ITV

Category: iWorld

  • Vi Business inks pact with HPE to boost India’s enterprise tech game

    Vi Business inks pact with HPE to boost India’s enterprise tech game

    MUMBAI: In a move that signals smarter days ahead for Indian enterprise networks, Vi Business—the enterprise arm of Vodafone Idea—has signed a strategic managed services deal with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver next-gen networking solutions across industries.

    The collaboration leans on the power of HPE Aruba Networking to roll out managed wireless LAN, switching, and security infrastructure, designed to support everything from sprawling manufacturing plants to sleek corporate HQs. With this alliance, Vi Business and HPE are looking to wire up workplaces with scalable, secure and AI-powered tech that runs as smoothly as a late-night software patch.

    All services will be handled by Vi’s Network Operations Center (NOC), which promises seamless delivery and in-life support. The offering includes AI- and ML-based analytics for intelligent orchestration, boosting user experience through predictive and adaptive networking. Enterprises also get support with well-defined service level agreements (SLAs), giving them peace of mind alongside performance.

    Private data centres are also in focus. Vi and HPE plan to co-develop solutions that can cater to the growing storage and compute demands of private and public sector enterprises—including government entities.

    Vodafone Idea chief enterprise business officer Arvind Nevatia said, “We are excited to sign this strategic partnership with HPE. This collaboration will not only strengthen Vi Business’s ICT product portfolio but also enhance our offerings by integrating our telco core with advanced enterprise solutions. Together, Vi Business and HPE are committed to delivering scalable, secure, and high-performance solutions that drive operational efficiency, enabling digital transformation for our enterprise customers”.

    HPE Aruba Networking EVP & GM Phil Mottram added, “We are thrilled to join forces with Vi Business, as this represents a powerful leap forward for enterprise innovation in India. By combining the intelligence and security of HPE Aruba Networking with Vi’s strong connectivity and service expertise, we will deliver agile, resilient, and future-ready solutions that will empower businesses to scale confidently in a rapidly evolving digital landscape”.

    This partnership brings together robust connectivity and deep tech innovation, creating a one-stop solution for enterprises hoping to modernise their network infrastructure without the usual headache.

     

  • Hellaro finds its hindi voice and beats the drum for freedom

    Hellaro finds its hindi voice and beats the drum for freedom

    MUMBAI: Who says revolutions can’t begin with a dhol beat? Shemaroome is striking a powerful chord with the Hindi release of Hellaro, the first-ever Gujarati film to win the National Award for Best Feature Film. By dubbing the landmark film for Hindi-speaking audiences, the platform is turning up the volume on stories that celebrate silent strength and cultural rebellion across borders and beyond language.

    Directed by Abhishek Shah, Hellaro isn’t just a period drama set in the scorching salt flats of Kutch, it’s a fiery feminist anthem disguised as a folk tale. The film follows a group of women from a repressive village whose monotonous lives are disrupted when a drummer appears from the desert. What begins as stolen dance sessions away from watchful eyes spirals into a full-blown revolt not with weapons, but with rhythm, resilience, and raw courage.

    The ensemble cast including Shraddha Dangar, Kaushambi Bhatt, Niilam Paanchal, and Brinda Trivedi brings an electric energy to the screen. So compelling were their performances that 13 lead actresses received a Special Jury Award, a rare collective honour that underscored the film’s commitment to sisterhood over stardom.

    Sharing her thoughts on the film’s Hindi release, actress Shraddha Dangar said, “Hellaro has always been more than just a film, it’s a reflection of unheard voices and untold stories that exist in the quiet corners of our society. Bringing it to life meant building a world from the ground up, both emotionally and physically, in the heart of the desert. Now, with its Hindi release on ShemarooMe, I’m deeply moved that this story can reach a broader audience globally. I hope it stirs something in every viewer questions, courage, and above all, a deeper understanding of what it means to be free.”

    More than just a nod to cultural representation, this move by Shemaroome is part of a broader push to bridge the linguistic divide in Indian entertainment. By making powerful regional cinema accessible in Hindi, platforms like ShemarooMe are letting stories dance freely across state lines and into the hearts of millions.

