ITV

Category: iWorld

  • Virtual library of cultural assets coming up in DD

    With just five permanent staff members working out of a temporary accommodation, Doordarshan Archives is digitally archiving intellectual property wealth that took roughly Rs 7.5 billion to create, and is steadily moving towards online selling of DVDs and then, video on demand.

    The picture can be bewildering seen from any angle, whether it is the temporary office space, human resources or technology, or the sheer value of the property that is going on the digital archives server, with meta data tags attached to each piece of DD production.

    Kamalini Dutt, director (archives) tells indiantelevision.com that a value could perhaps be put, but then truly speaking it is invaluable.

    An old tape being cleaned of fungus and dust in the DCB machine using hi-tech precision machines

    “I have got, for example, footage of a 35-year-old sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan in black and white, then I have a 45-year-old Khan playing sarod and now I have a 55 or 60-year-old Amjad Ali Khan… so it is really the life journey of a maestro,” Dutt says.

    Likewise, there are programmes of all the vocal, instrumental, dance, painting, sculpting, theatre maestros, everything (barring those destroyed due to time loss) that DD has gathered since the early 1960s, when DD productions started.

    No wonder that when the DD Archives team made a recent presentation at Golden Prague festival where classical music programme across the world were presented, there was a massive curiosity level from world experts.

    “They all asked about where these things were available and how they could access this,” said Dutt, initially the lone crusader for digital archiving in DD, before she was joined by Director (IPR) Ved Rao.

    Insiders in the archives project – all infected with the virus called ‘save our cultural heritage programmes‘ – say that between the two of them, Rao and Dutt have been responsible for this project that involves state of the art technology.

    These include the latest, digital restorer machine that can restore programmes from any format used in the past to the format presently being used in DD, and record them digitally to be made into printable master copies.

    The process takes an enormous amount of time per programme, starting with creating the meta data tag.

    Old legacy tapes even in such conditions are cured and then digitised for archiving

    This is a form that is filled up first by hand, mentioning everything about a programme, from the title to the gist of it, the producer‘s name, time, format, when it was created, right down to the stack where it is stored.

    Another set of persons are making hard copy of transcripts, some others giving new sub titles, mostly in English which creates more value for a programme by enlarging the audience for it.

    There is a specific room Rao shows around the system, where there are computer stacks, which can be shifted on rails and gives great flexibility to storage space, a room where 18 Celsius temperature and a specific humidity level is maintained at all times.

    Rao, however, often sounds despondent: “Many centres have not sent their legacy tapes,” she laments, and adds that of the oldest programmes, only 170-odd hours could be preserved.

    Rao says Dutt has issued a dictum that whatever is left or the old as well as whatever is being created new, “not an inch of tape can be thrown away”.

    “We have told them, you do not have to store, just send everything to us and we shall store them.”

    The staff strength is also bewildering: just five permanent ones.

    Says Dutt: “We are just five. We are using the services of old, senior and retired DD hands who had been editors and programme executives and they are being outsourced the work for editing and other such work, because they have knowledge of that.

    Experts on arts working at meta data centre for previews of old tapes

    “But for computerised work, we are outsourcing the work to youngsters, who are good at handling computers and more adept at using software.”

    The talk veers back to value, and Dutt says that DD gives roughly RS 250,000 to RS 400,000 to an independent producer for a 30-minute programme, so one can calculate that 250,000 programmes on archiving at the moment could have cost roughly RS 7.5 billion to create, but that is not the real value.

    Dutt explains: “As a programme sits in my library and gets older, it grows in value. For instance, where will we ever get another Bismillah Khan? So, truly speaking, the value of those programmes we have on Khan sahib could be enormous.”

    Many of the programmes have in fact been made into DVDs, and sold at RS 395 per copy, and the hottest selling have been shows by MS Subbulakshmi, Beghum Akhtar, Sufiana Music and Bismillah Khan.

    CD copies come for RS 295 and audio tapes for RS 195 a piece, and these are available at all DD Kendras, as well as other places.

    Ved M Rao, Director, IPR, with Afghan delegates at the compacter section

    Dutt informs that almost all the top music companies, including Music Today, had come seeking collaboration when this RS 30 million a year project or archiving started and when RS 7.5 million out of that was apportioned for creating DVDs and selling them.

    “Surprisingly for some of my colleagues, though not surprising to me, we have made a profit on that,” Dutt says.

    Rao adds that some of the best selling products have had three or four print runs of 3,000 copies each run.

    Dutt says about the collaboration: “We did not want that, we wanted our own exclusive stuff, which could be repurposed for any specific use, and we are thus competing with private channels offering flexi time to viewers.

    Though Dutt, a diminutive powerhouse of an official, did not set a date to it, the next step, she said, would be making available such programmes for DD‘s VoD set up that is likely to come up soon.

    Soon, DD would be creating a website for this archive and the selling of DVDs online would be taken up, Dutt informs, but says that selling other footage would not be possible because of DRM (digital rights management) problems.

