ITV

Category: iWorld

  • Enjoy Alt Balaji entertainment as you ride in Ola

    MUMBAI: Alt Balaji and Ola’s connected car platform for ridesharing Ola Play have joined hands to provide entertainment on the go.

    Through this collaboration, a preview of Alt Balaji’s original and exclusive shows will be available to Ola Play customers across the country. The users will be able to access a vast collection of original shows produced and curated by Alt Balaji through an immersive and personalized experience which customers can seamlessly control through their smartphones as well as a device mounted at the back of the seat.

    Present in cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, Ola Play presents Alt Balaji with the opportunity to engage with hundreds and thousands of Ola customers. Alt Balaji aims to create 250+ hrs of original content this year for its viewers all over the world.

    Alt Balaji CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya said, “Oia is the only ridesharing app in India that links mobility to an unparalleled in-cab experience, providing a great platform for content creators like us with a unique opportunity to reach out to a wide customer base. With an average ride time of 45 minutes or more, travellers are usually deprived of options. But through Ola’s unique connected experience for travellers, Ola Play users can now access an assortment of Alt Balaji’s shows from multiple genres, and beat traffic woes. All new shows will be available on Play, and for more content, users can download the Alt Balaji app through Ola’s free in-cab Wi-Fi connectivity. We look forward to our continued association with Ola Play to create the best possible experience for Ola customers.”

    Ola Play Head and senior director Ankit Jain said, “Content partnerships such as Alt Balaji play a huge role in enhancing the unique customer experience that 0/a Play as a pioneering innovation has to offer. The strategic tie-up aims to provide fresh and exclusive content to our customers who can control the entire experience and engage with the content. With partnerships such as these, Ola is well on its way to transform the consumer’s ride experience, building an experience that is intelligent, contextual, and unique.”

    Alt Balaji was launched on 16 April 2017 with five original shows and the app will unveil shows every fortnight for its viewers to binge watch. The platform recently launched The Test Case’ directed by Nagesh Kukunoor starring Nimrat Kaur as the first female officer in a combat role. The content has been created by some of the best talent in the Indian entertainment industry, including critically acclaimed directors and actors.

    The illustrious list of artistes also comprises Juhi Chawla,Rajkumar Rao, Hansal Mehta,Sakshi Tanwar,Ram Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Sameer Soni, Yudhishtar Urs, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, and many more. Alt Balaji now has the widest payment options amongst SVOD on services in India.

  • Amazon renews ‘American Gods’ originals, starring Whittle & McShane

    MUMBAI: Amazon has announced that the highly-acclaimed Amazon Original Series American Gods, which premiered on 1 May, has been renewed for a second season. At present, American Gods is among the top 10 shows in India on Amazon’s international Prime Video service.

    Amazon claims American Gods, produced by FremantleMedia North America, garnered an overall rating of 8.6 on IMDb and a top critics score of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Prime Video vice president – international Tim Leslie said, “We’re bringing a second season of Neil Gaiman’s riveting story.”

    As is known Amazon Prime Video is offering 30-day free trial for watching these and other Hollywood and Bollywood movies, US TV shows, kids’ programming and Amazon Originals.

    In Season one, viewers encountered a war brewing between Old Gods and New. The traditional Old Gods, with mythological roots from around the world, fear irrelevance as their believers die off or are seduced by the money, technology, and celebrity offered by the New Gods. Adapted from the award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman, American Gods stars Ricky Whittle (The 100, Austenland) as protagonist ex-con Shadow Moon, Ian McShane (Deadwood, Pirates of the Caribbean) as Mr. Wednesday, who enlists Shadow Moon as part of his cross-country mission, and Emily Browning (Sucker Punch, Legend) as Shadow’s wife, Laura Moon. American Gods Season one also features Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) as Media, the mouthpiece for the New Gods, Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies, Wicked) as Easter, Pablo Schreiber (13 Hours, Orange Is the New Black) as Mad Sweeney, and Yetide Badaki (Aquarius, Masters of Sex) as Bilquis.

    Written by Neil Gaiman in 2001, American Gods has been translated into over 30 languages and earned numerous accolades including Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel.

    Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Heroes”) and Michael Green (“Blade Runner 2049,” “Alien: Covenant,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Kings,” “Heroes”) are writers and showrunners. David Slade (“Hannibal,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”) directed the pilot and additional episodes. FMNA’s Craig Cegielski and Stefanie Berk are executive producers along with Fuller, Green, Slade, Adam Kane and Neil Gaiman. Senior Vice Presidents of Original Programming Marta Fernandez and Ken Segna are the Starz executives in charge of “American Gods.”