    Hellaro is now streaming in both Hindi and Gujarati exclusively on Shemaroome because freedom, like music, should never be lost in translation.
     

  • Newme launches Zip in Bengaluru with 60-minute delivery for hyper-speed fashion fix

    Newme launches Zip in Bengaluru with 60-minute delivery for hyper-speed fashion fix

    MUMBAI: In a city where fashion moves faster than the traffic does, Newme has just dropped a delivery promise as bold as its crop tops. The gen z-favourite fashion-tech label launched Newme Zip in Bengaluru—offering doorstep delivery of the latest styles in under 60 minutes.

    Following a successful trial in Delhi-NCR where the brand operated on a 90-minute window, Bengaluru becomes the second city to test the model. Backed by dark stores across the city and over 1,500 SKUs, Newme’s latest rollout makes lightning-fast fashion a literal reality.

    “Gen z is clear in what they want—style that’s current, access that’s instant, and experiences that feel personal”, said Newme co-founder & CEO Sumit Jasoria. “The overwhelming response to our pilot confirmed that. Fast fashion can’t afford to be slow”.

    Founded three years ago, Newme has already made its mark with weekly fashion drops, 14 stores nationwide, and a fervent digital community. But Zip could be its boldest move yet—pitting its speed not just against competitors but against city gridlocks. Early tests clocked deliveries between 30 to 60 minutes, even during peak hours.

    The secret sauce?

    An integrated network of dark stores positioned strategically to tackle hyperlocal orders and minimise lag time between order and doorstep.

    With Bengaluru now zipping into the fast lane, Newme is eyeing rollouts in Mumbai and Hyderabad soon. At a time when fashion e-commerce players still deliver in days, Newme Zip is redefining ‘add to cart’ as ‘add to closet’—in under an hour.

  • Streaming queen climbs the ladder at Zee5

    Streaming queen climbs the ladder at Zee5

    MUMBAI:  In the dog-eat-dog world of Indian streaming, few have climbed the corporate ladder with quite the same gusto as Kaveri Das. The business head of Zee5 Hindi has turned customer retention into an art form, wielding micro-cohort strategies like a digital Michelangelo.

    Das’s journey reads like a clever roster in strategic positioning. After cutting her teeth as a software engineer at Mahindra Satyam back in 2006, she pivoted to the telco trenches at Idea Cellular, where she spent four years mastering the dark arts of customer lifecycle management. A brief stint at Tata Sky as senior manager of subscriber marketing followed, before she landed at Zee5 in 2015 – just as India’s streaming wars were heating up.

    Her ascent at the Zee Entertainment subsidiary has been nothing short of spectacular. From customer lifecycle management head in 2015, Das clawed her way to corporate strategy lead by 2019, before a curious 18-month detour to Onnivation as vice-president of growth and strategy. But like a boomerang with ambition, she returned to Zee5 in late 2022 with grander titles and weightier responsibilities.

    The timing couldn’t be more crucial. India’s over-the-top video market is experiencing growing pains, with players from Netflix to JioHotstar locked in an expensive game of content chicken. Das’s expertise in building “robust processes” and converting casual viewers into loyal subscribers could prove the difference between streaming success and digital oblivion.

    Her latest promotion to Zee5 Hindi business head in April suggests the company is doubling down on her proven formula of strategic thinking meets operational excellence. In an industry where customer acquisition costs are soaring and attention spans are shrinking, Das appears to have cracked the code on keeping viewers hooked.

    Not bad for someone who started her career debugging code rather than decoding consumer behaviour.

  • Bebetta levels up leadership with Saatvik Goel and Manoj Bojja to double its user base

    Bebetta levels up leadership with Saatvik Goel and Manoj Bojja to double its user base

    MUMBAI: For a platform that thrives on gameplay, Bebetta isn’t playing when it comes to growth. The gamified engagement startup has strengthened its leadership board with two big-name hires: Saatvik Goel joins as chief marketing officer, and Manoj Bojja takes over as chief technology officer.

