Category: Software

NEW DELHI: The last mile cable operators of Delhi have presented a memorandum in the office of Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni protesting against the paltry share of just Rs 45 on the basic tier of Rs 100 for 100 free to air channels fixed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Earlier, around 200 of these operators organised a rally from Jantar Mantar to Shastri Bhawan to protest against the Trai regulations and the ministry‘s diktat for mandatory digitisation, ignoring the concerns of thousands of small cable operators. They also carried placards and raised slogans outside Shastri Bhavan which houses the I&B ministry.

The memorandum listed various demands and asked for a fair share in the cable TV revenue and extension of deadlines for switching off analogue as the city does not have adequate number of set- top boxes to seed in subscriber homes. Many areas of Delhi do not even have digital signal from any MSO, the LCOs claimed.

The LCOs have also complained that none of the MSOs have declared the pay channel rates or packages, but the government still wants them to force subscribers to buy STBs. Consumers do not know what they will get in the digital regime and at what price. It has become difficult for the LCOs to answer inquiries from consumers.

Some of the cable operators at the spot told indiantelevision.com that none of the MSO call centers are operational and customers are contacting only the LCOs, whereas the regulations have reduced their status from the last mile owners to collection agents following the Trai regulations.

LCOs say that they were earlier getting Rs 82 per customer in Cas areas but this had been cut down to Rs 45 or less in DAS areas, the balance going to multi-system operators (MSOs). Their livelihood has been endangered by DAS regulations.

The protesting LCOs have shown their inability to implement DAS, performing tasks expected from them by the regulations like operating a call centre for complaint redress, 24×7 maintain the network of last mile to subscribers, attend to complaints within prescribed period, collect subscriptions on behalf of MSOs and pay channels, and collect taxes on behalf of Centre and state governments etc. out of a mere 45 per cent share in the basic service tier and 35 per cent share of pay channels.

They also pointed out that they needed protection as they would be the first to face the anger of consumers when television screens go blank from 1 July.

MUMBAI: Tivo is providing its users with the ability to purchase products featured in interactive advertisements on its user interface through PayPal.

This integration creates a new opportunity for advertisers and brands to connect with Tio users and to turn their
30-second spots and interactive TiVo ad placements into actionable purchasing opportunities through a one-time account link.

Tivo senior VP, GM content, media sales Tara Maitra said, “In today‘s fragmented TV viewing world it is harder than ever before for advertisers to reach their audiences, and it‘s important to find creative ways to get in front of viewers. Tivo‘s interactive ads allow advertisers to grab the attention of viewers in unobtrusive ways and on the viewer‘s terms. By teaming with PayPal consumers will be able to instantly purchase products with just a few clicks of the remote after an easy, one-time account setup.”

PayPal has expertise in online payments, customer service, and working directly with merchants and sellers. “This makes the entire payment process easy and trustworthy and will create a valuable experience for TiVo users and advertisers,” said Maitra.

PayPal VP of emerging opportunities, new ventures Scott Dunlap said, “At PayPal we have been redefining commerce from online to mobile to offline and we see television as the newest channel in commerce. Teaming up with TiVo will help us connect merchants and consumers via the TV set in the fastest and safest way possible. We are excited about the prospect of delivering a more complete and seamless couch commerce experience.”

Tivo‘s other interactive ad solutions are currently being used by various leading brands in a host of industries as they allow advertisers to target consumers in a time-shifted world without unwelcomed interruption and offer them the option of exploring products that interest them.

Tivo will be working with its advertisers and agency partners to develop PayPal-enabled Tivo ads and Showcase campaigns beginning with the fall 2012 television season. This solution will also be available to TiVo‘s MSO customers such as RCN and Suddenlink.

Products purchased through PayPal will be charged to the TiVo user‘s PayPal account through a secure transaction and shipped to the address the user has registered with PayPal for deliveries. Orders will be fulfilled either by the advertiser or a trusted merchant that accepts PayPal for payment.

