Category: Software

MUMBAI: GlobeCast has expanded its facilities in Asia with the addition of a new multi-channel HD playout facility, as well as new staff for post-production and playout services.

New post-production and creative services will be available from GlobeCast‘s Parkview Square facilities. These facilities will expand to house the increased range of services.
 
The close collaboration with Technicolor that made this expansion possible comes at a time when GlobeCast has been increasing its range of services in the area of Media Asset Management and playout worldwide.

With the integration of the post-production and creative activities of Technicolor in Singapore, GlobeCast can now offer promo/interstitial creation, audio dubbing, subtitling and compliance editing services in addition to playout, program origination and digital media asset management services – providing a one-stop shop for broadcasters. 
 
This expansion also comes in the context of geographic growth for the company in Asia . Recently, GlobeCast announced its addition of a fiber link to PayTV operator Astro in Malaysia and Shanghai Media Group in China.
GlobeCast already offers broadcasters connectivity to operators such as nowTV in Hong Kong and Singtel in Singapore. The GlobeCast Backbone Network, a fiber network with connectivity to 33 PoPs around the world, provides broadcasters access to PayTV markets on five continents.
 

MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of UK pubcaster the BBC, has announced the relaunch of its channel websites with the unveiling of a brand new consumer site for its preschool property, CBeebies.
 
The launch of the international site, www.CBeebies.com, is the first of the branded channel websites to be refreshed and forms part of a wider strategy to offer an enhanced user experience and provide more extensive information relating to the programming online.
 
The website will offer geo-targeted content in key CBeebies territories including South Africa, Asia, and Australia, as well as local language content for Latin America and Poland supporting BBC Worldwide Channels‘ commitment to tailor its services to specific regional audiences.
The new-look site provides the CBeebies bugs with a brand new home – a specially created underwater world which is stimulating, playful and fun, reflecting the key values of the CBeebies brand. The underwater world is a unique element for international pre-school audiences and was considered to be a universally recognised environment for this demographic.

A short animation on the site explains to children how the bugs have arrived in this new environment. The focus of the home page is a submarine, which houses video content, including promos for highlighted shows, and allows the user to scroll through a carousel to the desired title and click through.

The submarine joins a raft of new features on the home page including: Presenter page; Make and Colour; Song Time; Story Time; Watch and Listen; Play Games; and Shows (including full length episodes of some programmes). A Grown Ups section features articles from educational experts which explain to parents how CBeebies programmes and the online site can help their young ones in their development.

Exploring the benefits of encouraging pre-school children in activities such as drawing, cooking and music, there are plenty of ideas and suggestions on offer to help grown-ups stimulate the imagination of their youngsters.

The content is presented by genres and enables preschoolers to interact with some of their favourite CBeebies characters and titles, including Penelope k, by the way, Charlie and Lola, In the Night Garden, 3rd and Bird and Boogie Beebies.

BBC Worldwide Channels VP marketing Becky Diver says, “The new CBeebies site is jam-packed with interactive features, allowing kids to truly involve themselves with their favourite programmes. There is a huge selection of games featuring CBeebies much-loved characters including Humf, Penelope K and the Teletubbies. Catchy tunes are among the favourite elements of many CBeebies programmes and with the new Song Time feature on the website, children have their own jukebox of musical favourites to sing along with. For our budding artists, the Make and Colour section allows preschoolers to get colouring with online brushes, pencils or markers and then print-off their finished masterpieces.”

The CBeebies website is now live and the refreshed pages for BBC Worldwide’s other channel brands – BBC HD, BBC Entertainment, BBC Lifestyle and BBC Knowledge – will follow in the coming months.

MUMBAI: For DTH operators, the festive season price war is on. Soon after Tata Sky slashed its set-top box (STB) price to Rs 999, Airtel digital TV has followed suit.

A late entrant in the India‘s highly competitive DTH space, Airtel digital TV has launched two new offers for its new subscribers and slashed the price of its STB to Rs 999.
 
In one offer, customers can purchase a new Airtel digital TV connection for Rs 999 and get started with an initial recharge of just Rs 200.

