Category: Software

Through the partnership, Fox News will provide international news content ranging from entertainment, politics, business, world, health and sports for Plus.

For further expansion into the Indian market, Fox News Channel has also tied up with direct-to-home service provider Tata Sky. The channel is currently awaiting regulatory approval.

Fox News Head of International Affairs Vipp Jaiswal said, “This is the first time that we are entering the Indian market through the mobile portal Plus. We will soon be available via mobile in other parts of Asia like Singapore, Hong Kong.”

On Plus, Fox News will provide news based content including headlines, which will link out to full text articles for users to browse.

Plus will be a gateway to the Fox News wap site, www.foxnews.mobi and Fox Business News wapsite m.foxbusiness.com, through which users can access multi-genre international news.

Jaiswal further says that soon Fox will be providing audio and video news clippings for the mobile portal.

However currently Plus offers only 30 seconds of mobisodes of the daily soaps. Mobisodes are customised mobile episodes of Star‘s entertainment channels available on Plus.

Narang‘s appointment is effective from 20 December. In this position, he will lead BT Global Services‘ strategy, growing BT‘s presence and spearheading services in India. He will report to BT Asia Pacific president Allen Ma and become a core member of the Asia Pacific regional executive team.

Allen Ma said on the appointment, “Sudhir‘s appointment demonstrates BT‘s ongoing commitment to meeting the challenges of our customers. His strong industry experience, along with his deep knowledge of Indian customers, will greatly assist our operations in India.”

BT is a provider of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include networked IT services; local, national and international telecommunications services; higher-value broadband and Internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services.

According to the report by Ernst & Young for Assocham, titled “India‘s Digital Revolution: Impact on Film and Television Sectors.” the Indian cable market is growing at a phenomenal rate of CAGR of 38 per cent for the past 17 years.

Changes in consumption habits, coupled with regulatory pressures, have propelled India to start migrating to digital platforms, the report said, and emphasised that the growth area lies in going regional.

The study says that as Indian consumers become frequent users of digital platforms, media and entertainment business models are undergoing seismic shifts, changing the traditional dynamics of the Indian television and film industry.

Digitisation of both content and delivery platforms, in the audio visual entertainment space is leading to increasing reach to wider audiences within shorter span of time.

According to Farokh Balsara, national sector Leader, media & entertainment, Ernst & Young, “The pay TV market in India has not been able to maximise its revenues due to restrictive regulations, an unorganised value chain and lack of addressability in the analogue platform.

“However, now with digitisation of the platforms more value will be created for each player across the value chain and the revenue shares will get redistributed amongst key stake holders creating a win-win situation for all.”

DTH TO EMERGE DIGITAL PLATFORM LEADER BY 2010

Balsara predicts that DTH will emerge as the leader amongst the three platforms i.e. DTH, digital cable and IPTV, within next three years due to its ready to roll-out infrastructure, wider reach across the country with lower incremental infrastructure costs.

The report says that by 2010, in the digital cable scenario, from a current share of 78 per cent for Local Cable Operator (LCO), five per cent for Multi System Operator (MSO) and 17 per cent for the broadcasters, it is expected that the share would be redistributed and stabilise at 54 per cent for the LCO and 23 per cent for the MSO and broadcasters, each.

In the DTH scenario, while the industry is still at a very nascent stage Assocham expects the revenue share to stabilise in the range of 60-70 per cent in favour of the DTH operator.

Wider access to Internet and change in consumer behaviour – with the latter migrating fast towards interactive platforms, will force the marketers also rethinking their strategy in terms of spending spots.

Earnst & Young estimates that though currently the online advertising revenue contributes a meager Rs 3.5 billion to a total of Rs 220 billion advertising market in India, advertising in the digital era is revolutionising the way brands connect with its consumers.

“To connect with these consumers, marketers are being forced to look beyond the traditional mass advertising model of 10-second spots and adopt interactive mechanisms to engage with them,” the report says.

According to the study, currently in India 70 to 80 per cent of the broadcasters‘ revenues is ad-driven, but with DTH spreading, a balance between ad sales and subscription revenue would come about and reach a 50:50 ratio.

Currently, 43 per cent of the media budgets are spent towards television. Over the next three years television advertising market is expected to grow at the rate of 14 per cent year on year and will continue to maintain its market share in the total advertising pie.

The report says that in spite of the growing online advertising revenues, the share of television is expected to continue to grow within the next three years.

Balsara said: “With decreasing cost of content and delivery we will see a rise of niche content and special programming. With increased options, consumers will tend to get more fragmented and less loyal to a particular channel.

“To capture these fragmented audiences, we believe that broadcasters will increase their bouquet of offerings which in turn will lead to a new breed of television advertisers thereby making up the share of television.”