    The appointments signal a serious play by the company to scale from its current 15 million users to 30 million by year-end. Founder Meet Shah believes this leadership upgrade is less about titles and more about turbocharging the company’s mission—merging gaming with real-world rewards.

    “India is on the cusp of revolution in gaming”, said Shah. “With Saatvik and Manoj joining the team, we bring in deep expertise across marketing and scalable tech systems—core pillars for our gamified engagement model & future plans”.

    Goel steps in with a record of aggressive growth strategy. At Eloelo, he led a 500x spike in the DAU base and scaled marketing operations across digital platforms. He also left a mark at Doubtnut and Bluestack by boosting ROAS and user engagement with digital-first thinking.

    “It’s an exciting chapter”, said Goel. “I am committed to steering our marketing vision towards building an authentic community of gaming enthusiasts… and establish Bebetta as India’s largest gamified entertainment platform”.

    On the tech side, Bojja brings over a decade of engineering firepower from Gameberry Labs, Moonfrog Labs, and Gameskraft. With a vision of handling millions of concurrent users, his focus will be on building robust, AI-backed, scalable infrastructure.

    “It’s exhilarating to join Bebetta at such a pivotal moment”, Bojja said. “We’ll build a secure, flexible architecture that supports growth while embedding AI to enhance user journeys”.

    Founded in 2023, Bebetta has quickly evolved from 10,000 new users a day to over 35,000 daily signups.

    The app’s hook?

    Turning every tap into a reward.

  • Europe shoots for the stars with home-grown satellite internet

    Europe shoots for the stars with home-grown satellite internet

    MUMBAI: Space, it seems, is the final frontier for European ambition. Constellation Technologies & Operations (CTO), a plucky French outfit with grand designs on satellite internet, has inked a memorandum of intent with the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct orbital experiments that could shake up the cosmic connectivity game.

    The partnership will see the duo test the world’s first regenerative 5G payload operating in the mmWave band from low Earth orbit, with a satellite launch pencilled in for June 2025. It’s a bold gambit to prove that Europe can play with the big boys—namely America’s SpaceX and China’s expanding constellation of internet satellites.
    Whilst Elon Musk’s Starlink and Chinese competitors dominate the space internet market, CTO is championing what it calls a “made in Europe” alternative. The company’s pitch is seductive: a shared, neutral infrastructure that lets telecom operators beam high-speed, low-latency internet from space without breaking the bank on massive capital investments.

    CTO CEO & founder Charles Delfieux isn’t mincing words about the venture’s ambitions. He stated:  “This alliance with ESA reflects a shared ambition: to build a competitive European sovereignty in space connectivity, powered by bold technology designed and developed in Europe. We’re proving that it’s possible to compete on a global scale without compromise—giving telecom operators back control over their future in space. Space is the new frontier for telecoms!”

    The technical wizardry involves using very low Earth orbit satellites to leverage telecom operators’ existing 5G mmWave spectrum, creating what the companies describe as a “hybrid connectivity ecosystem.” Rather than building entirely new networks, operators could complement their terrestrial infrastructure with space-based coverage—particularly handy for remote, rural, or crisis-hit areas where laying fibre is either impossible or prohibitively expensive.

    ESA  director of connectivity & secure communications Laurent Jaffart sees the collaboration as part of Europe’s broader push for “technological sovereignty.” He said: “This agreement aligns with ESA’s strategy to support the rise of innovative European players and jointly build resilient connectivity. The upcoming tests with CTO will pave the way for new hybrid use cases at the intersection of terrestrial and space networks.” 
    The upcoming tests, conducted jointly between CTO’s French-developed regenerative payload and ESA’s experimental facilities in Oxfordshire, represent what both parties hope will be a “major step forward” in the race for European space independence.

    As satellite internet becomes increasingly crucial for everything from military communications to rural broadband, Europe finds itself uncomfortably dependent on foreign providers. CTO’s proposition—a competitively priced, operator-friendly alternative—could offer a lifeline for European telecoms companies looking to expand their reach without surrendering control to American or Chinese constellations.

    Whether this ambitious European venture can actually deliver on its promises remains to be seen. But with ESA’s backing and a clear launch timeline, CTO is certainly putting its money where its mouth is. In the high-stakes game of space internet, Europe is finally ready to make its move.

