ITV

Category: News Headline

  • Al Jazeera International announces African line-up

    Al Jazeera International announces African line-up

    MUMBAI: Al Jazeera International, the long-delayed Qatar based international English news channel, today announced its full line up of bureaux and correspondents across Africa. It will have bureaux in Cairo – Egypt, Abidjan – Ivory Coast, Nairobi – Kenya, Johannesburg – South Africa and Harare – Zimbabwe.

    Al Jazeera International, which is now targeting a year-end launch, will be sharing the resources of the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel’s African bureaux located in Ndjamena – Chad, Tripoli – Libya, Nouakchott – Mauritania, Rabat – Morocco, Dakar – Senegal, Mogadishu – Somalia, Johannesburg – South Africa and Khartoum – Sudan.

    “Our reporting from Africa will be unparalleled. We will have more bureaux and resources dedicated to Africa than any other global broadcaster,” said Al Jazeera International managing director Nigel Parsons.

    Speaking from Doha, director of news Steve Clark said, “Africa is one of the most pivotal places in the world to report from. It is a continent of hope and change.”
    “We are planning other bureaux across the continent of Africa and will be announcing them in due course,” Clark continued.

    “The teams we have in place show a level of dedication and understanding that I am sure will give us a distinctive edge,” said Africa bureau chief Andrew Simmons.

  • Priyadarshini Academy honours 13 eminent personalities

    Priyadarshini Academy honours 13 eminent personalities

    MUMBAI: Priyadarshini Academy honoured outstanding national as well as international achievers in the 22nd Anniversary Global Awards function held in Mumbai today.

    There were 13 categories for which the awards were given, which included a trophy and a scroll. Each awardee in some way or the other has contributed to society through their respective fields. The awards were given by Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath.

    “These awards are a recognition for those who have given their se rvices to the nation despite being in different profession,” said Nath.

    Former Chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd, NR Naryan Murthy received the award for his contribution to the IT Sector, former Chairman and MD of ONGC Subir Rana for the oil sector and Cricketor Arjuna Ranatunga for his contribution to Sports.

    The other awardees included Dr HS Dhillon who received the Overseas Indian Award, Olara A Otunnu received the award for Contribution to Human Rights, Yamha Toru Hasegawa for Corporate social Responsibility, Raj Loomba for contibution to Education of Children and Welfare of widows, Dr B K Goyal for his contribution to Medicine, Noel Hon for his contribution to humanitarian services, Jignesh shah was awarded for Innovative Enterepreneurship, Unna Huh, for contribution to It Education and Professor Arindam Chaudhari was awarded for his contribution in the field of management.

    On receiving the award, NarayanMurthy modestly said, “I feel I have received more from the society than I have given them. But this award reinforces my faith in the community and will definately help me to serve them better.”

    Priyadarshini Academy is an NGO engaged in socio-cultural and educational activities and has been holding the biennial award function since its inception in 1984.

    “When Indians were bestowed with International awards, it use to make news. So I thought that why not we create such an award in India which would honour who’s who from across the world. And over the years this award function is considered equivalent to Nobel Prize in the asia Pacific region,” said Chairman of Priyadarshini Academy Nanik Rupani.

    This year, the prestigious Smita Patil Memorial Award award was given to actress Kareena Kapoor, for her contribution to Indian cinema.

    In the past, distinguished celebrities like Yash chopra, Karishma Kapoor, Urmila Matondkar, Aishwarya Rai, Madhuri Dixit have been bestowed with this prestigious award.

  • IAMAI-IMRB study pegs urban internet users at 37 million for September

    IAMAI-IMRB study pegs urban internet users at 37 million for September

    BANGALORE: According to the joint research by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, Internet users in India have reached 37 million in the month of September 2006, up from 33 million in March 2006. During the same period the number of “active users” has risen from 21.1 Million in March 2006 to 25 Million in September 2006. “Active User” is an internationally accepted and widely used category to define users who have used the internet at least one in the last 30 days.

