ITV

Category: Specials

  • Regulation will continue to be a challenge in India: Reliance’s Rajesh Sawhney

    MUMBAI: On the occasion of India being the country of honour at next month‘s television trade event Mipcom Indiantelevision.com is doing a series of pieces on what the leading figures in India‘s television and entertainment industry feel about the media scene.

    The first one in this series is Reliance Entertainment president Rajesh Sawhney. He offers his views on regulation, as too the potential of the new digital distribution platforms.

    Indian TV Industry overview: The stature of the Indian television industry will continue to grow in coming years. The Indian economy will grow at 9 to 10 per cent per annum. Conusumerism is on meteoric rise, which is fuelling advertising growth in general and on TV advertising in particular.

    Digitalisation of cable, DTH and IPTV induction will see multiple growth in declared subsrcribers and subscription revenues. Revenue from advertising and TV subscriptions grew 17 per cent in 2006 to $4.2 billion; this figure is likely to more than double to $10 billion by 2011.

    Regulation: Regulation will continue to be a challenge in India. While there are plenty of bullish figures for India’s pay-TV market, yet there are regulatory hurdles such as non-exclusivity of content on DTH or the price capping of pay-TV channels in the case of conditional access (Cas).

    I advocate self regulation as far as content is concerned. The pricing of TV channels and bouquets is a tricky issue and the regulator has to see that there are no monopolistic or restrictive behaviour. The interest of the consumer needs to be balanced with the health of broadcasters as well as platform owners.

    The digitisation of media: India is on the cusp of change. A digital revolution. DTH, digital cable and IPTV are realities today. These changes bring with them new level of technical sophistication and content production. It is being projected that India (which had 116-120 million television homes in 2006, of which 61 per cent have pay TV) will have 90 per cent penetration from an estimated 185 million television homes in 2015.

    DTH, Digital cable and IPTV are three forces that are backed by capital, coporate horse power and regulatory will power. However, transition to digital technology will face trendous challenges from entrenched trade, consumer apathy, but also intensive competition.

    On the IPTV front: The State-owned incumbents have a incumbency advantage, which they are frittering away. They own 50 m subs copper factory, but so far they have not shown much enterprise in making the copper factory evolve to provide triple play services. I feel that the private sector participation is key to growth of IPTV in India which is around the corner.

    I feel that IPTV has a great future in India in long term. However in the short term, it will be DTH that will be key to driving consumer penetration.

    DTH: DTH is an exciting market in India. It will also be a tough market with 6 serious players in the battle. The DTH satellite market is set to grow from 2.6 million subscribers in 2006 to 38 million by 2015. I also expect DTH to provide a new platform for new and innovative content to flourish in India. Content has been key to the success of DTH platforms in other markets. We will see how this plays a role in the evolution of DTH in Indian market.

    Digital Cable: The introduction of Cas was scheduled to be done in a phased manner at least in three metros this year. But there seems to be a delay. Given the regulatory structure for cable industry, delays are inevitable.

    Even the mom and pop nature of Indian cable industry is a hindrance in the roll out of efficient and effective digital cable networks.

     

  • Endemol to take ‘Ustaad’ to Mipcom

    Endemol to take ‘Ustaad’ to Mipcom

    MUMBAI: Television format creator and distributor Endemol‘s subsidiary Endemol India will be taking its format Ustaad to next month‘s television trade event Mipcom.

     

    This is a music-based reality show that Endemol India created in association with the United Nations (UN). This involves eminent personalities, artistes, musicians and singers coming together to promote the UN‘s eight Millennium Development Goals.

     

    These goals are a roadmap established to reduce poverty and address issues of education, health and environment. They are part of the millennium declaration endorsed by all 192 UN member countries, including India. Endemol India MD Rajesh Kamat says that the firm is hopeful of selling the format to Endemol‘s divisions in other countries. He adds that Mipcom offers an opportunity for Endemol‘s executives in other countries to meet Indian broadcasters and share creative ideas.

  • Star Ent. looks to strengthen content portfolio at Mipcom

    Star Ent. looks to strengthen content portfolio at Mipcom

    MUMBAI: At the television trade event Mipcom which takes place in Cannes, France next month from 8-12 October, Indian firms will look to acquire content for distribution within the country.

    One of these firms is Star Entertainment which distributes content in the form of films for theatres and also television content like animation and documentaries to channels.

    Star Entertainment MD Jiten Hemdev says, “This event allows us to meet different clients at one place instead of having to do the run around. Our business is challenging given the fact that foreign content is niche. That is what we explain to clients.”

    Hemdev adds that although India has a huge population, the vast majority wants local content. “So we have to be clever in how we package and position our content. We offer dubbed animation content in regional languages for channels. We also do content for mobile aggregators. 60-65 per cent of content we acquire is from US firms.”