In the film segment, digitisation of the distribution business will bring down costs significantly.

This will allow filmmakers to reach out to wider theatrical markets, achieving more than 10 times the existing reach, on day one, thus maximizing film revenues within a short span of time.

The report says that this will further significantly reduce the release window for each platform and unlock value from ancillary revenues like home entertainment rights which are currently under-utilised due to an extended theatrical window.
He added: “We expect the home entertainment to constitute about 25 per cent of a film‘s revenue share within next 3 years from a current share of five per cent.

“This will be primarily attributed to increasing collapsing release windows, higher penetration of digital video players (DVD players), reducing prices of original DVDs and clamp down on optical disc and cable piracy.”

The report also says that the growing telecom and internet density along with superior bandwidth availability is expected to increase consumption of entertainment content across these platforms over the next three years.

The mobile VAS revenues are estimated to grow to Rs 4,600 crore by the end of the year, while the revenue share of digital music downloads was Rs 1,000 crore at the end of 2006 and is consistently increasing.

For the first time the music industry has seen more digital sales than physical sales, especially through ringtones.

The mobile music sales, mainly from caller ring back tones, ring tunes and full music clips, which are currently at 56 per cent, are expected to account for 88 per cent of the Rs. 4,200 crore total music market in the country within two years.

On the other hand currently at Rs 350 crore, internet advertising is set to grow at 150 per cent over the next three years as more advertisers opt for it over magazines and classified newspaper advertising.

Influence of digital revolution is profound.

However it is not uniform across the value chain, the report says.

Balsara added “Companies have to gear up for this digital revolution with appropriate infrastructure, business models, financial considerations and type of technologies used.”

-verse TV now will offer in HD Animal Planet, CNN, Discovery, Science Channel, Starz Kids and Family, Superstation WGN, TLC, Versus and Golf Channel.

AT&T U-verse TV subscribers with the HD service option will now have access to more than 40 HD channels.

This HD service is available for $10 a month with any U-verse TV programming package. All U-verse TV packages include HD-ready equipment, and most include an HD-capable digital video recorders (DVR).

“We know that consumers are craving more and more HD content, and our AT&T U-verse TV HD lineup will keep expanding to meet their needs,” said AT&T Entertainment Services‘ head of content and programming Dan York.

AT&T U-verse is the brand name for a group of services provided over Internet protocol (IP), including television service, Internet access and eventually voice telephone service.

Ninety per cent of European broadband users expressed an interest in a connected life service – anytime, anywhere access to all household digital media content – compared to only 77 per cent in the US.

Furthermore, 42 per cent are willing to spend €3.5 per month to enable easy management of and access to their household digital content; yet they struggle to find the right innovative solution that is simple, quick to install and highly secure.

This was part of the findings from the Cisco IBSG Connected Consumer study for Western Europe. To conduct the study, researchers selected a hypothetical service as part of a broader connected life service offering and then canvassed the views of 1,500 broadband users across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The connected life service would enable the storage, management and use of all of a household’s digital media and content via any device, and at any time or place. The suggested household content includes TV, films, the household calendar and address book, digital photos, video clips and music.

While the concept of ubiquitous connectivity has been discussed for more than a decade, the study shows that the cumulative impact of technology over this time has created a change in consumer behaviour that has primed the market for today.

Not only do nearly 90 per cent of broadband consumers enjoy technology, investing in various devices such as mobile phones, personal computers and MP3 players, but 43 per cent credit this technology with giving them the freedom to live their life the way they want to, and 52 per cent believe technology helps them to be more productive and organised.

With the average respondent spending more than four hours each day on the go, away from work or home, the ability to communicate with others, enjoy digital entertainment, and access electronically stored information is highly valued. Collaboration anytime, anywhere is essential with 56 per cent of respondents indicating that they want to stay connected to family and friends at all times and 78 per cent of the respondents checking their e-mail wherever possible.

Cisco IBSG MD service provider Simon Aspinall says, “It is clear that European consumers are changing the way they live and play. They are carrying laptops, PDAs and mobile phones as productivity tools and MP3 players for listening to music, whilst using wireless networks to stay connected.

“Europeans are also adopting these advanced technologies and new media applications even faster than US consumers. As Web 2.0 offers more open and collaborative technologies, the demand from European consumers for ground- breaking connected solutions has now reached a critical mass”

From the research, behavioural change with end users includes an increased reliance on the Internet for video entertainment purposes, with the average Western European broadband consumer now spending an average of 21 hours a week on the Internet, as compared to only 11 hours a week watching television, and 69 per cent downloading or watching a video from the Internet in the last month.