MUMBAI: Online retail major Amazon.com has announced a licensing agreement with MGM adding hundreds of classic movies and hit TV episodes throughout 2012 to the Prime Instant Video catalog.

Prime Instant Video now features more than 18,000 movies and TV episodes to instantly stream and enjoy at no additional cost. To start watching Prime Instant Video now, visit www.amazon.com/PIV. Customers who are not Prime members can enjoy a free one month trial of Prime.

Amazon director of digital video content acquisition Brad Beale said, “Our customers tell us they love having tons of movies and TV shows to choose from, which is why we are focused on adding even more titles to our already extensive Prime Instant Video library. MGM offers one of the most distinguished catalogs in all of Hollywood, and this deal will bring Prime Instant Video customers hundreds of new titles to enjoy on their Kindle Fire or any device compatible with Amazon Instant Video.”

Prime customers can access Prime Instant Video on Kindle Fire or any of the hundreds of compatible Amazon Instant Video devices, including the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gaming console.

MUMBAI: Times Internet Limited (TIL) has launched a shopping application for Android phones.

The app allows users to view the product range that Indiatimes shopping has for mobiles. One can compare prices and make purchase with “easy” payment options.

Additionally, users can also compare prices with other websites. They just have to use their mobile‘s camera to scan the QR code or ISBN code.

The codes, which are mapped to a product, are then compared with prices on other e-commerce sites.

Interestingly, users can also scan the bar codes of the books and shop for them on IndiatimesShopping. There are easy payment options, by way of cash on delivery (COD), net banking and using credit cards.

TIL director technology and e-commerce Gautam Sinha said, “Our shopping price comparison feature empowers our customers to choose the best deal from the entire shopping landscape, which is yet another manifestation of Indiatimes’ market-leading approach. We are planning a slew of such user-friendly technology solutions, which will make shopping reach an even wider audience. It is my sincere belief that technology will be a key differentiator in what Indiatimes Shopping is going to do in the coming future against its competitors.”

NEW DELHI: With the clock closing fast on the deadline for the first phase of digitisation, the highly-awaited meeting of the Task Force ended with a whimper today as Information and Broadcasting Ministry said it would take a decision on the demand of deferment of the first phase of digitisation early next week.

The hour-long meeting, presided over by I&B Secretary Uday Kumar Varma, is understood to have been fairly stormy with the cable operators and multi-system operators on the one hand and broadcasters on the other sticking to their respective stands.

The meeting was also attended from the side of the Ministry by Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) Supriya Sahu.

Emerging from the meeting, Varma told newspersons that there was a free and frank discussion of all the issues. He also said the Ministry had heard the viewpoints of all stakeholders, and was in touch with state governments.

It is understood that while the cable operators wanted an extension until December this year, some of the MSOs were agreeable to an extension up to September, citing the shortage of digital set top boxes and the late issuance of the tariff regulations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Some cable operators said that failure to switch to digitisation by 1 July may lead to law and order problems.

Varma said Mumbai was better placed than the other metros to launch digitisation. He said the Government now had a clearer position of the readiness of various stakeholders.

Today‘s meeting was a follow-up of a meeting between stakeholders from different parts of India and I&B Minister Ambika Soni ended with the Government not agreeing to defer the first phase of digitisation in the metros.

The Government had distributed a questionnaire to the stakeholders wanting to know the status of progress in terms of number of set top boxes distributed, agreements signed and so on.

The Minister had made it clear that the onus of implementing digital addressable system was on the stakeholders and not on the government which had facilitated the process in every way. However, she did take note of the fact that some chief ministers and stakeholders had written to her, and the matter was pending in some High Courts.

Sources close to the Ministry told indiantelevision.com that with the Bombay High Court taking up the matter on 18 June, Delhi High Court on 20 June and Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal on 25 June, the Government may prefer to wait to get legal directives before
deciding its own option on extending the date.

It is also known that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has recommended an extension of six months, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have written letters seeking extension of the date.

It is also learnt that only around 20 per cent of the set-top boxes needed for the four metros have so far been installed.

