Category: Software

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has softened its stance on the gap between advertisement breaks during television programmes.

The regulator has proposed to delete the clause that required the gap between the end of one advertisement session and the commencement of next advertisement session to be not less than 15 minutes. In the case of broadcast of a film or a movie, the time gap between ad breaks was 30 minutes.

Now, television channels can decide on their own the advertisement breaks they wish to take during programmes.

TRAI has proposed this in a draft amendment to the regulation titled The Standards of Quality of Service (Duration of Advertisements in Television Channels) Regulations, 2012. The regulations were notified on May 14, 2012.

Trai has proposed amendments to the regulation despite a stay by the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT on a plea by broadcasters.

Trai also stated that it will issue orders to ensure compliance of the provisions of the regulations.

Trai has also made it mandatory for broadcasters to submit the details of advertisements carried on its channel within 15 days from the end of a calendar quarter in a specified format. The first such report will have to be furnished to Trai for the quarter ending 31 December 2012, by 15 January 2013.

The authority contended that the need for regulation aroused from the fact that the duration of advertisements carried during the programmes in the TV channels is closely related to the quality of viewing experience of the consumers.

The quality of viewing experience of the consumers is akin to the quality of service provided by the service providers to the consumers, Trai said.

The advertisement regulations have been fiercely opposed by the broadcasters arguing Trai has no authority to issue such orders particularly since the issue is already covered in the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994.

The broadcasters contend that the Indian broadcasters‘ heavy reliance on advertising revenues is due to the “non-addressable nature of the cable TV networks,” and “gross under declaration of the subscriber base”. They also favoured self-regulation rather than the Trai forcing it on the broadcasters particularly at a time when content costs are going up.

Contesting Trai‘s premise that such a regulation is needed since the country is moving towards a digitised environment, the broadcasters say that regulation should happen after cable digitisation becomes fully addressable wherein income arising out of subscription revenue sees a significant rise.

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MUMBAI: Games2Win, an online games company, has launched Apollo 11: Mission to the Moon, an interactive and engaging online game that recreates the historic mission of Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Armstrong, the first man to land on the moon in July 1969, died on 25 August 2012 at the age of 82 due to complications from blocked coronary arteries.

Games2Win has dedicated the game to the memory of Armstrong who piloted this historic journey.

The game play recreates the first manned mission to land on the moon and the four critical stages that made Apollo 11 a successful mission. First, the player must launch the Apollo 11 rocket; then orbit the spacecraft around the Earth while traveling towards the Moon; next, the player must land the lunar module on the moon‘s surface; and finally the player has re-enter Earth, ending the journey safely in the ocean.

Games2win CEO and co-founder Alok Kejriwal said, “Neil Armstrong inspired millions of people all over the world by fulfilling a global dream. Creating an online game in his honor allows the younger generation to interactively experience his heroic journey and appreciate the humongous challenges he faced way back in 1969. By playing the game, one can truly appreciate what Neil Armstrong achieved!”

Additionally embedded in the game, consumers can click on a link to receive a paper model rocket design of the Apollo 11 mission that can be downloaded, printed, cut and built into a real-life memento. High resolution images and a YouTube walk through the game are available on this page.

MUMBAI: Vdopia, a digital advertising and video monetisation player, has appointed Preetesh Chouhan as its VP and sales head for Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

His last stint was at Sify Technologies as national head – ad sales.

At Vdopia, he aims at establishing its footprints in South East Asia and drive the overall growth through organic and inorganic actions.

Vdopia co-founder and business head Srikant Kalkani said, “We are glad to have Mr. Preetesh Chouhan on board. Vdopia foresees immense growth of its ad network across the APAC market with his joining. With tremendously growing Digital advertising space, Vdopia aims at delivering the best of industry products with a team of experts who can streamline the digital video advertising strategies for our customers and help them capitalise the growth.”

Chouhan added, “Mobile video advertising is still at a very nascent stage, and with the growing penetration of mobile devices and data usage, the growth opportunities are immense. Markets such as India, SEA and Middle East are set for an aggressive growth from both ‘online‘ and ‘mobile‘ platforms. Vdopia has been rightly placed as a key market leader and initiator in this field and can very easily lead the growth path through its product and market strategies. We‘re looking to hit the market with very key strategic and niche products and create a long and profitable value chain for ourselves.”