    The company also buys content from firms in Korea and Hong Kong.

    Among other things it is looking to acquire documentary and educational content. In terms of mobile content being sought he mentions wallpapers, two three minute clips of shows on lifestyle, travel amongst others.

    Hemdev believes that India being the country of honour, will not benefit a firm like his that looks to bring foreign content in. The aim of the event is to showcase Indian content to the world and if by pushing India, global sellers feel that India has grown in importance then acquisition costs will rise, he adds.

    The firm has just released the film Death Of a President into theatres. It has also worked with Zee Studio in the past for their Oscar festival.

     

  • Shemaroo to showcase 600 titles at Mipcom

    MUMBAI: Home video major Shemaroo will have a strong presence at the television trade event Mipcom.

    The firm is exhibiting at the event. Shemaroo Entertainment VP Hiren Gada says that it will showcase around 600 titles at the event. This will include the films Bal Ganesh and Ghatotkacha. “At Cannes there were inquiries about rights for these films for TV, home video. At Mipcom we hope to close out more deals.”

    Mipcom takes place from 8-12 October 2007 in Cannes, France.

    The firm is also looking to reach out to the mainstream audience abroad, besides just the NRIs. Gada says that in countries like the US interest in Indian films is growing beyond just the ethnic population.

    “Mipcom will allow us to deal with distributors in those countries. We are also showcasing newer titles like Apne and Dhamaal. We have made a lot of effort to package our content for the international market. Through packaging we adapt the look and feel to suit a certain market. It helps if a film has travelled across the festival circuit whether it is at Cannes or Toronto as that boosts its profile.”

    Shemaroo is also looking to acquire content. Gada says that the firm is looking to acquire European films and independent critically acclaimed English films for its home video division.

  • 4Kids Ent. to take ‘Dinosaur King’ to Mipcom

    MUMBAI: 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. will take its new fantasy adventure anime series Dinosaur King at Mipcom 2007. Forty-nine 30-minute episodes of the high definition production will be available for broadcast sale at this year‘s market.

    Dinosaur King premieres on Saturday mornings on 4Kids TV in the US later this month. According to 4Kids Entertainment executive vice president International Brian Lacey, international broadcast rollout for the series will begin in September 2008.

    “Dinosaur King combines the always fascinating appeal of dinosaurs with fantasy adventure stories that possess the right touch of comedy, making this a wonderfully fun series for kids,” said Lacey.

    “The boy and girl appeal of the stories and characters will provide broadcasters with great scheduling flexibility. We are confident that Dinosaur King will prove popular with kid audiences throughout the world,” he added.

    This series centers around Max, Rex and Zoe also known as the “D Team” who race around the world to uncover the secrets that bring dinosaurs back to life. The biggest challenge for the three young heroes in this unforgettable global race is to find all the dinosaur cards before the nefarious Alpha Gang. Set in the present time, Max, Rex and Zoe are able to transport anywhere in the world to hunt down the coveted cards that have been lost by the time-traveling Dr. Z and his bumbling team of bad guys. In this unique series, CGI combines with traditional animation for an unforgettable adventure where real dinosaurs are brought back to the present for heart-stopping battles.

  • Indian participation at Mipcom set to double

    MUMBAI: With India being the country of honour at next month‘s television trade event Mipcom in Cannes, France, interest among the Indian television fraternity, whether it be content producers, distributors or channels, has risen substantially compared to last year.

    The event, which takes place from 8-12 October, will have around 200 Indian delegates, twice the number that attended last year‘s market. There are eight exhibiting firms – Zee, Sony, Shemaroo, Sahara, Ficci (taken a pavillion), Venus, Star (part of the Fortune Star stand) and Suman Films.

    Indiantelevision.com founder and CEO Anil Wanvari, who is also Reed Midem‘s representative in India, says that there is no better and more relevant platform than Mipcom and MipTV to show the world what Indian television has to offer.

    “Currently, the global market is more aware of Indian cinema than it is about Indian television. Mipcom will increase awareness about Indian entertainment and television. People will find out what India has to offer and they will also get an idea of what they can expect from India in the future,” says Wanvari.

    “For Indian firms, the event offers opportunities to send their content abroad through licensing and syndication deals. There are also opportunities to find co-production partners,” he says.

    India Day
    The first day of the market, 8 October, is India Day. Zee Group CMD Subhash Chandra, one of the doyens of Indian media, will deliver a keynote on the topic The Indian Market Explosion: What Does the Future Hold?.

    UTV founder and CEO Ronnie Screwvala will deliver another keynote on Indian Media – A global Destination. Sony Entertainment Television India CEO Kunal Dasgupta will present a report containing details on the state of the Indian entertainment industry.

