform. The anticipated interest in the video streaming platform and the original, premium and exclusive shows has prompted Balaji Telefilms to invest significantly in the latest cutting edge technology and infrastructure to ensure it provides a world class service to its global customer base.

    “Increasingly, various businesses around the world are deploying their critical workloads on AWS and going all-in so they can refocus on serving their customers best,” added Amazon Internet Services Private Limited MD Bikram Bedi. “We’re truly excited for ALTBalaji’s adoption of AWS, which will allow them to quickly and easily scale, reduce costs, improve security, and increase agility for even their most critical workloads.”

    ALTBalaji app will be launched with six new shows and will be followed with new shows every month for its viewers to binge watch. The content is created by some of the best talent of the Indian entertainment industry, including critically acclaimed directors and actors. The long illustrious list of artists comprises of Nagesh Kukunoor, Juhi Chawla, Nimrat Kaur, Rajkumar Rao, Hansal Mehta, Sakshi Tanwar, Ram Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Sameer Soni, Yudhishtar Urs, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, and more.

  • OTT: VEQTA is exclusive Major League Baseball partner for India

    MUMBAI: In what could be the best news for baseball fans in India, VEQTA, India’s only digital broadcast network (OTT) dedicated to sports, has announced its partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB), the world’s top baseball league from USA. With this first of its kind multi-year partnership, VEQTA will give baseball fans in India access to an all-new never seen before content experience.

    This partnership between one of the world’s most iconic sports leagues and India’s next generation sports platform will help build a larger fan base for baseball in the region. VEQTA will be the official home of Major League Baseball in India with exclusive long term OTT rights. VEQTA will serve the widest offering of MLB games ever in India, with over 20 live games each week during the regular season (April through September); and full coverage of the league’s “Jewel Events” — All-Star Game (July), Wild Card Games, Division Series, League Championship Series, and the World Series (October/November).

    MLB and VEQTA will also launch a variety of initiatives together to build the sport further in the country including promotional activities, events, fan activation and engagement.

    VEQTA, with its key partnerships with global sports bodies, will additionally serve over 6000 hours of live sports content in 2017 across Tennis, Fight Sports, Motorsports, Football, Basketball, Rugby, Athletics, and of course Baseball.

    VEQTA co-founder & director Vikram Tanwar said, “Baseball has a niche audience here and we wish to grow it further. Through this partnership, Indian baseball fans will have access to exclusive baseball content not available in its entirety on any other platform. VEQTA is proud to bring this experience to India and assert our commitment to offer the best sports content from across the globe to Indian fans.”

    MLB is amongst the largest league systems by revenue across any sport. It is also the world’s biggest league by total attendance with over 73 million fans attending MLB games in 2016.

    Major League Baseball VP – international media sales and marketing partnerships Dominick Balsamo said, “MLB on VEQTA will serve Indian baseball fans with comprehensive coverage of the league from Opening Day through the World Series, and present the game on an exciting platform that promises to attract new baseball fans and players in India.”

  • ‘Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat’, ‘Test Case’, ‘Once Upon A Night’, ‘Boygiri’ & ‘Maya Thirai’ etc to be on ALTBalaji

    MUMBAI: After making a mark in television and films, Balaji Telefilms Limited is all set to launch its OTT platform ALT Balaji. The company has forayed into the digital entertainment space with ALTBalaji that aims to reach out directly to Indian audiences by providing them with original, exclusive and premium content that they can access at their fingertips.

    The shows will be streaming on the ALTBalaji app from the 16 April, 2017.

    The shows that will be available on ALT include the much-awaited Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat featuring Ram Kapoor and Sakshi Tanwar, Nimrat Kaur-Juhi Chawla starrer The Test Case, Once Upon A Night, DEV DD, Romil and Jugal, Boygiri and regional show Maya Thirai (Tamil) among several others.

    ALTBalaji CMO Manav Sethi said, “ALTBalaji’s vision is to acquire leadership position in digital entertainment space in India and globally. We are launching ALTBalaji platform formally in April 2017 with original shows at the time of launch in Hindi and other Indian languages. This hasn’t been done before by any other OTT platform thus far. This content is created and curated by Ekta Kapoor diligently for Indian masses. It’s no secret that we Indians have humongous appetite for non-English entertainment content and mobile as a personal device has acquired that platform advantage to view content, location and time that is personal to every 200Mn smartphone owner. This huge potential is what motivates us and we would strive to create such mass appeal shows. Our brand are our shows and we would do everything to learn and invest in creating best consumer experiences.”

  • ALTBalaji starts mid-Apr, ties up with Micromax & Mobikwik

    MUMBAI: The digital platform of Balaji Telefilms, ALT Balaji has announced a strategic partnership with a mobile brand Micromax to help its users get access to exclusive ALTBalaji content and mobile wallet Mobikwik.