    Typically of a pubcaster mindset, DD is not just raking in moolah for itself, but offering the benefits of the sales to the creators as well, including the artists, and Rao as Director IPR, is working out the value of programmes and the creators‘ shares with them.

    The idea is to have a virtual library with meta data tags on each programme, which then can be used commercially, instead of storing programmes that are used once in three or four years.

    “See, all these were made with public money, so why should we just keep it and not make it available to them at an affordable price and let them enjoy a higher level of aesthetic experience,” Dutt says.

    However, though there is a large market, Dutt admits that it is this issue of higher level of aesthetic experience that keep the market contained within some elite sections who have the taste, exposure and desire to experience that aesthetic, but that elite happens to be global and expanding, as the eyes on India expands exponentially.

  • Mobile Music Industry – Way to go!

    Mobile music has emerged as the most prominent segment in the digital music industry and is a major money making business.

    Today, the definite buzzword with Indians is ‘mobile’. Everyone realizes how quickly the world is going digital and how important it is to keep in pace with the changing times.

    According to the Soundbuzz Music Analysis (Digital and Physical), in 2007, digital music and more specifically mobile music, will surpass physical music in sales in India. To this estimation, IMI general secretary Savio D’Souza says, “In India, Music-to-Music accounts for Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) and physical music to Rs 600 crore. So, I nowhere see mobile music sales surpassing physical music sales.”

    But Universal’s Rajeev Gangal comments, “Not by the end of 2007, but by late 2008 one can expect mobile music sales to exceed, looking at the way the digital segment is booming.”

    The Soundbuzz analysis also states that globally, online and mobile sales will represent more than 60 per cent of all music retail sales by 2009. Ringtones, the dominant digital format in terms of sales, will continue to be so through 2009. “Its all about monetizing it rightly,” adds D’Souza. Moreover, it concludes that Asia will generate more than one third of all digital music sales globally in 2009. Whoa!

    Mobile music consisting of ringtones, caller ringback tones, music clippings ringtones, music video downloads, movies and scene downloads has emerged as the most prominent segment in the digital music industry and is a major money making business today. Gangal further adds, “Physical and digital formats are way away from each other. Some tracks are just meant for the digital market. But as far as revenue from them is concerned, they are neck to neck. There isn’t much gap there.”

    According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with the evolution of the mobile handset, mobile music has become a major revenue stream for the music industry globally, running far ahead of revenues from the conventional music distribution channels. Adds D’Souza, “Mobile music has become a major revenue stream for music industry, but mobile music running far ahead in revenues as compared to conventional music distribution channels isn’t true. Globally, the music industry is a $32 billion business, of which mobile music accounts for 10 per cent, say not more than $2 billion.”

    Be it an out-and-out whim or just the exposure to illegal downloads, mobile music is taking over the legal conventional music in India. Statistics prove that where mobile music downloads is growing by over 50 per cent every year; the growth of legal conventional music is more or less pining away.

    The songs from 2006 blockbuster Dhoom 2 were a smash hit on the music downloads front

    Adds Gangal, “If illegal distribution of music through mobiles is also included, the size of the mobile music market may be a lot bigger than conventional music. The biggest hindrance to the conventional music industry is piracy. The mobile music segment sees low piracy levels and hence, the industry is benefited more from the digital segment than the conventional one.”

    Downloadable ringtones, which already make an annual business of $45 million globally, is all set to grow at double-digit levels in the years to come. Ringtones also generate about 40 per cent of the data revenues for India’s big wireless operators such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications.

    India’s entire mobile music market – encompassing monophonic and polyphonic ring tones, true tones, ring back tones and full track mobile downloads – will be worth $800 million by 2009, as predicted by Soundbuzz, which again doesn’t receive a positive nod from D’Souza.

    Today, almost every handset is capable of playing polyphonic or actual music. Cell phones ranging from Rs 2000 – Rs 5000 sell the most in India and thus can avail just the mono or polyphonic tones. Video and song downloads does not come into the picture here. But, mobile music is developing faster due to higher penetration of phones compared to portable players or broadband, and also, due to ease of payment. Almost all operators today have launched an ‘Easy Music’ facility that allows subscribers to choose their favourite music from a huge catalog and download it onto their mobile phones or even iPods at affordable prices. This has helped the mobile music market boom to unexpected levels.

    As regards choice, mobile subscribers have a yen for Bollywood hits, devotional music, but international tracks always remain a priority as well.

    Adds Gangal, “In the mobile music segment, it’s all about hits. Like if we have the rights to Bryan Adams and a person wants to download Bryan Adams songs, then he will definitely turn to our label. The biggest challenge in this segment is to make music available in the three-inch screen as against other forms of distribution. Here, content and quality both matter a lot.”

    Both digital formats have deep content in terms of language and musical genres. Radio on mobile devices as well as Internet radio is also pushing the digital music industry forward.