    Meanwhile, global firms looking for opportunities to enter the Indian media landscape will find a session on Indian Content on the Move useful. It is being organised in partnership with The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

    The session will gather players from the Indian and international media industries to discuss the various opportunities available to global businesses in the Indian film, TV, animation and gaming industries. The speakers are DQ Entertainment CMD and CEO Tapaas Chakravarti; Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal, Bag Films and Media MD Anurradha Prasad, Ernst and Young partner business advisory services Ashok Rajgopal, Ocher Studio MD Soundarya Rajinikanth, and Hungama Mobile MD and CEO Neeraj Roy.

    On 9 October, there will be a ‘Master Class‘ on The Format Business Inside Out. This will help Indian firms understand how they can export their content to different markets.

    As part of Reed Midem‘s initiative in highlighting the business opportunities in this area, it is inviting Indian delegates to a specially dedicated Entertainment Master Class Session in which key players from within the industry will share their own experiences, exploring the tricks of the trade and the ropes of the business. They will further discuss how to pitch, sell and protect a format.

  • Alfred Haber Distribution goes to Mipcom with diverse slate

    MUMBAI: Alfred Haber Distribution, Inc. (AHDI), heads to next month‘s television trade event Mipcom with a slate of programming from reality to sports to Hollywood gossip and special events.

    This includes Most Daring, Hollywood Uncensored; Most Shocking and International Fight League?s IFL Fight Night and IFL Battleground.

    Alfred Haber says, “We continue to present the most compelling catalogue of programming available. It is indeed a global market and it is our goal to satisfy the entertainment needs of that global audience. I am confident that these titles do just that.”

    The 13 episode Most Daring comes from Court TV. It showcases dramatic rescue attempts. This new breed of media heroes includes emergency rescue workers, firefighters, the Coast Guard, police officers and ordinary civilians whose bravery in the face of danger is second to none. These are the stories of heroes who risk their lives in the most dangerous of conditions to save the lives of others, usually without bothering to think about their own danger.

    Hollywood Uncensored lifts the curtain off Tinseltown to reveal the real and unscripted world of celebrities. Presented in a news magazine format and combining breaking celebrity news with an exclusive video vault of more than 3000 hours of archival footage, Hollywood Uncensored will be fed live via satellite each week to ensure that the latest Hollywood news is delivered immediately for up-to-the-minute broadcasts around the world.

    Most Shocking also comes from Court TV. This reality series from Bruce Nash is about the world of law enforcement featuring crime footage.

  • Debate on ‘Content is King’

    MUMBAI: Over two days of seminars on distribution platforms, consumer preferences and content in various media and the last session on Day 2 had both the panelists and audience divided on the question – ‘Who really is the King?‘ .

     

    Someone from the audience quipped ‘if content is the king, then who is the queen?‘ There were fewer answers and more questions that the session on ‘Content is King‘ elicited.

    MUMBAI: Over two days of seminars on distribution platforms, consumer preferences and content in various media and the last session on Day 2 had both the panelists and audience divided on the question – ‘Who really is the King?‘ .

     

    Someone from the audience quipped ‘if content is the king, then who is the queen?‘ There were fewer answers and more questions that the session on ‘Content is King‘ elicited.

  • Asia to emerge as next hub for media & entertainment

    MUMBAI: The second leg of Ficci Frames kicked off today with three stalwarts from the industry narrating the India entertainment story. Reliance Entertainment chairman and moderator for the session Amit Khanna was accompanied by producer and director Shekhar Kapur and filmmaker Farhan Akhtar to highlight the critical role of the Indian media and entertainment industry in reaching out to the world. Though our movies have travelled globally in the past, the large domestic market in India has largely restricted the industry to focus inward, which has resulted in a rather ghettoized expansion of India cinema to only reach out to the Indian diaspora, said Khanna in his opening statement.

     

    However, another deficiency that plagues Indian cinema is in the fact that it is not being scaled up in revenue, he added.

    “Concurrently we have also seen a very vibrant television market shaping up in India, that big global media giants like Disney, Newscorp and Sony have bet big on its expanding the potential.

    This prompted Kapur to add that Hollywood is gradually on the decline as the buoyant Asian market is flexing its muscle so much that he foresees a situation wherein Asia‘s consumption power would grow to about 75 per cent of absolute revenue in the media and entertainment sector, thus facilitating either Mumbai or Singapore to emerge as the next media hub. Stating that entertainment is technology driven, the need of the hour would lie in the creation of intellectual capital and this resurgence of ideas would help transform this sector from performing largely back office functions, as it often does especially with respect to animation.

