Category: Software

MUMBAI: Online video platform Brightcove has announced a series of major new customers on its platform in Japan including Rakuten, Tokyo Metropolitan Television Broadcasting, Television Osaka, Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting and Aniplex.

The recent release of a fully-localised Brightcove platform has fuelled growth for the company in the market and has accelerated adoption amongst Japan‘s brand marketers and media companies.

Said Brightcove chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire, “We continue to accelerate our rapid global expansion and our success and broad adoption in Japan is a major driving force to that growth. We‘ve seen strong customer traction in Japan since the launch of Brightcove KK last year, and the recent introduction of our fully-localized online video platform has enabled more leading organizations to take advantage of the dynamic features and functionality that Brightcove offers.”

Rakuten is an e-commerce website operator in Japan with more than 50 million registered users. The site serves as a platform for merchants to sell their products online and is among the top ten largest Internet companies in the world.

Using the Brightcove platform,the company recently launched a video section on their site to complement existing content and to drive purchases through increased user engagement with their online shopping mall property.

The features of the Brightcove platform enable Rakuten to publish and distribute video content to foster a more interactive purchasing experience for visitors.

Additionally, Rakuten is pioneering an innovative new use case in the Japanese market, as online merchants are able to upload user-generated content through the Brightcove platform and add it to their online presence on the Rakuten site.

Rakuten also operates on online DVD rental site at which trailers for campaigns and new releases are delivered by Brightcove.

Many of Japan‘s television broadcasters have recently selected the Brightcove platform to streamline their online video operations, expand their online audience and introduce new monetisation opportunities.

Tokyo Metropolitan Television (Tokyo MX), the only commercial television station in Tokyo that exclusively serves the city, is using the Brightcove platform to drive traffic through engaging online video programming that is accessible throughout Japan, including recent video coverage of the Tokyo election and high school baseball championships.

Additionally, Brightcove is enabling Television Osaka and Shizuoka Asahi Television, two of Japan‘s largest regional broadcasters, to manage their online video content more efficiently and to easily publish new content that is synchronized with aired programs in an effort to drive online viewership.

Brightcove‘s first major customer in Japan, PresentCast is also continuing to roll out the Brightcove platform to additional Web properties. In conjunction with Tokyo Broadcasting System, PresentCast recently distributed full-screen, broadcast-quality video highlights from the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics held in Berlin this year.

MUMBAI: The latest Nielsen‘s Three Screen report has revealed that DVR usage has also gone up by 21.1 per cent since Q3 2008. It also said that 99 per cent of video content in the US is viewed on traditional TV, while online video usage has surged by 34.9 per cent.

Said Nielsen director of cross-platform insights Nic Covey, “Americans today have an insatiable appetite for not only content, but also choice. Across all age groups, we see consumers adding the Internet and mobile devices to their media diet-consuming media anytime and anywhere possible.”

In the third quarter of this year, the average American spent 31 hours watching television each week with 31 minutes spent on DVR viewing. An additional 4 hours per week is spent on the internet and 22 minutes is spent watching online video.

Mobile video usage stood at 3 minutes per week. The 65-plus viewers spend most of their time on traditional TV, with more than 43 hours.

The mobile video usage time is highest among teens 12 to 17: 13 minutes, well ahead of the 5 minutes spent with mobile video by the 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 groups.

The highest DVR usage, meanwhile, comes from the 25 to 34 demo (56 minutes), followed by the 35 to 44 group (52 minutes). The 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 age groups both spend an average of 35 minutes per week with online video, with the 35 to 44 set spending 33 minutes and the 45 to 54 set spending 30 minutes.

BANGALORE: Dish TV has launched two special packages for South Indian consumers, hoping to mop up 70,000 subscribers through these offers.

Available till 15 January, the ‘Happy Home Silver Plus‘ pack is for Rs 1690. Under this scheme, subscribers need to pay a monthly subscription charge of Rs 125 (plus taxes) after five months.

Dish said Wednesday the ‘Happy Home Silver Plus‘ pack is cutomised to offer best in all genres of entertainment such as general entertainment in south regional languages, sports, business, news, movies and break free cinema.

The ‘Set Top Box Free‘ pack, on the other hand, is available on an annual subscription of Rs 1990. The offer, valid till 15 January, is targeted towards high-end platinum plus viewers and includes the Platinum Pack + Colors + UTV pack worth Rs 1189 and latest movies on demand worth Rs 801.

“We found these offers quite successful in Andhra Pradesh. The current offer is quite similar, except that we have done some tweaking to suit the different viewership tastes in each of the four southern states,” said Dish TV deputy VP Ravi Chandra Macheria.