    The numbers are a result of the largest “offline” survey so far carried out in India to estimate the “ever user” and “active user” categories.? The primary survey for the study was conducted in early 2006 amongst 16,500 households covering 65,000 individuals across 26 major metros and small towns in India, with additional coverage of 10,000 business and 250 cyber caf? owners. The survey did not include rural areas.

    According to the findings, youth are the main drivers of internet usage in India . College students and those below the age of 35 are the biggest segment on the Internet. Both these segments have the highest proportion of conversion of “Ever” Users to “Active” users of Internet.

    Besides the youth the internet hungry small towns are further fuelling the growth. As per the survey, smaller metros and towns are increasingly embracing the Internet evolution and are pushing growth from below. Smaller cities and towns have shown a whopping 142% YoY growth and now account for 25% of all internet users.

    Commenting on the survey Dr. Subho Ray, President, IAMAI says, “Although there is a marginal revision of the earlier IAMAI number for the year, given the rapid growth of internet business and government’s massive e-Governance programme, it was time to look into the numbers more stringently. This will help better business decisions on part of the industry as well as better resource planning by the government.”

    Predicting on the future development, Mohan Krishnan, Vice President and Country Manager, eTechnology Group@IMRB, says, “The next round of growth will be driven by new and innovative applications such as blogs, P2P, video on demand and online gaming. While the old favourites such as email, Chat and IM will drive first time users to the medium”.
    The study estimates that the Internet User base is likely to cross the 40 million mark by March 2007, when the “Ever” User base is likely to hit 42 Million and the Active User base is likely to hit 28 Million. By March 2008, the Ever User base should cross the 50 Million mark. The active user base would reach a staggering figure of 43 million users by the same time.

  • Lycra MTV Style Awards slated to kick off 14 October

    Lycra MTV Style Awards slated to kick off 14 October

    MUMBAI: The Lycra MTV Style Awards will be held on 14 October at the MMRDA Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai along the theme ‘Celebrating Style’.

    In keeping with the theme, this year’s function will feature an explosion of colour with the year’s chosen designers – Neeta Lulla, Ritu Kumar, JJ Valaya, and Rohit Gandhi-Rahul Khanna presenting their lines and creating exclusive designs for the 4th Lycra MTV Style Awards, while each designer will team up with a music performer, to present a unique fusion of fashion, music and style, informs an official release.

    Additionally, designer Suneet Verma will create a special line for the opening sequence. This will be interspersed with awards being presented to the most stylish people in India across different walks of life.

    Divided into three broad categories – Popular, Technical and Honours, the Lycra MTV Style Awards 2006 will zero in on the most stylish people in fashion, films, sports, television, business, politics and music. The Popular Awards are aimed at recognising the most stylish people in the fields having the broadest popular reach, namely the realms of music, television and films. The Technical Awards, on the other hand will acknowledge the stylish people of the fashion fraternity, including models, designers and fashion photographers. The Honours category is aimed at recognizing and felicitating personalities in business, sports and politics.

    Leading up to the final night of the awards is a comprehensive process that has been instituted this year. An exclusive panel of 25 judges comprising style gurus and divas across like Arjun Rampal, Ashok Salian, Manish Malhotra, Malaika Arora Khan, Mehr Jessia, AD Singh, Prahlad Kakkar and Deepika Govind amongst others will finalise the nominees in the three categories – Popular, Technical and Honours.

    Shortlisted nominees in the Popular category will then be up on-air as well as www.mtvindia.com where viewers can log in, cast their votes and decide the winners. Alternatively, they could SMS ‘Style ____ (option) to 6882 to vote for their favourites. The winners in the Technical and Honors categories will be decided by the panelists, adds the release.

    This year the size of the panel has been broadened to 29 members, instead of eight. Further, taking MTV style concept outside Mumbai, this year Lycra MTV Style Awards extends itself to two more cities – Kolkata and Bangalore. In each of these cities, Lycra MTV Style Awards would recognize and felicitate the ‘Most Stylish Place’ – a place that has a distinct character of its own, a place that has withstood the vagaries of time and last but not least, a place that has been a breeding ground for style and stylish people.