  • Digital i report: Streamers ditch originality for the comfort of repeats

    Digital i report: Streamers ditch originality for the comfort of repeats

    MUMBAI: The golden age of eak TV is officially over, and streamers are reaching for the remote to change channels back to safety. According to Digital i’s latest report, Are You Still Watching?, the number of original series launched across Netflix, Disney+, Max and Prime Video has plummeted from 395 in 2022 to just 279 in 2024—a brutal 29 per cent drop that signals the end of the industry’s spend-happy commissioning spree. Producers have been talking about this in whispers in streamers office corridors, but now data has backed what was being speculated about  as a fact. 

    Franchise power

    The shift is as dramatic as it is telling. For the first time since streaming became king, licensed content has overtaken original programming in viewing share, with audiences voting with their eyeballs for the familiar over the fresh. The data shows this crossover happened in Q3 2023, marking a watershed moment for an industry built on the promise of endless new content.

    What’s driving this nostalgia kick?

    Viewers are apparently more interested in rewatching Grey’s Anatomy for the umpteenth time than diving into yet another dystopian thriller. The medical drama alone racked up more than two billion global viewing hours in 2024, whilst House M.D. continues to diagnose audience boredom with reliable regularity.

    This retreat to the familiar isn’t just about comfort viewing—it’s cold, hard economics. Original content costs a fortune and carries enormous risk, whilst proven library titles offer predictable returns. Streamers, facing mounting pressure from investors and increasingly choosy subscribers, are discovering that sometimes the best new content is actually very old content.
     

    Original IPs slowing down

    Netflix, however, remains the rebel in this conformist crowd. Of its top 25 most-viewed titles in 2024, 14 were based on original concepts—more than any other service. Whilst competitors are playing it safe, Netflix is still betting big on fresh ideas, suggesting the streaming giant believes originality remains its secret weapon for global domination.

    The industry’s new obsession with data is reshaping what gets made and what gets axed. Completion rates have emerged as the ultimate judge and jury, with Amazon’s video game adaptation Fallout boasting a stellar 67 per cent completion rate that helped secure its success. Netflix’s The Gentlemen earned renewal with a respectable 61 per cent, whilst the mythology-themed Kaos was cancelled after managing only 47 per cent—a harsh reminder that in streaming, finishing is everything.

    The data reveals another trend: shorter is sweeter. Season ones with three to six  episodes achieved average completion rates of 48 per cent, whilst bloated 11-15 episode seasons managed a measly 26 per cent. In an attention economy, brevity isn’t just the soul of wit—it’s the key to renewal.

    This recalibration reflects a maturing industry learning to balance creative ambition with commercial reality. The battle for viewer attention has evolved into a war for consistent, measurable engagement. Streamers are discovering that keeping audiences watching is harder than getting them to start, and that sometimes the most innovative strategy is knowing when not to innovate at all.

    As the dust settles on peak TV’s decline, one thing is clear: in the streaming wars, nostalgia isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s becoming the ultimate weapon.

  • Brave new ads win hearts while playing it safe fades into the feed

    Brave new ads win hearts while playing it safe fades into the feed

    MUMBAI: If your campaign doesn’t make you squirm a little, you’re probably doing it wrong. That was the bold takeaway from Paris-based creative powerhouse Marcel CCO & CEO Youri Guerassimov who took the Goa Fest 2025 stage with a keynote titled Creativity That Dares to Disrupt.

    In an age where consumers are bombarded with over 6,000 ads a day, Guerassimov made a case for courage over comfort. “Visibility is not enough,” he said. “To stand out, you have to stand for something.”

    And the numbers agree. According to Edelman, 86 per cent of consumers expect brands to take a stand on social or environmental issues. Two-thirds (66 per cent) are even willing to switch loyalties if a brand stays silent on values that matter. In short: if you’re not bold, you’re forgettable.

    Guerassimov pointed to iconic examples of brand bravery from Nike’s controversial Colin Kaepernick campaign to Volvo’s decision to open-source their safety innovations. Whether it’s risking backlash or sharing competitive advantage, these brands chose purpose over polish and won loyalty in the process.