  • Jio Fiber & Airtel gear up for broadband plans

    MUMBAI: Reliance Jio is reportedly offering a minimum of 100Mbps for the home broadband consumers, and the plans are expected to be affordable even as Airtel introduced 250 GB free broadband data plan.

    The commercial roll out of Jio’s Fiber to the Home (FTTH) broadband service may happen in June 2017, according to a previous report in Teleanalysis.

    Reliance Jio’s Fiber Preview offer has been rolled out in some areas of Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jamnagar, and Vadodara. The service is set for launch in other cities in a phased format.

    In September 2016, some users had discussed how the testing had begun in select residential colonies in the city of Chennai.

    Meanwhile, Airtel has introduced 250 GB free broadband data plan for postpaid customers ahead of the Jio fibre launch.

    Airtel has come up with a promotional offer that gives 5 GB of additional data every month. The company has announced its myHOME offer which is valid for each postpaid connection and digital TV service from 1 July. As per details on the site, the customer will not incur any charges for the extra data given under this offer.

    A user can bundle up to 25 postpaid connections and 25 DTH connections with the broadband service which accounts to 250 GB of additional broadband data per month.

  • Indian standards for 5G rollout to be ready by ’18, says govt agency exec

    MUMBAI: India is getting future ready and has started serious work on identifying and formalizing the standards for the rollout of 5G. The standards are likely to be ready by 2018. This was stated by the D P De, Sr DDG, Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) at the 5G India 2017 Conference here. TEC is the nodal agency of the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India responsible for drawing up of standards, generic requirements, interface requirements, service requirements and specifications for telecom products, services and networks.

    The first 5G India 2017 Conference was organized in national capital by Bharat Exhibitions with support from COAI, 3GPP, TSDSI and saw massive participation from various telecommunication industry verticals including networks, service providers, manufacturers etc. The introductory address and inaugural discussion regarding the future of 5G was initiated by Mr. Adrian Scrase, Chief Technical Officer, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute and Head of 3GPP MCC (Mobile Competence Core).

    “5G will be an overarching umbrella of networks rather than a replacement technology and will usher in significant economic, political and environmental benefits,” pointed out Adrian Scrase during his introductory address.

    According to industry representatives and sectoral experts gathered at the venue, the key drivers for 5G rollout and adoption is going to be massive anticipated increase in data consumption, fast increasing digitalized life and services, growth of smart cities and the need to have an all encompassing network architecture which can utilized all available spectrum band rather than replace the existing networks.

    “Connected devices, digitized lifestyle where almost every aspect of human life will be consumed digitally calls for a new paradigm shift in telecommunication eco-system,” said Shyam P Mardikar, CTO (Mobile Networks), Bharti Airtel Limited.

    “We have moved from the Voice phase to Video consumption and next phase will be Virtuality which will demand humungous data availability and networks have to evolve to keep pace. This will be a real challenge,” added Mardikar. He also pointed out that networks will have to become flat, ubiquitous and nearer to consumers in the coming days to cater to fast changing digitized life style.

    “5G will address the requirements of coming decade,” said Radhey Shyam Sarda, Director, Wireless Solution Sales, Huawei. He also pointed out that 5G architecture is targeting different spectrum bands where each will play different roles and within the emerging scheme of things, C-band and Group 30/40 is emerging as the globally harmonized bands. “Enhanced user experience, dynamic spectrum sharing, pairing of bands will be the mainstay of 5G architecture” added Sarda.

    Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said, “That consumers side demand, resource deployment and commercial viability will be the main drivers for the operators for 5G rollout.” “It may be easy to rollout 5G in a country like Japan or South Korea but India is a fundamentally different market with diverse needs. There would be huge financial and structural challenges. We have to make India specific case for 5G.” advised Mathews.

    VMware network function virtualisation common platform architecture has proven to be the deployment model for mobile core solutions says VMWare. It will become the foundation for 5G Networks.

    Besides the above mentioned industry leaders, the inaugural session was presented by Jalaj Choudhri, EVP (Networks), Reliance Communications Ltd; Chandan Kumar, Director – Marketing & Public Affairs, Huawei; Dharma Rajan, Lead NFV Solutions Architect, VMWare, USA.

    Experts across board did agree that sooner or later the telecommunication services will migrate to 5G architecture and time has come to start serious preparation for standardization and network up-gradation.

    Inaugural session was followed by two technical sessions which deliberated on a host of issues related to 5G ecosystem including network up-gradation, product support and development, policy & regulation, IoT, security challenges and other issues.