    Presently, the techno-savvy generation is making use of mobiles in all the possible ways to get the best out of it. By the end of 2007, it is expected that India alone will have around 250 million handsets. Global companies like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung are striving neck-to-neck to come up with handsets loaded with FM radios, MP3 players and a good memory capacity as buyers are showing an edge for such features in their cell phones.

    Sony Ericsson is working and promoting its personal digital assistant phones with MP3 players and the popular Walkman phone line. Around 35 per cent of their Indian handset products feature downloadable music applications and the best-selling Walkman phone accounts for 65 per cent of total revenues. Sony has also expanded its chain of Expression Stores, which feature phones and music download stations.

    Nokia can’t afford to lag in this rat-race. The handset leader has set up college sponsorship deals and collaborated with music companies to buy the rights for free downloadable songs on some of their handsets to encourage the use of digital music. Some of Nokia’s N-series handsets, with a 3,000 song capacity, offer 100 preloaded songs free; just to make a mark, and money of course, in this segment. Most of the major handset makers have tie-ups with music content sites such as Soundbuzz.com andOnMobile.com as well as revenue-sharing deals with local telcos and music companies.

    Comments Hindustan Times (Lucknow) music feature writer Piyush Singh, “India sees a huge potential for digital music. Presently, MP3 songs are heard on PC, phones, web (streaming) etc. About revenue generation, according to me, it is an off-putting task to convince (Indians especially), to buy music online, as music is easily available from peers who might have purchased a CD or downloaded it online using P2P technology.

    “If it is economical for people to download, store and write music on CDs and then transfer it to the cell phones; the search for songs from unpaid sources increases. But if paid sources price the song really low, no one would want to undergo this trouble of downloading-storing-writing. Also, the whole process will then look ‘legal’.”

    Piracy and transfer of music from one handset to another, for instance transferring music clips via Bluetooth, have reached a volume that is three times the legal route. But such illegal downloads also appear as blessings in disguise as it actually helps the mobile music industry to grow. Comments Gangal, “Rich media usually observes a greater volume of transfers via Bluetooth. At the end of the day, everyone gets their share. 70 per cent of it taken away by Telco and the leftover is distributed.”

    Local music companies and content owners often nitpick at the distributors like mobile phone operators and other companies that distribute digital music. They claim that the distributors walk away with a bigger portion of the revenues leaving them with a minimum amount. Says D’Souza, “The accounting of the mobile music business depends on some common denominators taken into consideration and on the parameters against which the market is calculated. Only then can one say how significant the contribution is.

    “In India, the mobile piracy business is about Rs 30 crore. If a ringtone costs Rs 10, 15 per cent of the money goes to the government, around Rs 1.75 comes to the music industry. The rest is split amongst the music companies and content owners. Today, Telco accounts for 80 per cent of the business. This segment is bound to grow no doubt. Which distributors dominate the mobile music market is largely dependent on the end product available and negotiation skills.”

    Talking of the competition penetrating this segment, Gangal gives a final peg, “We don’t really see a lot of competition and this comes as an advantage. It’s all about how you market your product and what strategies you adapt in order to keep selling. In the next five years or so, Universal will definitely witness an average of 400 million number of unit sales in the digital segment and around Rs 200 million in market prices.”

  • The ‘U’ factor

    “Who has that time and that energy and that passion [to make mashups, do blogs, make YouTube videos, etc.]?”

    “The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is YOU.” 
    Source:-Times Magazine, 13 December 2006

     

    That statement could well be the start of a whole new wave of media jostling for space with the big daddies of traditional media. It was really the success of YouTube that set the ball rolling for ‘user generated content’. Supported by the millions of video clips put up on the site daily and with mind boggling traffic, YouTube has gained a mythological community-driven status today.

    But skeptics still wonder if the YouTube model can be made into a profitable, viable business model. That Google bought out the site for $ 1.65 billion could put some of those questions to rest. But the litigation around YouTube for streaming copyrighted material may yet prove to be its undoing. Whether YouTube will go the Napster way is everybody’s favourite question but the Web 2.0 revolution almost begs to differ judging by the number of digital and even mainstream media adapting to ‘people generated content’.
     

    In fact the basic premise around the sustainability of YouTube is also the basic premise around the growth of ‘people generated content itself’. Is this medium limited to the online sphere alone?

    The contribution of user generated content to news, music videos and commercials is fast negating this idea. Is this medium prone to pitfalls given the debate of copyright infringement? Even as we speak Google and Viacom battle it out in the courts and outside. The results could well spell out the future course for UGC.

    The single most important question: is all the content out there purely put out by users for gratification, a shot of fame or to display talent or will we be able to generate revenue out of this content and distribute it equitably between you – the content generator – and the distributor. Monetization of UGC will be an important key in aiding both growth and quality of the content. (Would you pay to watch a cat play piano? Would the cat owner get a share of the money you pay? No! the cat gets nothing.)

    These questions surrounding UGC are as pertinent in the Indian context as they are internationally. Although in India both content providers and platform providers would have to deal with basic issues of broadband connectivity.