    The Lycra MTV Style Awards 2006 will also be promoted through an extensive campaign running across print, outdoor, on-air, mobile and online via mtvindia.com. Media partners on the event include Red FM, MTV Marie Claire.

    Commenting on the event, MTV Networks India managing director Amit Jain said, “MTV has today become a preferred platform for marketers who want to meaningfully engage and interact with young Indians. With our finger on the pulse of the Indian youth coupled with our thorough understanding of the client brand and an in-house creative powerhouse, we are uniquely placed to offer comprehensive solutions to client needs. And our association with Lycra for the fourth successive year is a testimony of the successful activation of two popular brands.”

    Lycra India Managing Director Satish Khurana said, “We are looking forward to partnering with MTV in our fourth consecutive year of celebrating style, energy and movement, a perfect fit for the LYCRA brand.”

  • Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids & Family Group launch online community ParentsConnect.com

    Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids & Family Group launch online community ParentsConnect.com

    MUMBAI: Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group have launched ParentsConnect.com exclusively for parents and caregivers of kids of all ages. ParentsConnect is a new online community that will connect parents to each other and to the advice they seek in an easy-to-use format. The announcement was made by Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon and Head of MTVN Kids and Family Group.

    “The first generation of ‘Nick kids’ are now having families of their own. They know and trust us, and we want to serve them as parents just as we served them as kids,” said Zarghami. “ParentsConnect puts parents in touch with the real parenting experts-each other.”

    With many personalized features, ParentsConnect enables users to search for parent-to-parent advice and activities by their kids’ ages and stages, city/location and personal interests. Each parent can develop a customized home page that updates dynamically each visit with local activities, relevant news, discussion postings and more. Parents can also use discussion boards to connect with each other and share parenting advice, experiences or laughs, informs an official release.

    “This is another step in our company’s online strategy to super-serve passionate, targeted audiences … in this case, parents … with engaging and immersive new experiences,” said MTV Networks chairman and CEO Judy McGrath. “You connect to people and information that really speak to parenthood and family, with Nickelodeon’s personality and humour.”

    The ParentsConnect communities are led by Host Parents, a team of 20 trained moderators who are actual parents, chosen for their backgrounds, life experiences and writing abilities. Each Host Parent will provide member parents with assistance in using the site, maintain a personal blog, and recommend articles or links to useful information. In addition, ParentsConnect members may set up their own blogs and profile pages, as well as search member profiles and recommend articles or links to information they consider useful to other parents. The GoCityKids website, recently acquired by Nickelodeon, will be also be featured on ParentsConnect as the online guide to local family destinations, activities and events.

    “We designed ParentsConnect to be the most useful parenting site,” said NickJr.com and ParentsConnect general manager Kyra Reppen. “With distinct features such as localized content through GoCityKids, the ability for members to build their own customized home pages and choose only what’s relevant to them, and advice that comes from real parents with first-hand experience, rather than professionals, ParentsConnect is truly unique.”

    ParentsConnect’s public beta launches with an online advertising campaign and charter sponsorships from marketers such as Nissan North America. The ParentsConnect site will feature display advertising as well as contextual, integrated and direct marketing opportunities, developed and sponsored by various marketers. OMD handled the media buying and planning for the Nissan/ParentsConnect deal, states the release.

    Nissan vice president marketing Jan Thompson said, “Through our partnership with ParentsConnect, we’re excited to associate ourselves with content that has a high level of engagement for our consumers. We also hope to reach parents who are early adopters and will identify with Nissan’s forward-thinking technology and design of its products.”

    In fourth quarter 2006, ParentsConnect will launch ParentsConnect TV which will have broadband video with user submitted content. It will also roll out local discussion boards, user- created polls and clubs, newsletters based on specific community interests, from recipes to travel, as well as enhanced social networking features.