    But bravery, he clarified, isn’t just activism. “It can be design-led, strategic, or operational.” Take McDonald’s minimal outdoor ad that simply showed its fries arches pointing to the nearest outlet. Or Marcel’s own work with Intermarché, turning ugly produce into a national movement with the “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign.

    Some acts of courage are barely visible like adding a few meaningful words to a supplier contract. But when done with conviction, even the smallest gestures echo the brand’s beliefs. “True bravery can show up in backrooms and boardrooms,” he said.

    He also highlighted Patagonia’s radical profit pledge, where the brand’s CEO donated all company profits to fight climate change, as the ultimate example of purpose-driven marketing that became part of global culture.

    According to Guerassimov, bravery is not about budget or bravado, it’s about belief. It’s a tool to cut through the noise, create culture, and connect with consumers on a level that spreadsheets can’t quantify.

    As he put it with disarming simplicity, “Fear is temporary. Regret is forever.”

    So the next time a campaign idea gives you a nervous twitch, take it as a sign you might be on the right track.

  • Prime Video sets the stage for mayhem with The Traitors, hosted by Karan Johar

    Prime Video sets the stage for mayhem with The Traitors, hosted by Karan Johar

    MUMBAI: India’s biggest game of lies and loyalties is about to begin. Prime Video is pulling out all the stops for its juiciest unscripted series yet—The Traitors—set to premiere on 12 June, with new episodes every Thursday at 8pm IST. And guess who’s stirring the pot? None other than the master of sass and sparkle, Karan Johar.
    Adapted from the Bafta and Emmy award-winning format by IDTV and distributed by All3Media International, The Traitors promises a heady cocktail of trust, betrayal and big personalities. Produced by BBC Studios India Productions, this desi spin brings together 20 celebrities to outwit, outplay and outlast—not in the jungle, but in a castle of secrets, strategies and shocking twists.

    Karan, armed with his signature blend of wit and wardrobe, isn’t just hosting—he’s turning up the heat. A teaser featuring the filmmaker dropped this week, along with outdoor promos that have left fans guessing which famous faces are about to play double agent.

    “Prime Video has consistently been home to some of the biggest and most beloved scripted shows in the country. Now, we’re making a bold leap as we scale our Unscripted content slate with our biggest reality series yet—The Traitors,” said Prime Video head of originals Nikhil Madhok. “Packed with drama, manipulation, suspenseful gameplay, and unexpected twists, the show is mounted on a grand scale with high production values. We’re thrilled to have Karan Johar as the host—who better to stoke the fire in this volatile mix of 20 celebrities, each vying for a massive cash prize and the title of ultimate winner! The Traitors promises immersive entertainment and next-level mind games that are sure to captivate our wide gamut of audiences.”

    All3Media International  EVP APAC Sabrina Duguet  said, “India is one of the most dynamic and exciting markets in the world, with an audience base that’s highly receptive to reality shows. The Indian adaptation of The Traitors offers this audience high calibre celebrities and intense drama, all wrapped up in a thriller-esque gameplay. The Traitors is one of the fastest-growing and most popular reality formats worldwide, ever – and we’re thrilled to bring an Indian adaptation of the franchise to the country with Prime Video India and BBC Studios India Productions; both partners reputation for delivering high-quality content precedes them.”

    “The Traitors has captivated audiences worldwide across ages and languages with its bold, dramatic, and psychological gameplay and we’re thrilled to join hands with Prime Video—renowned for its exceptional content—and All3Media International to bring an Indian adaptation that’s immersive, grand, and teeming with drama. With an all-celebrity cast and jaw-dropping twists, The Traitors is an unmissable treat for fans of high-stakes reality entertainment,” said BBC Studios India Productions executive producer Neha Khurana,

    With over 35 versions of The Traitors playing worldwide, the Indian edition is set to bring its own masala to the global phenomenon. 

    One thing’s clear—this is no ordinary game show. It’s a battlefield of charm, cunning, and betrayal

    . Let the mind games begin.