    In that sense, one cannot obviously deny the important role played by technology in aiding and abetting UGC. Cell phones with cameras, MMS and digital cameras have captured both moving and still images that have been played alongside traditional content.
     

     

    Consider this: Torrential rains and the city stops in its tracks. A bomb blast and a media that couldn’t get close enough. Visual images on television news channel that clearly spell out the story of these tragedies as they happened. Strike one for user generated news content packaged asCitizen Journalist.

    A bunch of bloggers, a Roger Waters concert and a camera. Channel [V] had the perfect recipe for a user generated content show. Strike 2 for user generated content on a music channel.

    Video clips, pictures and everyday emotions played to the tune of a rock song. VH1 incorporated them all into a Pentagram music video which will be played out on the music channels as well as made available for download on the mobile and net platforms. Strike 3 for user generated music video.

    There are UG photographs on Flickr, UG commercials and even UG movies and documentaries. Besides, you have automobile design companies running open design contests, Reuters carries blog postings alongside its regular news feed and television channels are looking at business models to create 24 hour UGC driven channels.

    It’s a genre which is seeping into all the nooks and crannies that mainstream content producers cannot penetrate. But going by industry speak ‘user generated content’ for now is a fancy word that is still a few years away from fruition. Where it has made its biggest impact is in the newspace.

    Crises like bomb blasts, terrorist attacks or accidents have brought to the fore people initiatives with still photographs and moving pictures. CNN IBN’s Citizen Journalist won awards even as other news networks jumped onto the bandwagon. While one may argue that this usually works in fits and spurts and only around big crisis events, CNN IBN is also looking at including stories from everyday walks of life and converting them into feature segments played out as part of their news bulletin.

    Internationally, BBC World relied heavily on user generated images during the 7 July and 21 July London bombings. In fact, the BBC website has a UGC dedicated segment on the site- www.yournews.com. Making a point on the effective use of people generated content on news channels. Cellcast and Sumo.TV CEO Pankaj Thakar says, “During the London bombings the content on news channels was skewed to almost 30 per cent broadcast news and 70 percent people generated content. That’s the kind of impact UGC can have within news. Unfortunately, we feel happy about small scale initiatives likeCitizen Journalism….why cant user generated content be more mainstream?”

    While the public broadcaster did use ‘people generated content’ within mainstream news, it is still early days for UGC to claim the same space as news programming. Would a BBC weekly show like ‘Your News’ be weaved into news programming? 

    UGC in Entertainment

    The Ficci Frames convention held in Mumbai had a very interesting session on User Generated Content. A lady in the audience very passionately debated that ‘once the material or content is out of the hands of the user, he has no more rights on what or how the buyer may use it so long as he has been paid his price’.

    This is exactly the question a lot of users are now asking themselves. Posted online videos are no more secure and how they are used may not necessarily be appreciated by the user. In the current scenario, the freedom to post his thoughts or videos and make it available to people he wants – is the real driver.

    This is the premise that music channels like Channel [V] and VH1 have used to create music programming and a music video respectively. Channel [V] had an enthusiastic bunch of bloggers who got together to shoot the Big [V] concert which was later telecast as a series. Says Channel [V] head Amar K Deb, “‘Made by you’, the blogumentary that spawned a series of music shows was a first of its kind experiment. But it fit in perfectly with Brand ‘V’. People want to participate in our shows, be a part of the process. By definition, television is perceived to be a passive medium but with UGC it takes on a more interactive format. Whether it’s our promos or music programming, our viewers want to contribute.”

    Deb also reveals that with the success of ‘Made by you’, Channel [V] will ‘look at the blogumentary way even with upcoming shows like Channel [V] Launchpad and Get Gorgeous 4 where the model aspirants will be asked to maintain their blogs.

    Close on the heels of Channel [V]’s initiative, VH1 the music and lifestyle channel also announced Shot by You. Pushing ‘user interactivity’ into the mainstream media, viewers were invited to listen to the latest track by Pentagram – ‘Voice’ posted online and use their camera phones or video recording devices to shoot footage that would best suit the feel of the music and send it to VH1.

    While the response to the Nokia and VH1 partnered Shot by Youinitiative was impressive, the quality of video clips or pictures sent weren’t always up to the mark bringing into question the quality of user generated content meant for traditional media.

    Talking about the challenges the team faced during the making of the video VH1 General Manager Keertan Adyanthya said, “Since the use of digital media in our country is still at a nascent stage, many of the entries did not meet television standards. Very often the resolution of the footage sent was not suitable for use. Some of the footage sent was copyrighted material and again could not be used at all.”

    But music channels are all gung ho about introducing UGC as part of their programming. Deb goes so far as to say that UGC based programming allows the channel a “one to one platform. It also gives the viewer a chance to engage with the medium.”

    So why are platforms like Sumo.TV taking so long to establish themselves in India? 