  • PVR to launch digital cinema in small towns, plans Rs 2 billion investment

    PVR to launch digital cinema in small towns, plans Rs 2 billion investment

    MUMBAI: PVR Cinemas, which runs a chain of multiplexes, is making a strategic foray into smaller towns through digital theatres under the “PVR Talkies” brand. The company plans to invest Rs 2 billion towards this.

    The first to come under this plan in the last week of September are theatres in Aurangabad and Latur which are digital ready. The computerised tickets will be priced in the range between Rs 40 and Rs 60.

    Aurangabad and Latur will have three screens each and a seating capacity of 1151 and 1148 respectively.

    The company plans to have 200 PVR Talkies across 13 states and over 70 cities in the first phase. Says PVR Cinemas chairman and managing director Ajay Bijli, “In 1997, we enhanced the way India went to the movies. Now, in the second stage of our mission, we are taking our enhancement to more and more places in the country. With PVR Talkies, the people’s cinema has arrived. It is my fervent hope that PVR Talkies will induce people to come back to the big screen and rediscover the true magic of the movies.”

    The digital theatres in the tier II and tier III cities will work on the principle of digitised content being distributed to theatres through satellite or fibre. They will be uploaded to a digital cinema server. Digital projectors will be used for screening, enabling the entire system to have wide releases of a movie across the country.

    “Pan-India openings will also guarantee larger release made available across different territories leading to nationwide screenings, which will in turn ensure better return on investments for producers, distributors among others. It would also be extremely helpful in curbing piracy,” the company said.

  • Trai launches ad campaign for CAS

    Trai launches ad campaign for CAS

    MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has set the ball rolling for CAS (conditional access system).

    Not resting just on fixing the maximum rate of individual channels at Rs 5 per subscriber, the regulator has come out with an ad campaign to inform that pay broadcasters would have to provide their pricing within the ceiling by 12 October.

    “The reporting to Trai of prices of pay channels within the ceiling by broadcasters should be by 12 October,” the statement said.

    Trai has set a similar deadline for multi-system operators (MSOs) to inform the regulator about the tariff packages on their set-top boxes (STBs). The conclusion of commercial agreements by service providers should be reported to Trai by 15 Octoiber, the campaign said.

    The regulator has marked 31 December as the date for implementation of Cas.

  • Hungama Mobile ties up with UAE business enterprise Koohiji Group

    Hungama Mobile ties up with UAE business enterprise Koohiji Group

    BANGALORE: Leading mobile entertainment company Hungama Mobile and the Dubai-based diversified business enterprise Koohiji Group have formed a business alliance to provide Middle East and North African (Mena) wireless consumers access to a wide range of legitimate entertainment content.

    Users will be able to download the latest Bollywood songs from legitimate music and entertainment sources for personal use on their handsets.

    As per the agreement, Hungama Mobile has appointed Digital City, a new strategic business unit established by the Koohiji Group, as their exclusive distributor for Bollywood and Indian digital entertainment content.

    Describing the alliance as a significant step in the new media era, Hungama Mobile COO Saleem Mobhani said, “The demand for Bollywood and related entertainment content has shot up dramatically over the last couple years, and Hungama Mobile being the world’s largest distributor of South Asian entertainment content, Mena consumers will have access to over all South Asian digital entertainment content, including content in 14 different languages”.

    “We are continually working to forge strategic relationships with key digital entertainment players. We develop and deploy content across the spectrum of Music, Images, Video, Games and Applications for our current relationship with 52 Operators and Partners in over 20 countries such as North America, UK and Europe, South Africa, Australia, Germany, South East Asia etc. and Digital Entities such as iTunes, Napster, Yahoo and others to extend Hungama Mobile’s presence in new media entertainment globally.” said Ali Hussein, head of Hungama Mobile for Mena.

    Speaking on the occasion SS Rajkumar, vice chairman and CEO of the Koohiji Group said, “So far, users in the UAE and in the region have been deprived of choices, up-to-date and easy access to Indian entertainment content for their mobile devices. As exclusive content distributors for Hungama Mobile, Digital City will bridge that gap and serve as a one stop shop for all content resellers and mobile operators offering digital mobile entertainment across the UAE and Mena region.”

