Category: Software

MUMBAI: Zee Turner has threatened to switch off the signals of its 33 channels to Hathway Cable & Datacom, following the failure of negotiations stretched over months after the commercial agreement between the two expired last year.

Zee Turner said Tuesday Hathway has been “avoiding signing the agreement for airing these 33 channels despite numerous efforts by Zee Turner and now being overdue by almost 10 months.”
 
Zee Turner, however, did not discontinue its signals during this period and now claims Hathway owes it an amount of Rs 280 million.

Says Zee Turner CEO Dinesh Jain, “Most of the agreements with Hathway expired in March 2009. We waited very patiently for Hathway to renew the agreement.”

Hathway executives, busy with the initial public offering (IPO) that opened for subscription today, could not be contacted for their comments.  
 
Zee Turner, which distributes channels like Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Cartoon Network, Pogo and HBO, now says it will stop signals to Hathway in cities that include Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

As required by regulation, Zee Turner had published an advertisement in the newspapers on 15 January, giving a 21-day public notice.

MUMBAI: BigFlix.com, the video-on-demand website from the Reliance Big Entertainment stable, has announced the availability of NDTV Imagine’s show – Rahul Dulhaniya le Jayega.

BigFlix is offering all the episodes of the serial telecasted on television everyday. The episodes will be uploaded on the website regularly for the audience to watch them and be in sync with the happenings of the serial on a day-to-day basis.
 
The company has also created a microsite on the show – http://www.rdlj.bigflix.com, which will have additional content related to the serial. This will contain news, interviews, specials, profiles and pictures of the participating brides-to-be.

BigFlix.com Video-on-Demand business head Murtuza Kagalwala said, “The reality show segment has shown significant leap in terms of traffic to our website amongst the other content since times. To keep up the pace of excitement right from day one, we have the episodes available on our website on the very day of the serial (Rahul Dulhaniya…) being aired on television nationwide with captivating content related to the show and its participants, updated on a regular basis.”
Added NDTV Imagine VP marketing and communications Nikhil Madhok, “The response to season one encouraged us to bring Swayamvar Season 2 on BigFlix.com Video-on-Demand on the very first day of the show being aired nationwide on television. This will allow viewers from across the globe to watch the show anytime they want.”

BigFlix.com Video-on-Demand has access to all serials from NDTV Imagine like Ramayana, Rakhi ka Swayamvar, Pati Patni aur Woh and Oye It’s Friday. The website also has access to serials from other television channels like Zoom, NDTV Good Times, Star TV, Raj TV, Makkal TV and 9X.
 

MUMBAI: Modern Times Group (MTG), the international entertainment broadcasting group, has acquired 50 per cent of Raduga from Continental Media S.A. for an undisclosed consideration in cash.

Raduga is the sole owner of LCC DaoGeoCom, which operates Russian nationwide DTH satellite pay-TV platform Raduga TV.

Raduga TV was launched in February 2009 and had 70,000 active subscribers, as on 31 December 2009. The platform offers a package of more than 50 TV channels, including a wide range of Russian channels, as well as the localised versions of leading international channel brands such as Discovery Channel Russia, Eurosport Russia, National Geographic and Jetix.
 
The package also includes Viasat Broadcasting’s Viasat History, Viasat Explorer, TV1000 Russian Kino, TV1000 East and TV1000 Action East channels. Russian networks CTC, Domashny and DTV, which are operated by CTC Media, are also available on a free-to-air basis on the platform together with a number of other Russian free-TV channels. MTG owns 39.4 per cent of CTC Media, Inc.

The Raduga TV channel package is priced at approximately $10 per month on a three or six month pre-paid contract basis. The channels are encrypted with the Irdeto conditional access system and made available through the Asian Broadcasting Satellite ABS-1 (75° East) Northern Beam, which covers more than 90 per cent of the Russian Federation and is managed by Russian satellite operator GeoTelecommunicatons (GT). Subscriptions can be purchased from retailers across Russia.

The remaining 50 per cent interest in Raduga has been retained by Continental Media. The two owners will share management control of Raduga, which will be proportionately consolidated by MTG and reported in the Group’s ‘Pay-TV Emerging Markets’ business segment within the Viasat Broadcasting business area.
 