Chouhan brings in around 15 years of experience in consumer internet and digital media businesses. Prior to joining Sify, he had also worked with AOL LLC, AOL Time Warner, Indya.com and Indiainfo.com.

MUMBAI: Flipkart Online Services, which runs online shopping Flipkart.com, has raised fourth round of funding from MIH which is part of the Naspers group and Iconiq Capital.

While the exact amount of funding has not been disclosed, according to media reports Flipkart.com has raised $150 million for a minority stake.

Flipkart had earlier raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India and Tiger Global.

Buoyed by the new round of funding, Flipkart said the company aims to reach a merchandise value $1 billion in the next three years.

“We are excited to complete this (its fourth) round of funding, which would fuel our growth plans, and help us achieve our stated ambition of hitting $1 billion in gross merchandise value by 2015,” Flipkart co-founder and chief executive of FlipKart Sachin Bansal.

Started in 2007 with books, Flipkart entered the consumer electronics category with the launch of mobile phones, in September 2010.

In addition to these, Flipkart has also made a foray into the emerging digital content market with the recent launch of Flyte, the digital music store.

The company has its own delivery network in 37 cities and is set to expand this in the current financial year. With a team of around 4,800 members, the company operates from offices and warehouses in seven Indian cities.

MUMBAI: Singaporean pay TV operator Starhub TV will be the home of Bundesliga football in Singapore for three more seasons after concluding a contract extension with broadcast rights-holder DFL Sports Enterprises for up to, and including the 2014/2015 season.

The rights package includes ‘live’ coverage of up to 170 Bundesliga games, the Supercup, weekly match-week previews and an hour-long highlights show. The rights to content for online and mobile platforms are also included.

Starhub VP of home solutions, content Iris Wee said, “The Bundesliga is one of the top football leagues in the world and has a fast-growing global following. Singapore viewers enjoy the fast-paced, attractive football that the league offers and we are pleased that it will continue to excite our customers for three more seasons. It has been a joy working with DFL Sports Enterprises and we look forward to our continued partnership”.

The Bundesliga is ranked as the third best professional league in Europe (based on Uefa’s country coefficients which is determined the results of each football association‘s clubs in the five previous UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League seasons). Featuring clubs such as Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the league also boasts of international stars such as Mario Götze, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Philipp Lahm, Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

MUMBAI: Leading multi-system operators under the aegis of MSO Alliance have launched a promotional offer wherein customers in Mumbai and Delhi can avail of set top boxes at a subsidised price of Rs 799.

The promotional offer, which is is valid till 30 September, is aimed at easing the burden of digitisation on consumers and for encouraging them to install set top boxes well before the 31 October deadline.

To create awareness about the promotional offer, MSO Alliance comprising WWIL (Siti Cable), InCablenet, Digicable, Hathway and Den Networks have released print advertisements.

Commenting on the offer, Den Networks CEO & MSO Alliance secretary S.N. Sharma said, “This is a step taken in line with the Government‘s objective of educating consumers about the digitisation law and the need for smooth installations of set top boxes by the deadline.

“This offer has been designed to encourage consumers to make an early decision on converting to digital even as MSOs take on an increasing subsidy burden with adverse dollar exchange rates. We hope this will ensure equitable digitisation over the next two months.”

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting revised the deadline for full digitisation of the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai to 31 October from the earlier deadline of 30 June to allow platforms and consumers more time to convert to digital.

NEW DELHI: The petitions challenging the digital tariff order of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), which were listed for 24 August, are expected to come up before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) soon.

The petitions by multi-system operators Digicable Networks (India), Mumbai, Delhi Distribution Company, New Delhi, and United Cable Operator’s Welfare Association could not be taken up on 24 August because of the heavy workload before the Tribunal.

Tdsat had earlier listed for 25 August a petition by IndusInd Media and Communications Ltd (IMCL) in this regard but has now decided to hear all the petitions together.

News broadcasters NDTV, Time Global (holding company of Times Now), India TV, TV Today, Total TV, and News Broadcaster‘s Association (NBA), Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), and other broadcasters have been permitted to be a party to the petitions.

Digicable has approached the broadcast tribunal opposing the sector regulator’s new revenue sharing mechanism. In its petition, Digicable said Trai’s tariff order is “unjust, unfair, unreasonable, arbitrary, irrational, and discriminatory” and is tilted towards the broadcasters.