    The global on entertainment platform ALTBalaji, will offer 250 hours of original content and subscribers can now avail 25 per cent cashback while paying for the service using MobiKwik wallet. The partnership will provide an easy payment facility to MobiKwik’s 55 million registered users to enjoy ALTBalaji.

    Speaking on the partnership, ALT Digital Media Entertainment limited CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya said, “With the partnership of Micromax, we will take our repository of original shows, exclusively available on ALTBalaji to the urban masses. Our ALTBalaji app would be bundled on Micromax devices for frictionless download experience, for them to enjoy over 250 hours of original, exclusive content. Micromax will distribute these original shows to its 30 million users via its digital properties. This collaboration makes ALTBalaji the only original digital content generation platform to reach viewers on such a massive scale.”

    He further added on partnership, with Mobikwik, “With a vision to create a better consumer experience, the partnership with MobiKwik will facilitate frictionless connection between our subscribers and ALTBalaji. This convenient payment option will allow our consumers to subscribe to our original and exclusive content with ease. We are glad that MobiKwik which is a pioneer in the wallets business will open a new consumer base to our service.”

    ALTBalaji, the subscription based digital entertainment platform, will be commercially available from mid-April. The app will be launched with six new shows and will be followed with a new show every 15 days for its viewers to binge watch. The content is created by some of the best talents of Indian Entertainment industry including critically acclaimed directors and actors. The long illustrious list of artists comprises of Nagesh Kukunoor, Juhi Chawla, Nimrat Kaur, Rajkumar Rao, Hansal Mehta, Sakshi Tanwar, Ram Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Sameer Soni, Yudhishtar Urs, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, and more.

    By joining forces together, ALTBalaji and Micromax are attempting to change the way digital content is consumed in India. Created to provide an alternative to mainstream Indian entertainment & TV content, ALTBalaji will bring fresh & interesting stories to audiences in varied genres. The platform will offer more than 250 hours of original content in the first year of it’s launch.

    MobiKwik also powers payments for the IRCTC service and can target the users based on the long­ distance rail tickets that they have purchased, allowing ALTBalaji to offer the service to these customers who are otherwise starved of entertainment or must consume the same content available elsewhere.

    MobiKwik business head Bikram Bir Singh said, “This association is in line with our endeavor to make MobiKwik payments ubiquitous.”

  • Smart TV & streaming device makers may collaborate as race intensifies for on-demand content: F&S

    MUMBAI: Growing preference for over-the-top (OTT) content is catalysing demand for streaming media devices and smart TVs. The market, which slowed down during 2014-15 fiscal, is now ready to match consumer expectations by offering seamless accessibility to on-demand content through a new generation of competitively priced streaming devices. Major market contenders are embracing strategic collaboration to increase their footprint. For instance, smart TV manufacturers such as Samsung, TCL, LG, Sony and Panasonic are developing apps in collaboration with streaming media device manufacturing companies such as Roku, Apple and Amazon.

    “High-efficiency video coding (HEVC), 4000 pixels (4K) and high dynamic range (HDR) will drive sales and shorten upgrade cycles, but competition will continue to intensify,” said Frost & Sullivan’s Digital Media Research Analyst. “Their agility and ease of replacement continue to provide streaming devices a distinct competitive edge over smart TVs.”

    Global Smart TV and Streaming Media Devices Markets, Forecast to 2021, a part of Frost & Sullivan’s Digital Media Growth Partnership Service program, finds that the smart TV market, which stood at 190 million devices in 2016, will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.1% between 2016 and 2021, even as the price per unit steadily decreases. Google, with 33.1% share, will lead the streaming media devices market, followed by Apple with 31.% and Roku with 15.2%.

    For complimentary access to more information on this analysis and to register for a Growth Strategy Dialogue, a free interactive briefing with Frost & Sullivan’s thought leaders.

    While the streaming media devices and smart TV market is meeting consumer expectations in terms of ease of viewership and usability, it has not yet been able to offer a unified and intuitive search facility. Further, frequent updates are required to make the user interface of consumer-facing devices seamlessly operable. As a result, consumers find it difficult to use the devices to their full potential, which, in turn, can dampen interest in these services.

    “The primary screen will continue to play a dominant role in content consumption, but content will increasingly be discovered and played back from devices other than the set-top box,” observed the analyst. “The key to capitalising on this demand is to refine user experience and content inventory on connected devices to be at par with the quality and consistency of a fully managed experience.”

  • Star India exVP Vivek Bhutyani launches ‘Lattu Kids’, partners Thought Cloud to co-produce ‘Trigo’

    MUMBAI: India has many successful animation IPs but most of them haven’t travelled to international markets. The country is known for its animation services but there’s no big success story of India in the animation industry. Keeping that in mind, there’s a new studio in town which is set to fill this gap and have a development in the international markets.