Also read:

Govt sticks to digitisation deadline

IndusInd Media moves Tdsat against Trai’s tariff order

Subhash Chandra urges Govt to stick to 30 June deadline

Digitisation deadline: Ambika Soni to meet stakeholders on 8 June

MUMBAI: FujiFilm India is boosting its presence on social media networks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.

Starting with an online contest, ‘Summer Break Toh Bantaa Hai‘ on Facebook, FujiFilm India gained the much waited breakthrough on the social media platform. The contest, held recently, was designed to recognise the best summer holiday pictures, taken by the fans on the Facebook page of Fujifilm India.

The participants shared more than 1000 pictures on the page. They uploaded their personal Summer Holidays pictures under five categories – Wow Location, Cute Couple, Awesome Friends, Best Family and Naughty Kid.

The criteria to select the photograph, was on the basis of relevance of the picture, emotions captured, picture quality and its effects. 30 pictures had been selected as winning entries and fans were given travel bags from Benetton, Cross Pens and T Shirts.

FujiFilm India claims that there are 21,000 fans on the page. Fujifilm India national marketing manager Sriwant Wariz said, “We plan to take the digital medium and connect with our audience in a more aggressive way with different channels like Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter. Photography and cameras can be of huge interest for people on these platforms. We were already present on YouTube but now we are engaging the audience by uploading videos, explaining the features and usability of each of the camera series”.

MUMBAI: For years, media brands were TV-centric. All that is changing now with consumers engaging across a variety of digital touchpoints.

TV, however, continues to be the leading media channel. A study of 10 broadcast network and cable brands in the US, covering a five-week period, shows that an average of 90 per cent of consumers engaging

with a given brand did so on TV, while 25 per cent did so online and 12 per cent via online video.

This enhances the quality of brand engagement and also increases the complexity of media planning and analysis by orders of magnitude.

Says comScore VP of TV, cross-media solutions Joan FitzGerald said, “By leveraging comScore’s unique single-source multi-screen measurement panel, we are radically reducing this complexity of media planning by providing media companies with actionable insights that can be used to determine how to effectively reach their target audiences and optimize cross-media planning.”

comScore, which measures the digital world, and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) have released a research white paper entitled How Multi-Screen Consumers Are Changing Media Dynamics, revealing several new findings about the viewing habits of consumers who engage with media brands across multiple touchpoints.

The key insights from the study include:

– Online Video and Multi-Screen Consumers are the most engaged and loyal brand consumers. Online video consumption proves to closely associate with consumer engagement with media brands overall. For most of the media brands, the multi-screen consumers who use the media brands via TV and online video spend more time with the content on any platform, and spend more time consuming the content on TV.

– Multi-Screen Consumer are demographically ‘On Target‘ – The study found that the segments of multi-screen consumers showing the highest propensity to engage tended to correlate strongly with those brands’ key demographic targets, suggesting that engagement on other platforms
represents an important extension of the key demographic audiences’ use and enjoyment of the media brands.

– Consumers are using digital platforms concurrently with TV to enrich experience – During the five-week period of analysis, 60 per cent of a media brand’s consumers accessed TV and Online during concurrent 30-minute increments. 29 per cent of the media brand’s consumers accessed Facebook concurrently with their TV viewing, suggesting digital platforms may be used to supplement the viewing experience and drive multi-platform engagement.

CIMM MD Jane Clarke said, “The media landscape is fragmenting at an ever-increasing rate, so having a measurement solution that traverses multiple screens is critical for everyone in the media ecosystem including brands, networks and advertisers. This new research conducted by CIMM and comScore offered a significant breakthrough in the use of new methodologies to help tackle the challenges of cross-platform measurement, revealing important findings about the cumulative reach, exposure and engagement of media brands and advertisers in a multi-screen environment.”

NEW DELHI: The six private direct-to-home (DTH) operators paid Rs 2.22 billion as licence fee to the government for the year 2011-12, compared to Rs 1.78 billion in 2010-11 and Rs 1.26 billion in 2009-10.