According to the Trai tariff order, charges collected from the subscription of paid channels or bouquet of paid channels shall be shared in the ratio of 65:35 between MSO and the local cable operator respectively.

Earlier, United Cable Operator’s Welfare Association, New Delhi, had approached the Tdsat seeking better revenue share from the MSOs and an extension in date for digitisation.

MUMBAI: Leading satellite operator SES has broadened its partnership with global satellite communications provider Pactel through a multi-year capacity deal on NSS-6.

Under the new capacity expansion deal, Pactel will utilise multi-transponder capacity on two SES satellites — NSS-9 at 183 degrees East and NSS-6 at 95 degrees East.

Pactel, a longstanding SES customer, will use the additional capacity to expand its voice and data service offerings within the Pacific region, enabling it to provide remote businesses across Australia, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste with access to reliable and affordable connectivity.

Pactel International CEO Andrew Taylor said, “With a global fleet of 51 satellites, SES covers virtually all of the world‘s population. The comprehensive coverage of both NSS-6 and NSS-9 have enabled us to expand our networks further, providing coverage to even the most remote Pacific islands. The high-powered NSS-6 beam also means our customers require much smaller antennas to stay connected, making them much easier to install, while being both cost and space effective.”

“Pactel has enjoyed tremendous success in overcoming geographic challenges to offer reliable broadband access to businesses in the region. We are pleased to have found a solution with NSS-6 for Pactel’s growing business needs and that we are able to continue playing a key role in connecting the remote businesses in the Asia-Pacific region,” said SES senior VP Commercial, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East Deepak Mathur.

MUMBAI: Online video destination iStream.com has exclusively partnered with Ten Sports to live stream US Open, the last of the season’s four major Tennis Grand Slam tournaments.

Tennis fans can log onto http://www.iStream.com/us-open-2012/ to catch the excitement. Apart from hosting the matches live, iStream.com will top up the excitement with live-chat among fans via inbuilt social media elements.

Viewers can also catch highlights of the matches and not-to-miss moments of the tournament. Moreover, iStream.com will host the schedule, team statistics, player profiles.

iStream.com founder, CEO Radhakrishnan Ramachandran said, “Sports is amongst the top genres we are betting on. After the huge response we received for Euro 2012 and the just concluded India Sri Lanka cricket series, we are excited to bring US Open. I think a lot of tennis fans will be hoping to see whether Federer can repeat the magic we saw at the Wimbledon. We see this tie-up with Ten Sports as the beginning of a long term partnership” .

The first session telecast of the US Open will start from 8:30 pm. Live telecast of the evening session takes place from 4:30 am – 8:30 am.

Ten Sports CEO Atul Pande said, ‘’We are committed to maximizing our reach to sports fans and our partnership with iStream.com helps in enhancing the reach and compliments our coverage of the event on TEN Sports channels.’’

iStream.com has a sports channel that has hosted premium sporting events like UEFA Euro 2012 and the just concluded India-Sri Lanka cricket series The site adds hundreds of new videos every day to its library of over a 100,000 clips of premium News Bulletins, TV Shows and Movies in five Indian languages from over 65 channels. It also streams 26 news channels in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

MUMBAI: MobiTV, a global leader in enabling delivery of live and on-demand TV everywhere, plans to expand its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations to London as part of its continuing growth in the region.

The new hub will be managed and operated by MobiTV co-founder and president Paul Scanlan.

“Since the company‘s start over 10 years ago, Paul Scanlan has been an unmistakable driving force behind the business,” said MobiTV CEO Charlie Nooney. “We are excited by the opportunities for true TV everywhere in EMEA and internationally. As our growth accelerates, Paul is the right person to lead our expansion outside of the U.S.”

From the company‘s new London office, Scanlan will continue to manage and grow all aspects of the company‘s sales and partnership activity in EMEA, as momentum for TV everywhere is building in Europe and other regions.

Recently, the company announced further upgrades to its TV everywhere proposition with the introduction of its nDVR (network DVR) – a cloud-based solution that addresses digital rights management issues geographically.

MobiTV has also extended the scope of its datacenter to manage all types of motion picture content for international multi-screen delivery of high-quality services.

“The EMEA markets have demonstrated strong growth potential for IPTV and TV everywhere,” said Scanlan. “I look forward to MobiTV playing a key role in enabling the development and adoption of TV everywhere deployments in EMEA and other global markets.”