    The channel which was to launch early this year has pushed back its plans by a few months. Thakkar however believes that the ecosystem will evolve by the end of 2007, and there will be some good UGC shows on TV. At the end of the day it is television more than online media that is considered conducive to UGC. “TV is more accountable and requires moderation,” explains Thakkar. That kind of moderation is easier in the already structured television set up.

     

    So we’ve talked user, distributor, content and platforms. Now let’s talk shop. But this is exactly where the debate deepens. Are the big brands wary of associating themselves with user generated content due to issues of copyright infringement and quality checks?

    Yahoo Groups’ IM Swaminathan is of the opinion that availability of UGC has had a huge impact on advertising and PR with more opportunities for viral marketing. “Bloggers are invited along with traditional media to press conferences and product launches. Marketers are now using them as samplers before launching their product into the market.”

    But all talks of UGC being advertiser friendly are still premature? The biggest hurdle is the revenue model adopted by mainstream medium. In the case of news and music channels, there are no set remunerations for the content provided. While news content is packaged as ‘social responsibility of citizens’, music channels are still conducting contests or purely providing a platform for good talent.

    In this case, Thakkar tries to explain Sumo.TV’s revenue model. “In our case its the broadcaster who pays for content. The revenue received from the broadcaster is then shared by all parties involved. Revenue also comes from the mobile downloads, which is where the operator comes in. 
    What happens in the UK where we have a 24-hour channel is that people send photos and MMS’ to us, and we aggregate content and choose on the basis of relevance. We then process it – restore it to make it broadcast quality. In fact, we’re developing our own restoration tool. People then download this content via the mobile, so we need to have proper license in place and contact the user for his content. This way we make sure their IPR is protected.”

    The company is still looking at television to distribute this user generated content since television in India has a “long tell effect” he says. Thakkar also argues that traditional media like print and television are themselves not very encouraging when it comes to user generated content. “Consumers who have so far had only the option of professionally produced content are neither aware nor proactive about this new genre.”

    The next wave?

    Web 2.0 is a social experiment and like any other experiment it could fail. But it’s an experiment that has allowed scores of anonymous faces, voices and all kinds of talent to crop up and have their moment in the sun. By extension that also means that a lot of content out there is downright nonsensical. The pay per click or pay per download model would perhaps ensure that a lot of this material is either filtered or relegated to the ‘back pages’.

    Industry watchers however are more optimistic that in the long run there would be a shift from amateur content to professionally generated content. And this is when proper monetary systems would also be put into place.

    As this UGC juggernaut rolls on some of the issues that it will have to contend with are – copyright infringement, monetization and multiple platforms. But for now, I am completely immersed in reading up on every blog and site that talks about user generated content. I’ve also made up my mind to shoot my own short film. Any takers?

     

  • Ficci moots 10-yr tax holiday for animation, gaming industries

     
     

    NEW DELHI: With the annual budget coming up, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) is lobbying for a 10-year tax holiday for the animation, gaming and VFX industries.

    Ficci says the sector, which holds tremendous promise, is suffering because the present government policy is to subsidise foreign productions in India, whereas Indian companies are burdened with a slew of taxes.

    Ficci has raised an important cultural point that insiders say might sit well with I&B minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been talking of Indian values rather loudly of late. Ficci feels that due the tax burden, Indian animation companies are not able to produce Indian content and hence an entire generation of Indian children are growing up on a staple of foreign superheroes.
     

    The industry body has also proposed the removal of CVD duty for a period of 10 years. The high-end machines used for the production attracts an import duty, Ficci says, adding that at present the duty structure is high: basic duty of 12.5 per cent, CVD of 16.32 per cent, special CVD of 4 per cent.

    After including educational cess, the overall duty comes out to be 36.8 per cent, it explained.

    The provision for Service Tax is financially hitting Indian animation studios extremely hard, Ficci has said in its budget wishlist.

    “Most of these studios are those that are developing a large amount of original content. Those studios that are export oriented and are thus under STPI are not exposed to the Service Tax at all, whereas the ones that are making or planning to make any Intellectual Property (original Indian content) in India for any client or broadcaster have to pay a service tax of 12.2% (this is going to be @ 12% in the new financial year, as per the latest budget),” says the Ficci paper that indiantelevision.com accessed.
     

    “We all have seen a rapid boom in the software industry, thanks to their exemption from the service tax. There is a big potential for Indian animation studios to grow manifold from where they are right now, the major success of the animation sector will be in creating the original Indian content and distributing it globally,” says the paper.

    It argues that if the country can make special efforts and can exempt animation industry from paying service tax, it would really contribute to a great extent towards promoting the industry and also the traditional and creative artists.

    Explaining the issues in the sector, the Ficci note despairs that the animation as an industry in India is covered under STPI, but STPI predominantly holds good for a BPO nature of work, where outsourcing is the main module and most of the studios which are getting benefited from STPI have to make sure of an export commitment of more than 85 per cent.

    As a result, it holds, many Indian studios wanting to produce original content based intellectual property and use art and talent from India to produce animation stories do not get any such benefits.