Today, watching video is typically a home-based experience, even in the case of Internet video, but the study shows growing evidence for video-on-the-go. In fact, nearly 12 per cent of broadband consumers view television and video whenever and wherever possible, and 23 per cent chose video as the content they most want to access whilst away from home.

Video is on the cusp of becoming more important, and people are going to invent new ways of using, editing, interacting, and even collaborating with it. As all content effectively becomes available and manageable via multiple devices using the network, they will also expect a truly connected solution, where everything successfully ‘talks’ to each other. Consumers are ready for this enhanced way of distributing, viewing and collaborating with video.

Other key findings in the research provide a valuable snapshot of the current technology and lifestyle habits of Western European broadband subscribers:

* Most are also willing to be exposed to advertising in return for access to free connected life services. When different fee-based and advertising-based pricing models were tested at various price points, more than 70 per cent of those interested in subscribing said they would receive advertising to defray the monthly cost.

* In addition, 32 per cent share pictures or videos from their mobile phone, 27 per cent access the Internet from their mobile phone, 41 per cent listen to music online, and 32 per cent write or post content to blogs or other community sites.

It will feature video clips from channels such as Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, CMT and Logo.

With this agreement, the Viacom division joins the four major broadcast networks on the Time Warner-owned portal, all of which have struck deals with the site.

The clippings of shows include Comedy Central‘s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report; MTV‘s The Hills and My Super Sweet 16; Nickelodeon‘s iCarly and The Naked Brothers Band; and VH1‘s I Love New York and Best Week Ever.

Content from AtomFilms and GameTrailers, two online properties owned by MTVN, will also be available on AOL.

“We have decided to move the court,” a senior executive of a broadcasting company said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has not taken any action yet against the broadcasters.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), in its last hearing of the case on 11 December, turned down the plea of the broadcasters that Trai may be refrained from taking punitive action. The Trai counsel had said it would by all means take action.

According to the Tariff Order set by Trai for non-cas areas, all broadcasters must declare their channel prices ? la carte to multi-system operators (MSOs). Broadcasters should file a compliance report with Trai by 7 December, a deadline which has lapsed and on which the sector tribunal has refused to grant any relief.

So far, officially only five broadcasters have filed their compliance report with Trai, officials stated. But due to procedural delay and also the fact that Trai chairperson had not been in town, no punitive action has been taken so far.

Trai officials said today that action will be taken, without specifying any date, and added that the names of those five broadcasters who have filed their compliances, along with the rates they have offered, will be put up on the Trai website within a week.

“A process is being followed by the Authority, and we will put up their names and the prices they have offered for their individual channels on our website, but it will take a week,” the official said.

After the TDSAT refused to grant a stay on the implementation of the Order of 4 October 2007, broadcasters have been taking time to decide what course of action they should take and been in discussions with their legal teams.

The new feature will enable users to view the classified listings, post a classified ad and access them through their mobile handsets. This service also enables users to receive responses for their classified advertisements through short messaging service (SMS).

“India is emerging as a forerunner in using the cell phone as a tool to access the Internet. Classified ads on the mobile phones offer an instant, inexpensive and user-friendly medium available 24×7,” said Sulekha.com founder and CEO Satya Prabhakar.

“Sulekha.com‘s classifieds on mobile is another step closer to mobile and Internet convergence,” Prabhakar added.

The website can be navigated through any WAP enabled mobile phone at regular GPRS charges.

imeem is the first social networking company to offer full-length streaming access to the entire music and video catalogs of all four major music companies on an advertising-supported basis.

“imeem has developed an way to make our artists‘ music a central part of the social networking experience. More importantly, they are working with UMG to provide an musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works, ” said UMG chairman and CEO Doug Morris.

imeem founder and CEO Dalton Caldwell said, “Our agreement with UMG will make imeem‘s media-centric experience even more compelling and firmly establishes our position as the leading social media network.”

UMG‘s digital catalog includes artists such as Kanye West, Amy Winehouse, Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, The Pussycat Dolls, Gwen Stefani, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Maroon 5 and Nelly among others.

Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe and Asia of the last three years were eligible for this award. According to a Gameshastra release, the Red Herring editorial team used a very competitive process to whittle down this pool of 1800 eligible promising companies to the 100 winners of this first-time award. Evaluations were made on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and ecosystem integration.

“Winning the prestigious Red Herring “Asia 100” followed by “Global 100″ award in quick succession is truly gratifying”, said Gameshastra CEO Prakash Ahuja who attributes this recognition to Gameshastra‘s ability to attract the best talents with outstanding ability, experience and the accompanying knowledge that ensure delivery of high-quality game development services for its clients world-wide.

Gameshastra has been involved in game testing and related services for publishers and development houses globally.