The second offer, bundled with subscription, works out to an effective pricing of Rs 806 for the STBs. The customer has to purchase connection for Rs 1690, but need not recharge it for the next four months. They would be entitled to four months free subscription to the Economy Pack (around 150 popular channels, worth Rs 200+taxes). 
 
Announcing the offers, Bharti Airtel CMO-DTH services Sugato Banerji said, “We believe that these two new entry offers will provide yet another compelling reason for customers to join the growing Airtel digital TV family. By significantly bring down the total cost of ownership these offers will make it more easier for more customers, to move to the next generation home entertainment options like Airtel digital TV.”

Airtel digital TV claims a subscriber base of 3.8 million customers.

MUMBAI: Komli Media, a digital media network platform, is on a shopping spree. The Mumbai-based start-up has acquired Indoor Media, a UK-based online ethnic marketing media company, its second since June.
 
The cash and stock deal will help Komli expand its reach to an online audience of 15 million South Asians globally.

There is a large population of non resident Indians and UK is the world’s largest digital advertising market, luring Komli Media to make the acquisition.  
 
Indoor Media, founded by jay rai and murly tiwari has clients like Mercedes, the UK government, Vodafone and Western Union.
In June, Komli Media acquired PostClick, an Australian internet site. The company recently raised $6 million in a second round of funding from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
 

MUMBAI: Star India‘s movie channel, Star Gold, is being launched in the US on DirecTV. The other three Star channels – Star Plus, Star One and Star News – are already available on the DTH platform.

Star, a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp, and DirecTV said Wednesday they have signed a multi-year extension for the carriage of Star Plus, Star One and Star News on the DTH‘s South-Asian International platform. Star Gold is launching in the US today.
 
“Since their launch in 2004, Star‘s leading Indian channels have become household names among DirecTV‘s South Asian subscribers,” said David Wisnia, Star‘s senior vice president of distribution, sales and marketing and head of Star‘s North American office. “We are excited to extend our relationship with our partners at DirecTV and are confident that with the launch of Star India Gold, viewers will get to see the best of Bollywood and continue to be captivated by the top rated comedies, drama series, reality shows and news programs that our other top rated Star channels showcase on a daily basis.” 
 
DirecTV‘s HindiDirect and HindiDirect II programming packages are part of the DirecTV international programming platform and are tailored towards Hindi-speaking audiences within the United States.

“We are excited to extend our relationship with our partners at DirecTV and are confident that with the launch of Star Gold, viewers will get to see the best of Bollywood and continue to be captivated by the top rated comedies, drama series, reality shows and news programs that our other top rated Star channels showcase on a daily basis,” said DirecTV vice president of Programming Acquisitions Toby Berlin.

MUMBAI: BSNL LiVe, the WAP portal of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), has announced specialised CWG content and discounted festive offers for its consumers on the occasion of Commonwealth Games, Durga Puja and Navratri.

Text-based news, CWG trivia, medal tally and schedule of the matches is available free of cost. Wallpapers of the CWG venues and videos of the winning moments during the games would be available at Rs 30 and Rs 50 respectively. 
 
On an individual item basis, the same content will be available for Rs 2 (for wallpaper) and Rs 5 (for videos). Discounted Commonwealth Games content is being provided to the customers through the course of the games.

The 30-channel pack of Hello TV is being provided at Rs 99 instead of the regular Rs 149 for a 40-day period starting from 1 October. 

 
During the Durga Puja festivities, devotional songs, puja and aarti videos will be available at an economical price of Rs 29. From October 8-17, to celebrate Navratri special audio & video content (2 Nos. per day) will be available at Rs 49.
 
 

MUMBAI: In a first of its kind move, Turner has entered into a content partnership with direct-to-home (DTH) company Tata Sky to offer a linear branded block for kids.

As per the deal, a linear branded block, CN+, from Cartoon Network will reside in Actve Wizkids as part of Tata Sky’s Actve services.
  
Tata Sky subscribers can avail CN+ from 6 am till midnight everyday. CN+ will offer viewers popular Cartoon Network originals such as Ben 10, The Powerpuff Girls and shows like Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes amongst others. Each day of the week will be dedicated to one of these Cartoon Network shows with multiple episodes.