    As creating original content in India attracts custom duty and also the freshly levied sales tax (VAT) on off the shelf software, sales tax of 12.2% (which might increase further) and further also the income tax component, the Ficci paper has held.

    Together, these act as a major deterrent against studios producing and creating original content with an Indian heritage base or any other indigenous original content creation within the shores of the country.

    Currently, there is just no encouragement of developing original Indian content to be put forth to the entire world in the form of animation.

    This is leading to more and more studios working on foreign content and is leading to a severe lack of animated Indian stories in our domestic television schedules. In fact in the current scenario there is not one television channel that is exclusively dedicated to the kids showing original Indian content.

    “Hence,” Ficci argues, “our next generations of kids are growing up on a staple diet of foreign superheroes and legends while their exposure to Indian history, culture and heritage is being restricted to school textbooks. Storybooks and comics are being quickly replaced by television content and specially animated television content.

    Ficci has also demanded that the tariff barrier on gaming consoles be reduced, as it is acting as a hindrance to developing such consoles in India and putting the related software sector in a tight spot.

    The paper has argued that the entire tariff of approximately 36.74 per cent is passed through to the customers, translating to high prices for such consoles, which affect affordability and therefore access.

    High tariffs, it says, also lead to the growth of a grey market in products, which for the gaming consoles market in the country stands at 300,000 units, and leads to a loss of revenue to the government.

    Ficci feels the growth of the grey market also limits the government’s ability to ensure high quality and safe experience for customers that desire this exciting entertainment device.

     

    Pricing and affordability are key aspects that can enable the development of the gaming consoles market in India. Rationalization of the tariff structures will therefore mean a more affordable pricing structure that will enable greater market access for such consoles.

    “A recent study conducted by a market research agency, estimates that by lowering the CVD alone, which currently stands at 16.32 per cent, will result in projected import of gaming consoles to the tune of 400,000 units in the next five years,” the paper says.

    Ficci quotes a Nasscomm study and says: “According to Nasscomm, a game that would cost around $3 million to $6 million to develop in the United States can be produced for only $500,000 to $3 million in India.

    “In fact 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the revenues from a blockbuster console-based game, which often match those of a blockbuster Hollywood movie, amounting to $250 million or upwards, is the developers cost,” it adds .

    In addition to this competitive edge of development cost arbitrage, Indian software developers also have the potential to tap into the potentially diverse domestic market for gaming and develop customized games in vernacular languages, thereby broadening the scope of the Indian gaming market.

    Though the Nasscomm study acknowledges that currently the gaming market in India is undeveloped, it projects a potential growth with a CAGR of 78 per cent, amounting to $ 300 million by 2009 . It also projects that the current employment scenario in India in this sector can grow from approximately 600 people employed in the gaming industry in 2005 to approximately 2,000 professionals in 2007.
  • Eros International signs mobile content license deal with Mauj Telecom

    Eros International signs mobile content license deal with Mauj Telecom

    MUMBAI: Eros International has announced that it has signed a license deal involving minimum guarantee revenues with telecom solutions company Mauj Telecom for distribution of mobile content.

    In the past the two companies have collaborated on films including “Omkara” and “I See You”. The deal includes films such as “Namaste London”, “Eklavya – The Royal Guard”, “No Smoking” and “Friends Forever.”.

    “With mobile and wireless connectivity in India growing at an impressive 80 per cent CAGR, the opportunity to monetise Bollywood content through mobile properties such as ringtones, wallpapers, songs and video clips is becoming increasingly lucrative,” Eros said in a statement.

    Eros’ content will be distributed on Mauj’s international telecom network. “The Mauj deal is a significant landmark in Eros’ commitment to tap into the new media opportunities presented by digital convergence. The deal enhances Eros’s recent expansion into music publishing as most mobile content is derived from Bollywood musicals. Mauj has created a niche in the mobile space within a short span of time and we are pleased to be working with them to unlock further value in our mobile content,” said Eros International chairman and CEO Kishore Lulla.

    Added Mauj chairman and managing director Anupam Mittal, “Eros International is one of the largest content owners in the Bollywood business and has a very strong pipeline of forthcoming films. We were keen to secure the deal to distribute that premium content on mobile platforms in an increasingly competitive environment. Eros’ content combined with Mauj’s technical infrastructure and relationships with mobile networks operators make this an attractive deal for both companies.”

  • Spice Telecom plans $150 mn IPO

    Spice Telecom plans $150 mn IPO

    BANGALORE: Karnataka’s first mobile telephony service provider Spice Telecom (Spice) has plans for a public issue totaling $150 million.

    Modicorp (51% stake) along with Telekom Malaysia (49% stake) own Spice. The red herring prospectus will be filed with Sebi and the IPO is likely to open in end March this year with Spice to planning to dilute around 15-20% of their stake.

    Spice has recently been awarded a railway outsourcing contract by IRCTC to provide services to the customers for a payment of Rs 1 billion over 10 years. The scope of work includes providing customers with information services across India, IVR, information and other services. The voice call to IVR ratio is around 20:80 according to Spice officials. The contract commences from March this year.

