Category: Press Release

  • TLC presents Bizarre foods America with Andrew Zimmern

    TLC presents Bizarre foods America with Andrew Zimmern

    MUMBAI: TLC brings an exciting new series BIZARRE FOODS AMERICA WITH ANDREW ZIMMERN. The series will follow Zimmern travelling to various parts of America and his home state of Minnesota in search of oddest and strange cuisines.

     

    In each episode Zimmern will go on the quest to taste the wacky and oddest delicacy found in US. Whether, it is baked muskrat in Baltimore, deep fried piglet testicles on a hog farm in Iowa, or fermented fish eggs with Native Americans on an island in Alaska, Andrew is ready to tempt and test his palate on TLC.

     

    BIZARRE FOODS AMERICA WITH ANDREW ZIMMERNwill premiere on August 2, every Saturday and Sunday at 9PM and 10PM.

     

    Zimmern goes deep into the lane and cities to find a dish which will set apart from the rest. He goes on to try snakehead to cow’s feet, tongue to every part of the pig which has been turned it to mouthwatering delicacy.

     

    Bizarre Foods focuses on regional cuisine from around the world, this time mainly for America, which is typically perceived as being disgusting, exotic, and bizarre. In each episode, Zimmern focuses on the cuisine of a particular country or region. He typically shows how the food is procured, where it is served, and, usually without hesitation, eats it.

     

  • Absolut invites designs for ‘Absolut India edition’ bottle

    Absolut invites designs for ‘Absolut India edition’ bottle

    MUMBAI: ABSOLUT, the world’s most iconic vodka is giving a lifetime opportunity to India’s talented artists and creative minds to design forthe first ever ‘ABSOLUT India Limited Edition’ and be part of the rich creative heritage of ABSOLUT.  Launched primarily in Americas and Europe, and now India will celebrate its very own Limited Edition for ABSOLUT and join the league of rare limited editions. .

    This initiative will put India on the global vodka map with the other leading markets.

    The ABSOLUT Limited Editions have predominantly been designed by renowned artists, but with the India edition, ABSOLUT has decided to reach out to various artists and creative minds and to design the ‘ABSOLUT India Limited Edition’ and become a part of history. The brief is to create an India-themed, India-inspired design andadapt what their representation and love about India into a fresh, creative design. The campaign is in partnership with Talenthouse India, SEA’s leading creative crowdsourcing platform.

    The selected design will be incorporated on the ‘ABSOLUT India Limited Edition’ bottles giving credit to the designer.

    Announcing the initiative, Kartik Mohindra, Business Head – International Brands,Pernod Ricard India said,“ABSOLUT has built a strong association with art and creativity in a short span of time in India with it’s collaborations with leading artists such as Anish Kapoor, Subodh Gupta,Vikram Seth and Bharti Kher.

    For designing of ABSOLUT India Limited Edition, we are confident that with the pool of young talent in our country, we will receive overwhelming response for this campaign.”

    Commenting on the launch of the contest, Arun Mehra, CEO, Talenthouse India said, “The market is once again warming up with exciting campaigns and we have developed expertise in product packaging. We admire ABSOLUT’s creative bottles representing cities across the globe and are very proud to associate with the brand on its India initiative. At Talenthouse India, we always encourage creativity and talent through various innovative ways. Today’s youth are bustling with creativity and we are sure that through ABSOLUT’s initiative many aspiring Indian artists will get an opportunity to showcase their sparkling talent”.

    The last date to submit the designs is August 06, 2014 and the winners will be announced on August 20, 2014. To know more about the contest and participate, log onto https://www.talenthouse.com/i/AbsolutIndia.

     

  • BBC Worldwide delivers strong performance despite currency challenges

    BBC Worldwide delivers strong performance despite currency challenges

    MUMBAI: BBC  Worldwide  has  published  its  2013/14  Annual  Review,  revealing  a  year  of  solid  underlying  growth, and increased returns to the BBC.