    With respect of co-productions Kapur highlighted a word of caution against large media conglomerate funding, and what is often seen in as a Hollywood model, is standardization. Such associations although vital as they have the financial muscle and advertising power tend to take away the independence of a film maker. Therefore, he suggests that ‘particularization‘ as opposed to generalization is the way forward for the industry as he refers to these corporates as “marketing dragons that need to be fed.”

    Farhan shared the same sentiment, saying he now chooses to fund his productions on his own. His only co-production thus far has been with UTV for Laqshya. The large capital resources provided by behemoth corporate houses have a stretched managerial order at the organization that create decision making problems for the filmmaker and both Kapur and Akhtar agree that it strips the filmmaker of all freedom. To sum up, Kapur concluded, “The more we get separated from ownership, the less innovation occurs.”
     
     

  • Frames discusses ‘changing face’ of news channels

    MUMBAI:The Ficci Frames panel discussion on ‘The Changing Face of News in India‘ elicited both optimism and calculated caution from the panelists who included BBC World Wide (Hindi Service) Sanjeev Srivastava, TV Today executive director and CEO G Krishnan, Times Now CEO Sunil Lulla and Alessandro Ferino from DoC Italy. The session was moderated by Pankaj Pachauri who started the session with some very encouraging numbers for the news media.Pachauri started the session by bringing to the audience‘ notice the Times of India cartoon for the day by RK Laxman which features the common man flipping through the channels , watching static images and noting that this is by far more entertaining than the fare actually dished out on television. This attitude could be one of the biggest concerns for news broadcasters in India he noted.

    Although the numbers for news media are encouraging, the content and quality of news content came under sharp focus by the panelists. According to Pachouri all news room discussion revolves around the 4 Cs – Cricket, crime, cinema and crisis. The industry is now facing a question of how to better the quality of their product and move beyond the obvious issues that hog the headlines.
    G Krishanan, the first speaker at the discussion candidly shared that it wasn‘t easy to set up or build the TV Today network in the late 1990‘s when the banks were unwilling to help financially and there were critics galore who insisted that ‘we don‘t need a third news channel, we already have two‘. There was a general consensus then that advertisers won‘t pay a premium and news was a loss making proposition.
    Illustrating how he had been introduced to the new face of streaming mobile video at the Frames seminar Krishnan noted, “It is not the changing face of news but the changing face of India which has brought things into sharp focus. News of course is a micro part of the whole discussion. It is the changing technology and changing nature of demographics that has really helped chart the success story of media and news media in the country.”

    Speaking about the challenges faced by news channels Krishnan said, “Most television news channels are clones of each other. We don‘t need more crime news with scary anchors.” He emphasized the need to build a super brand through ‘differentiation‘ with factors like “art of story telling, look and feel of news and technological advancement playing a big role.”

    He concluded by saying, “there was a need to create multiple touch points for news- radio, mobile, OOH, in-flight entertainment and video streaming on mobile and internet. The idea is to create a brand instead of just a commodity.”

    BBC World Service‘ Srivastava chose to speak on the phenomenon of “infotainment” and question if there is a methodical research to check what viewers want. “There is an increasing feeling that there is more entertainment and less information while the idea of infotainment was to present information in an entertaining manner.”

    As a British public broadcaster who has also had an India presence for long and has actually seen “the changing face of news in India from an half hour telecast to the mushrooming of 24 hour news channels to the present scenario where there is a need to create differentiated, quality news programming,” Srivastav still believes that despite all the news coverage on television the common man is not getting his dues.

    “The man on the periphery loses out in this news game. He‘s not part of the middle class or the consumer class and therefore he has no stand. News ends up disappointing him.” Despite what he calls ‘his old fashioned misgivings‘, Srivastava insisted that news channels would have to wake up to their social responsibilities soon. The television networks have to be responsible to both the market and to the Indian consumer, he said.

    Alessandro presented the Italian news media view where he explained that the country had the bigger corporate giants like telecom and other industries launching news channels. The state of Vatican also had its own news channel. But the country was increasingly facing a situation of “one source news” which was perhaps balanced only by the excellent work done by independent documentary film makers.

    Times Now‘ Lulla had a very specific point to make stating that the business of television news was “highly undervalued”. “There is a big money involved in running a 24 hour news channel. The constant on air product, technology and infrastructure involve big costs.”

    Replying to the constant refrain of audiences and panelists on news leaning towards entertainment Lulla pointed out, “Films, corporates and brands – they turn to news channels to promote themselves because they still view us as a credible source of information.”

    The panelists were confident that the various news channels coming up in India would find ‘its place in the sun‘ and there was no need to hit the panic button on a cluttered market.However, all the panelists also believed that the reason the topic was chosen was to primarily point out that the “change” was still a continuous process and news channels were still evolving.