Viasat Broadcasting will now provide DTH satellite TV services in nine countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia – and distribute its Viasat branded channels via third party operators in 25 countries across Central and Eastern Europe and in the US. The nine platforms have over one million subscribers. The pay-TV channels had attracted over 39 million subscriptions.
MTG president and CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht says, “We are delighted to have forged this strong partnership to develop a competitive pay-TV distribution platform in Europe’s largest market by number of TV households. Our Viasat channels are already well known by subscribers across Russia. We are an integrated TV broadcaster, operating free and pay-TV businesses across multiple markets, and Russia is one of the most attractive pay-TV markets in the world
 

MUMBAI: Hathway Cable & Datacom has lined up five anchor investors who are putting in Rs 1.2 billion for 18 per cent of the IPO.
 
Copthall Mauritius Investment (a Goldman Sachs firm), Reliance Capital Trustee Co, Franklin Templeton, DSP BlackRock and Tree Line Asia Master Fund have come in as anchor investors at Rs 240 per share, the lower tip of the IPO price band.

India‘s most valued cable TV company plans to raise Rs 7.35 billion at the upper and Rs 6.66 billion at the lower price band.

Hathway‘s initial public offering opens for subscription on 9 February and closes on 11 February. The leading multi-system operator (MSO) will have a public issue of up to 27.75 million, consisting of a fresh issue of up to 20 million equity shares (Rs 10 each) and an offer for sale of 7.75 million.

MUMBAI: Nagravision, a Kudelski Group company, is partnering with Samsung Electronics America to provide TV applications that bring more interactive web services and video content to consumers.

As a result of the partnership with Nagravision, consumers will have access to more interactive and compelling applications on Samsung Apps, the world’s first HDTV-based application store where users can download and purchase applications from select 2010 Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray Players and Home Theater Systems via the upgraded Internet@TV – Content Service. 
Nagravision’s content publishing tools provide simple application templates for creating and publishing applications on Samsung Apps. 
 
Nagravision developed applications using the content publishing tools to deliver video content from Fashion TV and Travel Wizard. Both applications were demonstrated on Samsung’s latest HDTVs at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and they will be available on select Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and Home Theater Systems that feature the Internet@TV – Content Service later this year.
 

MUMBAI: The programming of ABC News from its platforms and shows will be featured on a branded page on Hulu, an online video service.

The site will feature short form news content and long form programming from morning to night — including Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, Nightline, This Week, 20/20 and Primetime limited series.
 
ABC News president David Westin says, “We’re happy to be able to provide our audience with another way to watch ABC News. We look forward to sharing our reporting with users on one of the top video destinations on the Internet.”

Select programming from ABC News Now (the network’s digital channel) including Top Line, a daily political programme hosted by ABC News’ Political Director David Chalian and senior political reporter and author of The Note, Rick Klein, will also be available on Hulu.

The channel will also feature ABC News Now‘s Good Morning America Health, which is a health and wellness programme, as well as ABC News Specials and content from the ABC News Archives.
 

MUMBAI: AOL has announced that David Eun will join the company as AOL Media and Studios president, effective 1 March.

As AOL’s chief content executive, Eun will be responsible for the company’s more than 80 content sites, its new SEED.com publishing platform, as well as the newly acquired StudioNow video platform and AOL’s NYC and LA studios.
 
Eun will report to AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong and will be based in New York. He succeeds AOL Media president Bill Wilson, who will transition out of the role after nine years with AOL.

Until 2006, Eun helped to oversee AOL as Vice President, Operations for the media and communications Group at Time Warner Inc. In that role, he helped provide operational oversight and develop new businesses, particularly in digital distribution and broadband content and services, for the company’s AOL, Time Warner Cable and Time, Inc. divisions. Eun joins AOL from Google, where as Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, he was responsible for managing global content partnerships with Google and YouTube. 
 
AOL is one of the largest producers of original content on the Web, with more than 80 official AOL and custom-built sites including more than 20 which rank in the top five in their US comScore Media Metrix category.

Approximately 80 per cent of AOL’s content is originally produced by a growing team of staff and freelance journalists, including nine Pulitzer Prize Winners. AOL also produces more than 50 original video productions a month.

Before joining Time Warner, Eun was a partner at Arts Alliance, a venture capital firm focusing on digital media, information technology and business services.