    For Hungama Mobile, the tie up with Koohiji Group follows the recent tie up with the Apple Inc-promoted iTunes, where the music of the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Don was made available worldwide on the iTunes Music Store.

  • News broadcasters to form association

    News broadcasters to form association

    NEW DELHI: After the Indian Broadcast Federation (IBF – representing broadcasters) and the Indian Media Group (IMG – representing Indian media companies), Indian news broadcasters are forming their own “pressure group”.

    The proposed body is likely to be called the News Broadcasters Association of India. It will comprise only Indian-promoted news ventures. The likes of BBC and CNN have their own set of problems and issues and, hence, would not be part of this new proposed body that is likely to be registered soon.

    The agenda that the body has broadly laid out is to address specific news-related issues and take them up with the government. Everybody remains a member of the IBF, but as the IBF cannot take up specific issues, TV news networks have formed their own association.

    The first meeting of the grouping was held last week in Delhi in TV Today office. No office-bearers have been elected as yet though.

    Admitted a news broadcaster, “We felt our specific needs and issues need to be addressed without confusing them with general (broadcasting) matters. That’s what the intention is behind setting up the News Broadcasters Association of India.”

    An example of the kind of issues that news broadcasters might take up include the draft of the Broadcast Bill, recently prepared by a sub-panel of a 30-member committee overseen by I&B secretary SK Arora, which hints at stringent content regulation, particularly for news channels. If okayed by lawmakers in its present state, it could well be the end of sting operations and coverage of issues where high profile politicians and personalities are involved.

    Sample this part: “TV channels must not use material relating to a person’s personal or private affairs or which invades an individual’s privacy unless there is an identifiable public interest reason for the material to be broadcast.” Who decides what constitutes an individual’s privacy? The government or the regulator? What this means of course is that it’s all up for interpretation.

    It is this scope for interpretation that has news broadcasters seriously concerned. More so since the onus of proving identifiable public interest lies with the TV channel and not the other way round.

    The interests of the print media are addressed and protected by the Indian Newspaper Association. That is the role the News Broadcasters Association of India hopes to fulfil as far as the electronic media is concerned.

  • Star Plus changes 8 pm tactic; brings in sci-fi series ‘Antariksh’

    Star Plus changes 8 pm tactic; brings in sci-fi series ‘Antariksh’

    MUMBAI: Hindi general entertainment space will soon witness an interesting contest between soap operas and a sci-fi series, as Star Plus has announced the launch its first ever sci-fi series Antariksh.

    The show, scheduled to launch on 2 October, has been positioned in the crucial Monday – Thursday 8 pm slot.

    Produced by the duo of Ashim Samanta and Jyotin Goel from Wild Fire Entertainment, the concept of the show is designed to interest the younger viewers on the prime-time band. Antariksh, which is set in a modern jet-set atmosphere, will draw its inspiration from the Indian mythology of Ramayana, as the story’s basic premise is that of a war between good versus evil, as per an official release.

    States Star India EVP Deepak Segal, “Aimed at our younger viewers, Antariksh, is a revolutionary mix of utopian vision of justice and prosperity, which we are launching exclusively in the weekday prime-time band, for our younger viewers. It’s a story full of new-age imagination that will see the use of hi-fi gadgets, which is sure to create a cult amongst them.”

    “With our already established, unmatched leadership in this genre, we are hopeful this show of space-age heroism will prove to be a treat for all the sci-fans, and consequently help us in further consolidating the prime-time slot on the channel,” Segal adds.

    Antariksh will be an action tale, of fictitious and imaginative characters living in space. This animated drama will be packaged with intense creativity coupled with heavy-duty computer generated graphics and illustrations, by Jyoti Sagar from Sagar Arts Productions and Prasad Ajgaonkar from Interactive Realities Ltd, the release claims.