     

    Headline  profit  increased  0.7%  to  ?157.4m  (2012/13:  ?156.3m),  and  was  up  11.6%  at  constant currency*.  Headline  profit  margin  increased  from  14%  to  15.1%,  a  record  for  the  company.  This  was achieved on headline sales of ?1,042.3m (2012/13: 1,115.8m), down 6.6%, or 5.2% at constant currency, principally  reflecting portfolio changes:  the  sale of Lonely Planet and a new  revenue  share agreement for  BBC.com.  Adjusting  for  these,  trading  revenue  was  broadly  flat,  with  growth  from  non-English language  markets,  sales  to  digital  platforms  and  advertising  helping  to  offset  pressure  on  US  and  UK affiliate fees and declining DVD markets.

     

    These  results  were  delivered  despite  the  strengthening  of  sterling  in  the  year. Movements  in  foreign exchange rates had a ?17.1m negative impact on the headline profit. 

     

    BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie said:  “BBC Worldwide performed well, reflecting the quality of our content and enabling reinvestment into the UK television industry. Headline profit at constant currency, shareholder returns and returns to the indie sector all grew by double digits. This was achieved at the same time as a major re-shaping of the company along regional lines.

     

    “We will continue to execute on our strategy – more premium content, dynamic global brands and digital innovation – in the course of the new financial year. While our results for 2014/15 will reflect the choices and investments we are making to do this – including BBC Store and the introduction of new brands – we nonetheless expect to deliver further returns to our shareholder over the course of the year.”

     

    Please click here to read the full report

  • BigB to share fun facts and interesting trivia – #BachchanBol on Twitter every Wednesday

    BigB to share fun facts and interesting trivia – #BachchanBol on Twitter every Wednesday

    MUMBAI: Amitabh Bachchan is the most followed person on Twitter in India. He is known for his expressive Tweets on the platform and has been constantly engaging with his colleagues, family and fans on Twitter. Today, Amitabh Bachchan shared a Tweet about how he will be kicking off  #BachchanBol tomorrow for his Twitter Extended Family (TwFmXT). The actor will be sharing fun facts and interesting trivia every Wednesday on Twitter. This is an innovative way to connect with a wider audience and engage with them in a way; no one can do it better than Mr. Bachchan!

    https://twitter.com/SrBachchan/status/491467304438206464

    Stay tuned by following @SrBachchan on Twitter and join him in conversation for #BachchanBol every Wednesday.

  • DDB Mudra Group launches Bernbach Fridays

    DDB Mudra Group launches Bernbach Fridays

    MUMBAI: DDB Mudra Group has announced the launch of Bernbach Fridays, a tribute to a man who is the Father of Modern Advertising, a brilliant advertising mind of the 20th Century and DDB’s founder the great Bill Bernbach. The sessions take place on the last Friday of every month at the DDB Mudra Group office, and so far a total of four successful sessions have already taken place.

     

    The maiden session of Bernbach Fridays saw DDB Mudra Group’s very own Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Sonal Dabral. Having over 2 decades of experience in the field of advertising, he shared his life journey with the audience. Right from his NID days to his first job to how he helped Ogilvy Singapore become the hottest agency in the region and the No.1 creative office of the WPP global network and also his experience as a TV host and a scriptwriter in Bollywood.  He inspired and engaged the DDB Mudra Group employees which was the perfect kick-start to Bernbach Fridays.

     

    The second speaker of Bernbach Fridays was Shreedavy Babuji, of DDB Mudra West, who presented an extremely interesting project she had worked on. The project was a documentary covering the various aspects of an age old folk art form of India – The Truck art. Titled ‘Horn Please’, the documentary focuses on origin of truck art and its evolution since then. The documentary has been accepted at festivals across the world and is getting tremendous reviews everywhere.