    Spice is present in 2 circles – Karnataka and Punjab with a customer base of around 2.5million of the total 100 million plus Indian subscribers. India has over 6000 railway stations and almost 80-90% of these are covered by mobile service providers. Spice is in negotiations with other service providers for carriage and other services in the other circles. This contract means that over the next ten years other service providers can provide railway information only through Spice.

    To ramp up and meet the service requirements, Spice plans to set up 4 regional hubs all over the country. This contract has been obtained by an equally shared joint venture between Spice and Spanco Telesystems (Spanco) from Mumbai. Spanco are to be the hardware system integrators for this venture.

    Speaking during a press briefing in Bangalore yesterday, Modicorp chairman BK Modi said, “Railways cover the length and breadth of the country physically, Spice will help connect the country telephonically,” while announcing that Spice planned to have kiosks on every platform in the country, where valid passengers can pick up sub $20/- mobile and with a Rs 50/- chip that can receive incoming calls free.

    “Currently we were lacking in distribution. Now with 6,000 railway stations we can take telephony to the bottom of the pyramid, a mobile is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity, and with 4 billion passengers that travel by train, the aim for reaching a subscriber base of 500 million by 2010 could be met even earlier,” Modi said.

    Spice along with Taiwanese suppliers provide low end as well as high end mobile phone instruments.

    Unconfirmed reports also indicate that Bollywood diva Katrina Kaif has been appointed brand ambassador for Spice. Priyanka Chopra, whose three year contract ends in December 2007, will also continue as brand ambassador, a company source says.
     

  • United Online to expand NetZero DSL broadband

    United Online to expand NetZero DSL broadband

    MUMBAI: United Online, Inc, a provider of consumer internet and media services, and Covad Communications Group, Inc. a provider of integrated voice and data communications, have entered into an agreement. Under this, United Online would expand its NetZero DSL broadband internet service offering using Covad’s network.

    United Online recently launched NetZero Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to provide its customers with an opportunity to upgrade to broadband.

    United Online chairman and CEO Mark R. Goldston said, “Through this agreement, United Online has the opportunity to benefit from access to Covad’s network and their expertise in broadband. We believe it will enable us to expand our NetZero DSL broadband offering and give more of our NetZero customers who want a broadband experience the ability to easily upgrade from dial-up while keeping their NetZero email address.”

    Covad president and chief executive officer Charles Hoffman said, “We are pleased to partner with United Online to provide its customers with high-speed Internet service and look forward to creating a successful partnership. As the leading independent provider of next-generation broadband services, we welcome the opportunity to increase our wholesale business through this agreement.”

    United Online intends to launch this expansion of its NetZero DSL service near the end of the first quarter of 2007. In addition to NetZero’s current regional DSL coverage, this agreement with Covad allows United Online to offer NetZero broadband services to DSL-eligible customers within Covad’s service area.

    United Online currently estimates that, following the addition of NetZero DSL services in Covad’s service area and when combined with NetZero’s existing coverage, NetZero will be able to offer broadband services to approximately 30 per cent to 35 per cent of United Online’s current ISP customer base, although the percentage could vary significantly based on a variety of factors.

    The pricing and other terms of services will be made available closer to the time of launch and may vary based on geographic locations, the company said.

  • IPTV revenues to touch $512 million in 2007: Frost & Sullivan

    IPTV revenues to touch $512 million in 2007: Frost & Sullivan

    MUMBAI: Dwindling wireline revenues, consumer demand for greater control over viewing preferences, and the explosion of broadband in various high growth markets across Asia-Pacific represent the impetus for the development of IPTV in the region.

    While service providers across Asia-Pacific have invested heavily in the network infrastructure required to offer such services, the key success factor for IPTV lies in the gamut of content that service providers are able to provide consumers.

    New analysis from global growth consulting company, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific IPTV Market, reveals that revenues in this market – covering 12 major Asia-Pacific countries ex-Japan – is estimated to increase from $353.4 million in 2006 to $512.4 million next year. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of 37.5 per cent (2006-2013), the region’s IPTV market is forecasted to be worth $3.3 billion by end-2013.

    Frost & Sullivan senior research analyst Aravind Venkatesh says, “IPTV is the next notable wave in the consumer telecom space and service providers are planning to leverage this new technology to offer high quality interactive services to customers. While revenues from fixed-line services continue to decline, IPTV is likely to reduce churn, increase ARPU (average revenue per user) levels, and generate revenue streams in the long term.”

    IPTV is presently available in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, and is expected to be introduced in India and the Philippines in 2007. Countries like China, India and Australia are expected to be high growth markets by 2009.

    China, in particular, holds immense potential as it has the largest broadband subscriber base in Asia-Pacific. Residential subscribers constitute approximately 70 per cent of China’s 47.8 million broadband subscriber base. China together with Hong Kong, which is said to be one of the most sophisticated IPTV markets in the world, is expected to account for nearly 60 percent of the region’s IPTV revenues by end-2013.