In the four southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Sun Direct is the leading DTH service provider with the maximum number of subscribers.

Recently, Dish TV changed its brand positioning and launched a new TVC with brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan. The company said it has earmarked Rs 300 million towards media spends for the new campaign, which started on 6 December.

MUMBAI: HCL Technologies Ltd (HCL), the IT services provider, has entered into a five-year agreement with News Corp’s UK subsidiary News International, to optimize its technology cost.

As a part of the deal, HCL will manage News International‘s datacenter and network environments. News International produces newspapers including The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times and News of the World.

HCL will also be responsible for transforming the datacenters. This will involve transformation projects such as migrating operating systems to lower cost solutions.

“The focus within News International on reducing operational costs and increasing technology process standardization requires a flexible, on-tap technology organization with a global presence and the best global technology partnerships,” says News international director of technology services Nick Leake. “This engagement will provide News International with reduced costs, an improved end user experience, more resilient systems and reduced technology complexity.”

Added HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division SVP & worldwide head of sales for infrastructure management & transformation services Pradeep Bindal, “We are confident of providing efficient operations, reduction in ongoing opex and capex and IT operations best practices to News International over the tenure of this engagement.”

HCL also said that it is already working with other News Corporation companies for their technology infrastructure management requirements.

HCL has recently announced engagements with Reader‘s Digest and Viacom Inc.

MUMBAI: Clearing the decks for its launch in the UK, Colors has acquired the Sky Digital EPG slot from INX Media’s soon to close channel 9XM.

The Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) from the Viacom18 stable is planning to launch in US and UK simultaneously. For US, Viacom18 has announced that it will be on Dish Network, with a new name “Aapka Colors”, while in UK Colors will replace 9XM on Sky EPG 829.

Confirming to Indiantelevision.com, INX Media group director – distribution Arun Mohan said, “Colors has bought our EPG slot. We are already in process of ceasing our operations in the UK market and hopefully by the end of this month, we will stop beaming.”

Mohan further added that INX Media was trying to close all issues concerning 9XM UK by the end of this month. Also he confirmed that Colors had only bought the Sky Digital EPG slot. INX Media will surrender the Freesat slot and return it back to BSkyB.

Indiantelevision.com had earlier reported that 9XM, the hybrid music and entertainment channel created for the UK market, would be ceasing operations by the end of the year.

Colors is targeting to launch in both the markets in January-February. For the UK audience, Colors will be available through the Multi Screen Media’s bouquet – Viewasia.

Also Read:

Colors to be on Dish Network in US 

Colors beefs up movie library ahead of US, UK launch

9XM to cease operations in UK

MUMBAI: Group Abril has acquired the remaining 30 per cent of Viacom‘s interest in MTV Brazil, expanding its abilities to exploit the brand across TV, online, mobile, radio, licensing and other platforms.

With the new deal, the MTV Brazil joint venture between Group Abril and Viacom has been dissolved.

According to Grupo TV general director André Mantovani, the new structure will enable the expansion of MTV Brazil. “With the exclusive license to use the brand, we have complete autonomy in all businesses. This will allow us to launch other initiatives, even on media platforms that we don‘t currently service,” he commented.

MTV Networks Latin America managing director Sofia Loannou added, “Moving from a minority-owned joint venture to a licensing agreement is in line with our international strategy for growth where our brands can be maximized in key markets, such as Brazil.”

MUMBAI: Developed and hosted by YouTube, Sony and Google, online music video site Vevo is set to launch today as both a website and an embedded video player that will replace Universal, Sony and EMI videos now available on Google Inc.‘s video site YouTube.

With content being initially provided by Universal Music Group, the website will feature artistes under EMI Group PLC that comprises crooners like Norah Jones, Coldplay and Katy Perry.

EMI‘s videos on Vevo will join content from Universal Music Group that holds the largest stake in the new venture. However, EMI will not take a stake in the company.

Sony Music Entertainment is also an equity partner along with Abu Dhabi Media Co, an arm of the Abu Dhabi government.

The Vevo website and player will also have links to allow viewers to buy songs from Amazon.com or Apple Inc.‘s iTunes. Links to artiste merchandise will point to Bravado, Universal‘s online retailing company.

Vevo has hired its own ad sales team that is led by CEO Rio Caraeff, a Universal digital strategy executive.

About 20 advertisers have signed on, including McDonald‘s Corp., MasterCard Inc., Unilever PLC and Nissan Motor Co.‘s Infiniti brand of luxury cars among others

As current licensing deals expire, throughout the next year, Vevo‘s player will gradually replace online videos that are on artiste websites and other online destinations such as AOL.