     

    The third and fourth sessions of Bernbach Fridays saw Varun Thakur – stand-up comedian and E Suresh – Founder of Studio Eeksaurus, respectively. With a good mix of personal stories, observational humour and impersonations, Varun was an act that no one could miss. E Suresh, also the founder of Famous Studios, shared his eventful journey in the world of animation.

     

    Sonal Dabral, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer at DDB Mudra Group said, “Our instincts and craft as creatives gets honed everyday by just observing and assimilating life happening around us. Which means the more we are aware of our world the better advertising professionals we become. That’s where curiosity comes in. The desire to know as much as possible. Desire to find out the answers. Desire to be acquainted with as many subjects as possible. Curiosity and creativity are never far apart. Without curiosity, we will never be innovative. There will be no growth and nothing will change. To fuel this curiosity we have launched “Bernbach Fridays”.”

     

    The main aim of Bernbach Fridays sessions is to celebrate advertising by creating curiosity. The audiences at DDB Mudra are always ready for something new, therefore these sessions will see speakers from different fields which would include Fashion Designers, Chefs, Film Makers, Scientists, Directors, Musicians, Artists and so on.  

     

    You can view the sessions here:

    Varun Thakur – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8X715bm1P0

    E Suresh –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdgXn4Nirk&list=UUXZ6ZNX6CZDAytIwNXZlNkA

  • Technicolor ships 11th million STB to Tata Sky; celebrates 10 years of partnership

    Technicolor ships 11th million STB to Tata Sky; celebrates 10 years of partnership

    PARIS: Technicolor  (Euronext Paris: TCH ; OTCQX: TCLRY) is proud to announce two special landmarks in its relationship with Tata Sky India’s leading direct to home (DTH) service provider and HD market leader – the 10 year anniversary of the partnership and the delivery of the 11 millionth Technicolor set-top box.

    These special milestones follow an announcement in May of this year for Technicolor to ship 4K set-top boxes in volume to Tata Sky from early 2015.

     

    “On behalf of Technicolor, I’d like to thank Tata Sky for its ongoing co-operation and congratulate the company on its achievements as India’s market leader. We look forward to continuing our partnership and helping to deliver even more successful and exciting services to consumers across India in future,” said Michel Rahier, President of Connected Home Division at Technicolor.

     

    Tata Sky MD & CEO, Harit Nagpal, added “Over the past 10 years Tata Sky’s vision has been to offer its customers the best, most compelling video experience. Technicolor has been a true partner in that quest, delivering high quality products and services. And 2015 will be a great year for our partnership as we deploy 4K STBs across the Indian market, once again, underlying our commitment to delivering the most recent technologies and the highest quality content.”

  • ‘Shastri Sisters’ premieres on 21 July 2014 monday to saturday at 7.00pm

    ‘Shastri Sisters’ premieres on 21 July 2014 monday to saturday at 7.00pm

    MUMBAI: Sisters are your first friends. Sometimes, they even take on the role of mothers and sometimes that of petulant children. Bringing alive this beautiful bond is a brand new offering from COLORS – Shastri Sisters – a show that follows the lifefour sisters as they make their journey from Kanpur to Delhi. Starting life afresh with new dreams and aspirations, the four ‘friends-for-life’ sisters – Alka (Neha Pednekar), Anushka (Ishita Ganguly), Devyani (Sonal Vengurlekar) and Peeya (Pragati Chourasiya) support each other on the rollercoster of life. Produced by Shakuntalam Telefilms,Shastri Sisters will air every Monday to Saturday at 7.00 pm.

     

    Alka, Anushka, Devyani and Peeya find their lives changing drastically as they follow their father, Narayan Shastri(Rajesh Jais), who transfers to New Delhi for his government job. Facing the new world head on, smiling through not-so-easy moments of life, collectively, the Shastri Sistersbecome each other’s biggest strengths. Together they learn to navigate the unfamiliar streets and ways of the big city, often finding themselves in chuckle worthy and sometimespoignant situations.