    Making 5G India 2017 a truly global platform to conduct business, global players such as Huawei, VMWare, Keysight Technologies, Juniper, RedHat, Rohde & Schwarz, RV Solutions and TrustinSoft showcased and presented their innovative and cutting edge technologies to 500 plus industry audience at the event.

  • dittoTV bags Social Samosa media award

    MUMBAI: dittoTV, India’s leading live TV platform, has bagged the Bronze Award in the first edition of Best Social Media Brands Awards, organized by popular social media news portal Social Samosa, in the Media and Entertainment category. The awards saw over 130 entries pouring in across 25 categories. dittoTV, India’s leading LIVE TV platform has observed phenomenal growth since its launch in June 2016, and has now emerged a winner in the social media space.

    Commenting on the addition of this feather in dittoTV’s cap, Archana Anand – Head of Digital – India Z5 Business says, “In a digital world where brands need to be engaging and regularly connect with their audience, this win for dittoTV comes as an achievement that will make us compete with full gusto and vie for the top-spot in the coming year.”

    dittoTV has witnessed a spike in the number of followers and engagement across its social media platforms, such as, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the dittoTV blog due to its interactive and engaging social media presence. Viewers stay hooked to the OTT platform owing to the vast bouquet of content that it offers, across multiple genres, and at an extremely affordable price.

    Pitted amongst other stalwarts in the social media space, dittoTV is the only OTT player to have won an award for masterfully engaging an audience over an extended period, especially during its #BeesKaTV campaign in July, last year. Launched in June 2016, at a disruptive price of INR 20, dittoTV succeeded in democratizing television for viewers across India. The campaign generated tremendous buzz on all social platforms & helped in establishing the brand as the go-to LIVE TV platform for the Indian youth.

  • Netflix expands in Europe, brings in two originals, hires 400

    MUMBAI: Netflix, the world’s leading global internet TV service, has announced the creation of 400 jobs at its new European customer service hub which opened this week in Amsterdam. Supporting customers across 11 European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK), the multilingual hub will employ initially a workforce of 170, growing to 345 by the end of 2017 and surpassing 400 by the end of 2018.*

    Amsterdam is the location also of Netflix’s recently expanded European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) headquarters, which has doubled its workforce since the beginning of 2016.** More than 120 employees from 18 countries work at the EMEA HQ in business development, marketing, PR, public policy and corporate functions such as finance, legal and recruiting.

    The ongoing expansion of Netflix’s workforce in Europe complements the company’s ever-growing investment in European productions (licensed, original and co-productions). Marking the global launch last month of Las Chicas del Cable, Netflix’s first original series from Spain, the company confirmed plans to announce at least six new European original projects before the end of 2017. The first of these, Dogs of Berlin, was announced on 28 April and will be written, produced and shot in Germany before launching in 2018. The second, a new French original called Osmosis, was announced today and is expected to begin production in France in 2018. Netflix has committed more than $1.75 billion to European productions since entering Europe in 2012, including to date more than 90 original productions in various stages of development.

    “We are delighted to announce the creation of jobs in Europe and the opening of our new customer service hub in Amsterdam, as well as two new European original series. Europe is a creative centre for great storytelling that resonates around the world and we continue to invest in European content,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder and CEO.

    “The decision by Netflix to add a customer support centre along with its EMEA headquarters in Amsterdam illustrates that our business climate is exactly what leading companies are seeking when investing in their future,” said Jeroen Nijland, Commissioner for Foreign Investment, Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA). “The Netherlands’ fast internet speeds, e-commerce strengths and multilingual talent pool make our country a great match for the Netflix expansion to support its rapidly growing European market.”

    *Netflix’s new European customer service hub in Amsterdam is the latest addition to the company’s growing portfolio of internal service centers, the others being located in the USA (Salt Lake City and Utah) and Yokohama, Japan.

    Netflix’s European original series are available to Netflix’s more than 100 million members around the world and include:

    Marseille, Netflix’s first original series from France, now in production for a second season;
    the Golden Globe-winning The Crown set in the UK, now in production for a second season;
    Las Chicas del Cable, Netflix’s first original series from Spain, launched 28 April and already in production for a second season;
    Dark, Netflix’s first original series from Germany, due to launch late 2017;
    Suburra, Netflix’s first original series from Italy, due to launch late 2017;
    Dogs of Berlin, Netflix’s second original series from Germany, due to launch in 2018; and
    Osmosis, Netflix’s second original series from France, due to begin production in 2018.

  • Arre’s ‘Virtual Girlfriend’ wins five awards at LA Web Festival

    MUMBAI: Arré’s first web series A.I.SHA | My Virtual Girlfriend wins five awards at the recently held LA Web Festival for Best Series, Best Editing, Best Direction, Best Actress and Best Overall Premise within the Drama Category, from among a selected shortlist of 35 webseries across the world. The series was also nominated for Best Sound Design, Visual Effects, Outstanding Score, Cinematography, Supporting Actor, Best Actor and Writing.