MUMBAI: Sports marketing agency Total Sports Asia (TSA) has entered into a partnership with the Dream Team TV (DTTV). The deal will offer sports fans in Asia a collection of adventure sports streamed on TSA‘s sports broadband channel – www.totalsports.tv.
 
Dreamteam Television director Ron Isles says, “Thanks to the online platform of Total Sports TV we are now able to take the exciting adventure events straight to viewers in Asia at any time. TSA provides an increase in exposure for events, participants and sponsors that will benefit everyone.”
 
TSA senior VP of media Julian Jackson adds, “We are delighted to have established a synergetic partnership with Dream Team TV for our online broadband channel. Our platform will serve as an effective discovery portal for Dream Team TV to build its brand online.”
 

MUMBAI: Facebook, one of the biggest social networking sites, has turned six. And the creative brains behind making it the preferred choice among the users, are celebrating the anniversary by giving the site a new feel and design.

The new design is to help users find what they are looking for more easily.
 
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in his blog, “We‘re celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be 400 million people on Facebook. Just one year ago we served less than half as many people, and thanks to you we‘ve made great progress over the last year towards making the world more open and connected.”

Incidentally, Facebook was launched six years ago as a product that Zuckerberg and his roommates built to help people around them connect easily, share information and understand one another better.

The company has been testing some new designs over the past few months to improve navigation.  
 
Facebook engineer Jing Chen said, “Today, we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook.”

“We hope the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications and activities that matter the most to you,” he added.

In the new design, notifications, requests and messages have been added to the top menu while the left-hand menu has been re-organised to communicate with ease and discover content from friends.

MUMBAI: Ben Silverman‘s newly formed multimedia company Electus, an operating business of IAC, and Shine International, the international distribution arm of Elisabeth Murdoch‘s Shine Group, have announced a partnership around the creation of Electus Distribution.

This is a new distribution entity that will handle worldwide sales for Electus‘ content, including television, motion picture and digital.
 
Electus Distribution will be run by Silverman and Shine International president Chris Grant and its operations will be based at Shine International.

Electus and Shine International management are currently identifying candidates to staff the division, reporting to Silverman and Grant. Electus is also increasing operations to handle the growing slate of programming within Electus and its content labels.

In addition to the international distribution partnership, Electus and Shine International will look to co-fund projects and third party production deals together.

Grant says, “It‘s a special thrill to collaborate with Ben, whose approach to international content has helped shape my vision of the distribution business, and whose pioneering work with international formats and shows has had a transformative effect on the TV landscape. We look forward to adding the tremendous range of content Ben will generate at Electus to our rapidly growing slate of international programming.”

Israel-based Abbot Reif Hameiri Production Company, is the first distribution partnership of Electus Distribution. Under the terms of the agreement, Electus Distribution will develop Abbot Reif Hameiri‘s Israeli programming in the United States across all platforms, including mobile, internet and TV. Likewise, Abbot Reif Hameiri has the opportunity to repurpose Electus‘ multi-platform content to sell to the Israeli marketplace.

Abbot Reif Hameiri Production Company CEO Guy Hameiri says, “This unique collaboration is the first of its kind in Israel, and provides an exceptional opportunity – both for talented artists and for our company. The industry in Israel is abundant with creative ideas that do not gain development and impact globally. Working with Electus will allow us to provide a proper platform for talented artists and strengthen our presence in the global content market.”

This alternative distribution model will be the first partnership of its kind to tap into the vast pool of content and talent in the Israeli market and to bring it to global audiences across all platforms. As one of its first projects, Electus has secured the rights to bring Cuckoo‘s Nest, an interactive game show on Facebook produced by Abbott Reif Hameiri Production Company in Israel, to the US.

Incorporating daily original live broadcasts from within Facebook, the next-generation format fuses a virtual home-based game with a real studio-based game and Electus will be the first studio to bring such an interactive format to the U.S.

Silverman says, “The content distribution business is evolving rapidly and I‘m thrilled to be partnering with my friends at Shine and working again with Chris Grant to build a next generation distribution company that taps into alternative models and new platforms. Chris is an innovator and leader with the best reputation in international distribution.  
 
Niret Alva, Founder and chief creative officer of Alva Brothers adds, “We cherish the same values of creativity, smart business and a passion for success. He is a great leader and attracts the best minds in the business.”