    While initial response from end users has been positive, service providers face the challenge of procuring quality and regional content, most of which is exclusively offered by cable and satellite operators. The lack of quality content is a common problem for service providers across the region. Although partnerships with content providers and broadcasting companies aid in securing access rights, cable TV providers or IPTV market leaders already have exclusive access to the content.

    Venkatesh adds, “The lack of sufficient bandwidth and highly skewed broadband distribution are major inhibitors for the growth of IPTV in Asia-Pacific. While Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Japan are mature markets for broadband, developing markets like China, India and Malaysia have dismally low broadband penetration.”

    The lack of bandwidth in developing markets requires the implementation of high compression codecs and watermarking technologies to achieve the expected quality of service (QoS) levels. This may however be only a short-term solution. Service providers should scale their networks rapidly to offer bandwidth-hungry applications to consumers.

  • BSNL to speed up broadband up to 2 MB at Rs 250 per month

    BSNL to speed up broadband up to 2 MB at Rs 250 per month

    MUMBAI: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) is planning to give a major push to broadband. The telecom major has decided to increase the speed by almost eight times, providing broadband up to 2 mb at Rs 250 per month.

    The download has been increased by 2.5 times at almost half the cost, the company said. Till now the minimum bandwidth available to broadband customers was 256 Kbps. BSNL has now decided that all the home and business plans will offer data rates up to 2 Mbps, subject to technical feasibility.

    “Under the new plan all the existing 820,000 customers are also being upgraded for the speed up to 2 Mbps, depending upon technical feasibility,” BSNL said.

    The following changes in broadband data rates and downloading limits will come into effect from 1 January. BSNL is going to add the five million port capacity to the existing network of one million ports. “We at present have a 44 per cent market share in this segment. We also hold the prime position as the largest internet service provider of the country,” the company said.

    The downloading limits in home 250 and business 700 plans have been enhanced to 1 GB and 4 GB from 400 MB and 2 GB respectively. The limits in other plans have been suitably enhanced. With the increase in downloading limit, a Plan 250 customer will get a benefit of Rs 840 per month for 1 GB limit and Business Plan 700 customer will get a benefit of Rs 2400 per month for limits up to 4GB.

    BSNL has also decided to bring down the per MB downloading rates from Rs 1.40 per MB to Rs.0.90 per MB in Home 250 plan and the rates have also been lowered in other plans. The BSNL broadband service is available in 597 cities and towns.

    The fixed monthly charges from ADSL modems has been reduced from Rs 100 to Rs 60 per month with effect from 1 December. This will benefit about 800000 customers of BSNL.

    BSNL is already in the process of launching triple play services over broadband in Pune and subsequently in Chennai and Bangalore. It plans to start online gaming services over broadband soon under two categories, Standard and Premium packages, with monthly fixed charges of Rs 100 and Rs 200 respectively.

  • Times Broadband ready with content delivery network for IPTV

    Times Broadband ready with content delivery network for IPTV

    NEW DELHI: Times Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (TBSPL) has expressed its preparedness with a content delivery network for IPTV which it wants to offer to telecom and cable TV operators.

    “We are ready with 100 TV channels and have set up an agnostic platform,” said Times Broadband CEO Sujata Dev.

    TBSPL had tied up with MTNL to offer IPTV on the telecom major’s network. Now it is also looking at going with other telecom operators as well.

    The company expects 500 channels would come on board their platform for IPTV. TBSPL has already signed up with a few content providers which includes Time Media, IMI, Film and Television Producers’ Guild, Globecast and Star TV. “I cannot disclose the names of many others because IPTV would need a little more clarity as far as regulations are concerned and that would decide on the tariff of pay channels,” Dev said.

    Many broadcasters are hesitant to sign in as content providers because they are uncertain whether the service would be controlled by the Cas rules or treated under telecom or IT rules.

    “IPTV is a value-added service for a telecom operator and we hope that it would be dictated by telecom laws and regulations,” Dev said.

    The formal launch was done by minister of state for urban development and poverty alleviation, Ajay Maken, who declared this (IPTV technology) as an unthinkable revolution.

    Dev in her presentation said that TBSPL would aggregate content from multiple sources and provide the content delivery platform to telecom operators. The company has partners in Hewlett Packard, Optibase, Verimatrix, Kassena and Amino.

    Dev said that at the moment TBSPL is offering 100 TV channels, FTA, and list of pay channels as second tier; 10 feature films through video on demand with fast forward, rewind and pause features; 10 hours of music cutting across genres; 10 hours of interactive games, 10 hours of browsing and 100 TV-to-TV SMS. Later, there would come premium offerings, which will include video telephony on TV with plug-in camera; T-Banking, T-information; T-time shift TV, etc.

    The operation is intended as a conduit between the telecom operators and content producers and providers in the convergence space “In convergence technology there is always some discrepancy against one of the players, and this is where we play the role of the conduit,” Dev said.