    The LA Web Festival is one of the oldest, largest and most influential web series festivals globally and has screened nearly 1400 web series since 2010. It has been referred to as the ‘Sundance of Web Series Festivals’ by Los Angeles Magazine.

    This is the third set of international awards for A.I.SHA after winning Best Overall Web Series and Best Suspense/Thriller at the South Florida Web Festival held in Miami and for Exceptional Merit at the WRPN.TV Global Webisode competition.

    Arré’s Official Chukyagiri was also named an Official Honoree in the Film and Video Long Form or Series Category at the 21st Annual Webby Awards 2017.

    A.I.SHA, Artificial Intelligence Simulated Humanoid Assistant (A.I.SHA) is India’s first AI-based digital series. The story pivots around the widely debated and chilling premise of what happens when artificial intelligence develops feelings and consciousness? Sam, the show’s protagonist, creates A.I.SHA, without realising the consequences, and thus begins a series of events that rapidly spirals out of control. Catch the full series here.

    Season 2 of A.I.SHA is currently live on Arré (at www.arre.co.in, Arré’s YouTube Channel, Facebook Page) and on Arré’s partner platforms – Yupp TV, SonyLIV, Vodafone Play and Jio Cinema.

    The series is directed by Sahir Raza, written by Raghu Ram and Harman Singha and produced for Arré by Monozygotic. The show has partnered with Gillette Flexball, Palo Alto Networks, a next-generation security company, Nissin Cup Noodlesand Dell.

    Arré brings to India’s new-gen digital audiences a range of contextual storytelling and entertainment using video, audio, graphic-art and text.

  • YuppTV launches ‘Mini Theatre’ to premiere movies for expats

    MUMBAI: YuppTV, an OTT leader in the South-Asian content, announced the launch of its new platform, Mini Theatre. YuppTV makes new movies available on the Mini Theatre platform on the first day or the following weekend of theatrical release, even in geographies where the movie is not available outside of India. The movies shall be made available on YuppTV platform only on Samsung, Apple, Roku, LG, Sony TV Devices/interfaces.

    Commenting on the latest development, Uday Reddy, Founder and CEO of YuppTV said, “At YuppTV, we have a great opportunity of bringing best quality South-Asian content to our users across the Globe. Launching Mini Theatre is another step in the same direction. The release of various Indian movies is often limited only to very few selected geographies across the world and sometimes limited only to the Indian subcontinent. Hence, users end up missing out on these high-quality and entertaining movies missing a worldwide release. Following the launch of Mini Theatre, our users outside of India will have the opportunity to access new Indian movie releases, just like they used to, back at home in India. Furthermore, filmmakers may now showcase their movies to a global audience, notwithstanding exorbitant investment for an overseas release. Since the launch is slated to benefit every stakeholder in the ecosystem, we look forward to receiving a huge response from both, expat audiences and filmmakers.”

    YuppTV is further exercising complete piracy control of the movies showcased in the Mini Theatre. Users need to accept the piracy agreement conditions before they start watching the movie. The movie shall be made available on a pay-per-view basis with a 6-hour viewing window. Furthermore, the movies are secured with DRM, Invisible user based/Forensic watermarking and encryption and users are authenticated by mobile and location verification. Under the Invisible or Forensic Watermarking, each user who will get the stream to watch the movie will have unique identification in the invisible mode. It is an imperceptible & non-removable unique identifier that is embedded in the video, enabling YuppTV to trace any content breach. The pirate, if in case found guilty of breaching the privacy guidelines, will be charged with a heavy penalty.

  • Airtel mobile & DTH subs up, Jio-hit data customers & rev drop

    BENGALURU: Saying that Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel), once touted as the largest cellular operator in the country both in terms of revenue as well as subscriber numbers, has had a tough battle with Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm would be making an understatement. Ambani’s largest startup in the world ever has given a run for the money to all its telecom and internet services provider peers in the country.

    As on 31 March 2017 (Q4-17, FY-17 – quarter and year ended 31 March 2017), the company had 273.6 million (27.36 crore) GSM customers in India as compared to 251.2 million (25.12 crore) in previous year, an increase of 8.9 percent. DTH subscribers for Airtel’s Digital TV Services segment (Airtel DTH) increased 9.3 percent to 12.815 million (1.2815 crore) at the end of the FY-17 from 11.725 million (1.1725 crore) at the end of FY-16. The company had 57.4 million (5.74 crore) data customers (21.0 percent of total customers) as on March 31, 2017, representing a decline of 1.5 percent as compared to 58.2 million (5.82 crore) (23.2 percent of total customers) at the end of the previous year.