     

    Speaking about the show, Prashant Bhatt, Weekday Programming Head – COLORS, said,“Through Shastri Sisters, we are looking at presenting a story people can relate to – a slice of life tale that brings alive the bitter sweet moments of life as witnessed by four young girls who are sisters and friends for life. Every viewer will find himself or herself in the story. And we are delighted to be partnering with Shakuntalam Telefilms once again to create a show that I’m sure will touch hearts and make each of you smile.”

     

    Speaking about show, Neelima Bajpai, Creative Head and Co-Founder, Shakuntalam Telefilmssaid, “Shastri Sisters is a concept tracing the journey of four sisters who find themselves uprooted from their family home in Kanpur to move to New Delhi. We have shot extensively across New Delhi – Lajpat Nagar, Chandni Chowk, Pahad Ganjto bring alive the storyline while building authenticity for the show.”

     

    Commenting on her role, Neha Pednekar aka Alka, said, “I don’t have a sister in real life; working on this show helped me understand sisterhood and the importance of the strong bond which keeps them together.” Ishita Ganguly, playing the role of Anushkasaid, “For Shastri Sisters, I have moved from Kolkata to Mumbai. This created a sense of relatability because the sisters find themselves in a similar situation when moving from Kanpur to Delhi changes their lives!” Devyani aka Sonal Vengurlekar said, “Even though I have dabbled in television before, working in Shastri Sisters is like a dream come true because it gives me an opportunity to explore various nuances of my personality.”PragatiChourasiya, playing the role of the youngest sister Peeyasaid, “After four hard and long years of working on television, I am excited about the fresh challenge that Shastri Sisters presents to me. My character, is not only the youngest but also the over-protected sister who is the apple of everyone’s eye!”

     

    With a fresh cast and relatable characters, Shastri Sisters includes strong actors portrayingpivotal characters such as the simpleton father, Narayan Shastri (Rajesh Jais)who works for the governmentand the do-gooder Delhi-based landlord Mr. Sareen (Girish Sehdev), popularly known as ‘Lalaji’ in the moholla who loves his daily dose of whiskey. Minty Sareen (Neelu Kohli)is the snobbish and stubborn wife of the landlord, the gossip queen of the neighbourhood and the proud mother of two sons Rajat (Vijayendra Kumeria)and Neel (Sumit Bhardwaj).

     

    To ensure that Shastri Sistersare topic of conversations across the country, COLORS has undertaken a 360-degree integrated marketing campaignacross cable, radio, OOH including in-train branding, print and television mediums. The channel has also designed a special digital campaign encapsulating an interactive quiz across social media platforms.

     

    They may not have it all together, but together they have it all… Come,join Shastri Sisters as they discover a new city and a new life starting21st July, 2014, every Monday to Friday at 7.00PM!

  • ABP News brings the second season of one of its most successful series- ‘Love Story’

    ABP News brings the second season of one of its most successful series- ‘Love Story’

    MUMBAI: ‘Love Story’ season-2 airs every Saturday at 8pm on ABP News.

     

    After the very successful season 1, ‘Love Story’ season-2 will again be hosted by the Khan Sisters’ and ‘Me Na Bhoolungi’ fame actress Nigaar Z. Khan. Nigaar had also hosted ‘Jaane Bhi do’ with ABP News. In the special series- Love Story season-2, Nigaar Khan will talk about some untouched, unheard love stories of Bollywood superstars.

     

    According to the host of the show- Nigaar Z Khan, “I have worked with a lot of reality shows and TV serials…but working on ‘Love Story’ on ABP News has been special”. Nigaar says that the second season  of ‘Love Story’ will bring in a lot of untouched interesting stories, woven around with an amazing treatment to the content and in-depth research.