Turner International India VP and deputy GM distribution & business operations, South Asia Siddharth Jain said, “We are happy to partner with Tata Sky in offering innovative experiences for our consumers that further strengthen Turner’s anytime anywhere strategy. This is yet another industry first as this partnership offers three unique services on one platform – linear branded block, interactive services and interactive games.” 
 
In addition to Cartoon Network content, Actve Wizkids on Tata Sky, will also feature the “makes” of M.A.D. (Music, Art and Dance), Pogo’s popular arts show where educational activities are presented in a step by step, do-it-yourself format. Shortly, interactive games with characters from hit shows such as Ben 10, Tom & Jerry, The Powerpuff Girls and Scooby Doo too will be made available on this platform.

Tata Sky CMO Vikram Mehra added, “It has been our constant endeavour to offer high-quality fun learning entertainment on Tata Sky. Today, our educational services have already got a loyal subscriber base of over one million. We strongly believe that the addition of CN+ will help us further improve our offering.”
 

MUMBAI: Google has announced partnerships for its Google TV service with several media companies like CNBC, HBO, Turner, the NBA, Pandora, Napster and Twitter.

The aim is to combine TV viewing and Internet browsing.
 
Other partnerships include NBC Universal, which plans CNBC Real Time, an application that tracks stocks. Twitter will let users post to the microblogging site as they’re watching a show.

HBO will offer more than 600 hours of programming optimised for Google TV. The NBA has built NBA Game Time, which will give real-time score updates and highlights.
 
Google TV launched earlier this year. It has hardware developed and engineered in association with Sony, Logitech, and Intel that is designed to unite the Web experience with the television experience.

In a blog post, Ambarish Kenghe, a developer product manager at Google, says, “One of our objectives with Google TV is to ultimately open up the living room and enable new innovation from content creators, programmers, developers and advertisers”.

MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said in its quarterly report that India has over 23.77 million DTH subscribers as of 30 June.

The total number of registered subscribers is from the six private direct-to-home operators – Dish TV, Tata Sky, Big TV, Sun Direct, Airtel Digital TV and Videocon D2H.

Digital cable TV, however, is still growing at a snail‘s pace in the Cas (conditional access system) notified areas.
 
Cable TV operators have marginally increased the seeding of set-top boxes (STBs) in the Cas areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai during this period.

According to Trai, the total number of STBs installed increased to 7,70,519 in the quarter ended June 2010, as compared to 7,62,238 STBs in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, Trai has also released the data on the number of TV channels in India till 30 June 2010. There are 515 channels out of which 150 channels are pay, as per the sector watchdog‘s report based on the data received from 24 broadcasters/distributors across the country. 
 
The maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSO in digital mode is 254. In analogue form, however, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 100 channels.

Trai also said that number of private FM radio stations in operation remained at 248 till the end of June 2010.

MUMBAI: Former senior vice-president, new media of India TV Interactive, Arvind Mahendru has joined ESPN Star Sports as director of digital media.

Based in Delhi, Mahendru will report to James Miner, the senior vice-president of digital media for ESPN Star Sports (ESS), based in Singapore. He will also report to Sanjay Kailash, executive vice-president, ESPN Star Sports, India. 
 
As the head of digital media, he will look after ESPN‘s properties like mobile, 3G, streaming and website from both the business and the development perspective.

Said Mahendru on his appointment, “ESS is the pioneer in the sporting arena. In terms of global sporting content across genres, it is not there on any other sports channel. My role is to look at innovative ways, where we could leverage 3G and 2.5G on the mobile space to deliver quality content to our audience.”

According to him, digital contributes only about 2 per cent of total media spends in the industry and, therefore, his other responsibilities would be to leverage the flagship property of the company, its website ESPNStar.com. “We will use our website to increase flow of information to our users and expand our user database to increase ad sales revenue,” he quips. 
 
Having around 18 years of experience, Mahendru started his career with GlaxoSmithKline as management trainee in 1993. After that he did a three-year stint at Star TV India as manager operations. Among the other companies Mahendru worked for were Turner International, Trinity Platco, Times Internet Limited, Bharti Airtel and Group M. Mahendru has been associated with Star since 1995.