    This studio is formed by none other than the ex-Star India vice-president and head of content syndication, Vivek Bhutyani. He had mentioned in November that he planned to venture into the OTT sector and seems like his vision is still in place. For the past few months, the man has been in the process of launching India’s first learning and development focused content streaming platform for kids – Lattu Kids.

    Lattu Kids is a fully integrated kid’s entertainment firm which is based out of Singapore and India. It aims to produce and showcase the best International content in India and Southeast Asia. Lattu Kids, founder and CEO, Vivek Bhutyani says, “I have been passionate about kids’ content as I have a five-year-old son and while watching the various content available for kids these days, it made me realise that there’s hardly any content which impart values to kids. Seeing this gap, I decided to venture into the kids segment as this space has a lot of things which can be explored.”

    Read the full story here:

  • Sky & Cisco launch OnPrime TV, offers south Asian channels too

    MUMBAI: Consumers in the UK, Italy and Germany can now access popular foreign language film, television and news channels in one place via OnPrime TV, a new innovative app-based streaming service developed by Cisco in collaboration with Sky, and supported by Encompass Digital Media.

    Powered by the Cisco Infinite Video Platform, OnPrime TV offers viewers access to high-quality foreign-language linear content. The service includes Sky South Asian, Sky Arabic and Sky Russian channel packs, downlinked and encoded by Encompass.

    The OnPrime TV app can be downloaded via the app store on Apple TV4, or by searching for OnPrime TV on Apple TV3. All channel packs offer a 30-day free trial, and range in price from £8.99 to £17.99 a month. Cisco plans to expand the service to more devices and additional European countries during 2017.

    “OnPrime TV fills the gap in the market for high-quality foreign entertainment available to non- European expatriate communities living in Europe,” said Cisco vice president – strategy and product management, SP applications and platforms Rajeev Raman.

    “Sky has worked closely with Cisco for years, and we’re pleased to be partnering with them on this innovative new service,” said Sky group director – business development and strategic partnerships Emma Lloyd. “Cisco’s technological expertise and Encompass’ long-standing history of delivering reliable broadcast solutions, combined with Sky’s strong track record on curating content and streaming to millions of customers, has created an exciting new service.”

    OnPrime TV Channel Packs include:

    Sky Russian pack: THT, Bestseller, Moolt, Planeta HD, 1+1 International, CTC International, Domashniy, Peretz, TV1000 Russian Kino. In the UK and Italy, the pack also includes Channel One Russia, Carousel, Vremya, Dom Kino, Muzika Pervogo.

    Sky Arabic pack: Rotana Aflam, Rotana Cinema, LBC, Rotana Clip, Rotana Mousica, Rotana Classic, Rotana Khalijia.

    Sky South Asian pack: Sony Entertainment TV Asia, Sony Max, Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Punjabi, B4U
    In Germany and Italy, pack also includes Star Plus, Star Life Ok, and Star Gold. Star TV pack is also available separately in UK with Star Plus, Star Life Ok, Star Gold.

    Cisco is building the simplified, automated and virtualised network platform of the future based on industry-leading software, systems, silicon and services. This enables service providers, media and web companies worldwide to reduce costs, speed time-to-market, secure their networks and sustain profitable growth.

  • Dekkho: Integration ease aids Brightcove power OTT service

    MUMBAI: Brightcove, a leading provider of cloud services for video, announced today that Dekkho, a streaming video service specializing in delivering premium content from India’s top content creators, has selected Brightcove to power its OTT service. The service, which debuted in February 2017, was built on Brightcove Video Cloud, enabling Dekkho to leverage an industry-leading online video platform to offer consumers VOD access to 12,000 hours of programming across desktop and mobile applications.

    Dekkho provides its customers with a curated, high-quality video experience with video content ranging from three to 45 minutes. It partners with leading content producers such as Sony Music, Zee Music, Culture Machine, Times Group, and OML.

    “Brightcove constantly remains ahead of the curve, rapidly innovating to incorporate and leverage the constant changes in the online video industry,” said Dekkho co-founder Vinay Pillai.

    “Scalability was most critical for us. We need to deliver our content across a broad range of customers, from those with low-end phones and slow internet connections to people with high-end mobile devices and larger screens. Not only has Brightcove enabled us to do that technically, but their service has been outstanding. We were promised Tier-1 support and Brightcove has delivered.”

    Improving the viewing experience is one of the top challenges facing media organizations in 2017, and Dekkho required a platform with robust APIs that was easy for their application development team to leverage; in particular, the publisher was eager to integrate the video platform with its CMS for simpler ingestion of its videos. The scalability of the Brightcove platform, along with integrations with the majority of the content management systems (CMS), ad networks, and CDNs differentiated Brightcove from other providers.

    “Dekkho is yet another great example of the rise of OTT in India. They’ve managed to quickly launch an intuitive and unique experience, and we’re looking forward to being part of their success,” said Brightcove Asia VP Tomer Azenkot. “Brightcove is excited to be working with this innovative service and helping the company as online video consumption in India evolves.”