Interestingly, Tata Sky paid licence fee of Rs 793 million in 2011-12 as against Airtel Digital TV Rs 618.7 million and Dish TV’s Rs 300 million. Sun Direct paid Rs 360 million, Reliance Big TV paid Rs 95 million, and Videocon d2h paid Rs 50 million.

The revenue in 2008-09 was Rs 893 million from four operators, since both Airtel Digital TV (Bharti Telemedia Ltd.) as well as Videocon d2h (Bharat Business Channel Ltd.) had not commenced services.

The other DTH players are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, and Reliance Big TV.

DTH services are governed by the DTH Guidelines and terms and conditions issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on 15 March 2001 and amended from time to time.

The seven DTH players in the country including Doordarshan’s free-to-air DD Direct Plus cover around 35 million TV homes.

MUMBAI: Digital media company Yahoo! and CNBC have formed a strategic alliance that will expand the business news channel‘s online reach and presence and provide a broadcast platform for Yahoo! Finance’s original content and contributors.

The two companies will also co-create a new slate of co-branded, original videos which will appear on Yahoo! Finance and CNBC.com. Yahoo! Finance’s journalists will contribute to CNBC’s Business Day programming and CNBC clips, news and analysis will be prominently integrated into Yahoo! Finance and featured across the Yahoo! network.

The two partners will maintain editorial control and host their respective sites while also having joint sponsorship sales opportunities with CNBC serving as the go-to-market sales lead.

Yahoo! Finance will continue to feature content and perspectives from Yahoo!’s editorial staff as well as reports from other industry-leading providers and experts. CNBC will distribute its content to other leading online publishers in the category.

“Our mission is to create the richest and most powerful experiences for users each and every day. Partnering with CNBC will allow Yahoo! Finance to expand its offerings instantly and enhance its position as the most viewed and utilized finance site in the world, ” said Yahoo! Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn. “Together, we will deliver the most engaging, insightful and relevant premium and personalized real time experiences for viewers across screens.”

“This collaboration is about two leaders in their respective spaces coming together,” said CNBC President and CEO Mark Hoffman. “With CNBC taking a central role on the biggest business news site in the world, we now have the ability to provide real-time news, analysis and information to a larger audience and offer unmatched advertising solutions for marketers looking for access across multiple platforms.”

NEW DELHI: Understanding that viewers today are immensely affected by what they see on television, Airtel digital TV has come up with a new campaign that has the message ‘sirf cable nahi,. Life badlo’.

The new campaign has also been made keeping in view the competitive perspective, since DTH players in the country are looking at maximising the opportunity created by the government’s implementation of cable digitisation to create top of the mind recall for their brands.

For Airtel digital TV, the marketing and communication opportunity defined was to reinforce the brand’s leadership through a big and completely differentiated take on the category and by appropriating the emotional benefit.

The big communication idea is therefore “great content has the power to transform lives”. The territory of transformation in this category is a powerful one for the brand to own, given that it today offers the best content on Indian television, be it through the numerous interactive services or other significant benefits.

The campaign theme is ‘sirf cable nahi, life badlo‘ where each feature or product is dramatised through its impact on life. The campaign sends out a clear crisp communication i.e. television content can shape a perspective, define a point of view and when it’s really powerful, it can change your life.

For the advertising campaign, the team also changed the visual language and tone of voice to make the communication fresh, young and modern: use of a secondary colour, blue, to make digital TV creative distinctive from the rest of Airtel creatives; a modern digital TV logo, presented alongside Airtel; youthful imagery shot from an exuberant perspective to showcase energy and movement; and use of cut-outs and graphics for creative cut-through for print ads.

The brand has rolled out a complete 360 campaign from 9 June – Print, Outdoor, TV, Cinema, Radio and Digital with a special focus on key digitisation centres (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai). TV and digital campaigns have been rolled out nationally.

The creative agency is JWT while the creative directors are Nishit Shankar and Sumonto Ghosh. The film director is Sainath Choudhury, the producer Purple Vishnu, and the media agency Madison.