    The total MBs on the network for the full year FY-17 increased by 47.3 percent to 733.1 billion (733,100 crore) MBs as compared to 497.7 billion (497,700 crore) MBs in the previous year. Mobile Data usage per customer for the full year FY-17 witnessed an increase of 31.0 percent to 1,049 MBs per month as compared to 801 MBs in the previous year. Data ARPU decreased by 4.5 percent to Rs 185 during Fy-17 from Rs 194 in the previous year.

    Revenue from operations (operating revenue) declined 12.1 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 2,193.46 crore in Q4-17 from Rs 2,495.96 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter. FY-17 operating revenue declined 1.1 percent to Rs 95,468.3 crore from Rs 96532.1 crore in the previous year. PAT for Q4-17 declined 69.2 percent to Rs 470.6 percent (2.1 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 1,462 crore (5.7 percent of operating revenue) in Q4-16. PAT for FY-17 declined 38.5 percent to Rs 4,241.4 crore (4.4 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 6,893 crore (7.1 percent of operating revenue).

    In its earnings statement, Airtel’s MD and CEO, India & South Asia Gopal Vittal said, “The sustained predatory pricing by the new operator has led to a decline in revenue growth for the second quarter in a row. The telecom industry as a whole also witnessed a revenue decline for the first time ever on a full year basis. The deteriorating health of the industry was compounded by the tsunami of incoming voice traffic from the new operator as a result of which significant investments had to be made just to carry the incoming traffic on our network. The net result of this was a revenue decline of 7.1 percent in Q4 even as EBITDA margins eroded by 2.9 percent. FY-17 saw a muted top line growth of 3.6 percent vs the double digit growth witnessed in preceding years.

    Our long term commitment to provide the best experience to our customers continues to drive all our actions in every single aspect of the business. This belief coupled with brilliant execution of our people has led to acceleration in market share in an industry that is now rapidly consolidating,” he added.

    Airtel’s DTH segment reported 10.4 percent y-o-y growth in operating revenue to Rs 865.7 crore in Q4-17 from Rs 784 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in Q4-17 increased 35.4 percent to Rs 97.5 crore from Rs 72 crore in Q4-16. The DTH segment’s revenue for fiscal 2017 increased 17.6 percent to Rs 3,430.6 crore as compared to Rs 2,917.8 crore in FY-16. Average revenue per customer (ARPU) in FY-17 increased to Rs 231 from Rs 226 in the previous year.

    The company’s capex in its DTH segment in FY-17 declined to less than half (declined by 52.9 percent) to Rs 138.6 crore as compared to Rs 294.3 crore in FY-16. Cumulative investments in the DTH segment at the end of FY-17 reached Rs 7,351.3 crore.

    Note: The unit of currency in this report is the Indian rupee – Rs (also conventionally represented by INR). The Indian numbering system or the Vedic numbering system has been used to denote money values. The basic conversion to the international norm would be:

    (a) 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 10 million = 1 crore.

    (b) 10,000 lakh = 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion…

  • ALTBalaji partners PayPal to reach 203m accounts across 200 markets

    MUMBAI: ALTBalaji, the digital platform of Balaji Telefilms Limited, has entered into a partnership for international online payments with PayPal, the world’s open digital payments company. ALTBalaji’s international users across 200 markets will now be able to subscribe to the streaming service conveniently using PayPal’s comprehensive payment platform.

    ALT Digital Media Entertainment Limited CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya said, “With a vision to redefine entertainment for Indians globally, our association with PayPal will help us streamline the process of subscribing to the ALTBalaji service using one of the most popular payment service globally.”

    PayPal head – channel partners Ashish Tandon said, “Technology has democratised access to products and services. Global consumers have been traditionally using PayPal to make payments that help them access Indian entertainment content. As per the recently launched PayPal Cross Border Consumer Research 2016, online spends for entertainment as a category is projected to witness the highest growth among all other purchase categories in India. We have already observed this trend globally and look forward to leveraging our global network for ALTBalaji.”

    Through this partnership, ALTBalaji will be able to reach out to PayPal’s 203 million active global accounts across 200 markets thereby providing a magnitude of convenience to its international users. Through a combination of strategic partnerships and technological innovations, PayPal creates better ways to manage and move money and offers choice and flexibility when sending payments, paying or getting paid.

    ALTBalaji was launched on 16th April 2017 with 5 original shows and will add new shows every fortnight 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.