The recording companies, led by Universal, a unit of France‘s Vivendi SA, are seeking to gain a greater share of advertising revenue from music videos than is currently generated on sites such as YouTube.

Discussions are underway with Warner Music Group Corp., the only major recording company not yet involved with Vevo.

Music videos are headed to an online music video venture, Vevo, set to launch Tuesday with a gala in New York.

Faced with declining sales of compact discs, recording companies are experimenting with new ways of distributing their music online through ventures such as Vevo. It will show videos for free, supported by ads.
Such deals are not exclusive, however. Last month, EMI became the only major recording company to put its music videos on Hulu, which primarily carries television shows and movies.

They also seek to separate professionally produced content from the user-generated fare on YouTube, while better matching advertisers with a youthful demographic.

YouTube will receive a fee for providing Vevo with technology, but will not share in advertising revenue.

MUMBAI: Reliance ADAG’s direct-to-home (DTH) company Big TV has announced the availability of Gujarati content on its pay-per-view channel.

Starting 9 December, as part of the introduction of Gujarati content, Big TV will premiere the Gujarati film Dholi Taaro Dhol Waage on its PPV channel for a period of one month. Customers can watch the film for Rs 50.

Big TV is introducing Gujarati content to drive revenue growth in Gujarati speaking centres of Mumbai and Gujarat state.

Says Big TV SVP Umesh Rao, “The introduction of Gujarati content is in line with our overall plans to enhance regional content bouquet on our PPV platform. We will offer regional movies, plays and other niche content to cater to the needs of our discerning subscribers. Whilst our core strategy retains focus on pan-India offerings, we are building stronger capabilities in executing regional programs as well.”

Dholi Taaro… is a saga of passion for dhol (a percussion musical instrument) and love. The film has Upendrabhai Trivedi and Naresh Kanodia, two popular faces in Gujarati cinema, coming together for the first time on screen.

The story revolves around Raju, a dhol player from lower strata of the society, who meets daughter of a prosperous Thakur. They face opposition on grounds of tradition and social status.

MUMBAI: Brian Sullivan will assume the post of CEO of German pay-TV platform Sky Deutschland with effect from 1 April 2010.

Sullivan will replace Mark Williams who will relinquish office at the end of March.

Sullivan who is currently the managing director of the customer group at BSkyB will assume the coveted post in the beginning of 2010 and will work along with Williams for three months.

Talking about the change in leadership, Sky Deutschland chairman of Supervisory Board Markus Tellenbach said, “Mark Williams has made an enormous contribution to Sky in a short period of time. He joined in extraordinary circumstances and moved quickly to stabilize the business, closing the security gap, recapitalizing the company, securing new Bundesliga rights and launching the new pay TV service Sky-all in little over a year.”

MUMBAI: MTV has unveilled its new multi-year initiative, A Thin Line.

This is to empower America‘s youth to identify, respond to and stop the spread of digital abuse. Digital abuse is an emerging issue that includes behaviours like “sexting,” cyberbullying and digital dating abuse.

According to a new study released by MTV and The Associated Press exploring the full scope of digital abuse, 50 per cent of those between 14 and 24 year olds have been the target of some form of digital abuse of which 30 per cent have sent or received nude photos of other young people on their cell phones or online.

A Thin Line will address digital abuse issues through a series of on-air, online and real world initiatives including integration in MTV‘s top-rated programming, a MTV News special focused on Sexting, True Life: I have Digital Drama, thought-provoking PSAs, innovative online and mobile tools and the Redraw the Line Challenge — which calls on young people to submit innovative digital antidotes to digital abuse.

MTV has also launched www.ATHINLINE.org where young people can access information, resources and support on issues related to digital abuse.

Comments MTV GM Stephen Friedman, “Our audience lives online, and while every generation deals with their own set of abuse issues, the digital sphere exponentially increases opportunities for misuse.

“There is a very thin line between private and public, this moment and forever, love and abuse, and words and wounds. A Thin Line is built to empower our audience to draw their own line between digital use and digital abuse. “

MTV‘s partners on A Thin Line include a coalition of the foremost authorities on all facets of digital abuse, including Facebook, MySpace, The Family Violence Prevention Fund, WiredSafety, Anti-Defamation League, Blue Shield of California Foundation, loveisrespect.org, The National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, National Network to End Domestic Violence, The Liz Claiborne Inc., DoSomething.org, Break the Cycle, Ruder Finn, Teenangels and PBS‘ FRONTLINE.

A Thin Line kicked off in tandem with Liz Claiborne Inc.‘s It‘s Time To Talk Day, an annual day dedicated to ensuring that Americans speak-up and raise national attention around domestic violence including teen dating violence and intimate partner abuse.