     

    ‘Love Story’ season-2 revolves around the real stories of the superstars. The editorial team of ABP News has worked for around six months on the research of the stories. For the insights and substantiating documents, the team has taken a lot of inputs from the credible and reliable sources- active as well as inactive- in Bollywood. An in-depth research and homework about the untouched aspects of the unheard stories is the biggest strength of the show.

     

     ‘Love Story’ season-2  is an interesting journey into the lives of your favourite stars from Bollywood.

  • Nat Geo magazine appoints Susan Goldberg as first female editor in chief

    Nat Geo magazine appoints Susan Goldberg as first female editor in chief

     National Geographic Magazine appoints Ms. Susan Goldberg as the Editor-in-Chief. The first female to hold that position, Susan is also the 10th editor-in chief in the 126-year history of this iconic magazine. In India, National Geographic Magazine is published by Amar Chitra Katha under the license of National Geographic Society.

    “Susan has an incredible drive and vision, which makes her a wonderful choice to lead the magazine and daily news through their next iterations,” says Chris Johns, who will now serve the company in the newly created role of chief content officer.

     

    Susan joined NatGeo in January as an executive editor of news and features. Prior to this she was the editor for Bloomberg News in Washington, as well as the top editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the San Jose Mercury News.

     

    “I am privileged to take this new role, and excited about exploring new avenues,” said Ms Susan Goldberg. “It’s an honor to be part of such a great publication and to work with its talented and dedicated team”, she further added.

     

    Commenting on her appointment, National Geographic Magazines India editor in chief Niloufer Venkatraman said: “It will be wonderful to work with Susan. We will discuss and publish more stories that have special relevance to Indian readers”.

  • WKL announces Li Ning as apparel partner

    WKL announces Li Ning as apparel partner

    MUMBAI: World Kabaddi League has found its apparel partner with Li Ning Company which will now be the official apparel partner for its opening edition. The company will provide a wide range of clothing for the games related personnel, including the team kits.

     

    World Kabaddi League CEO Raman Raheja said, “It’s a matter of pride for World Kabaddi League to announce Li Ning Company as the official Apparel Partner for league. They are known for their professional approach & expertise in making apparel and sports equipment as per international standards. We believe Li Ning will join our efforts and share the vision of delivering best game in World Kabaddi League.  We hope this will be long and fruitful partnership.”

     

    Li-Ning India business head Ram Malhotra commented “World Kabaddi League provides athletes, from across the globe, with a unique and professional platform to showcase their talent and sportsmanship and to promote Kabaddi on an international scale. This is something that resonates with Li Ning because as a brand, we are continuously seeking to establish strong relationships with world – class athletes across all sports and to support initiatives aimed at popularizing various sports. We are excited to be a part of an initiative that brings together Kabaddi champions and enthusiasts alike, on a global scale, to share and revel in their passion for Kabaddi.”

     

    In the international arena, Li Ning Company has been a strategic partner of NBA, ATP and other top international event organizers and institutions offering its equipment and services to several eminent athletes like Shaquille O’Neal, Ivan Ljubicic, Jose Calderon, Asafa Powell, Yelena Isinbayeva, Andreas Thorkildsen, Marin Cilic, Ivo Karlovic to name a few.

     

    World Kabaddi League is slated to kick start on August 9. With 94 matches and matches scheduled across 3 continents in UK, US, Canada, Dubai and India; the WKL will follow F1 format. WKL will present the sport to its fans in a completely new avatar by adding more action-oriented elements. The maiden Indian contact sport which has committed fan following across the globe will soon be pegged amongst the most followed game amongst enthusiasts. WKL will be played in Circle style which is the most popular kabaddi format followed across 26 countries globally.

     

    WKL aims to become the go-to brand when it comes to sports entertainment or delivering value to its partners and sponsors. WKL as a brand embodies strength, power, agility, tactic, entertainment, masculinity and aggression. It promises to take the indigenous Indian sport to the world and redefining it for the Indian audience.