Category: Television

Bachchan to announce IIFA Weekend at House of Commons

MUMBAI: On Wednesday 8 November, the House of Commons will play host to the official announcement of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Weekend and the IDEA IIFA Awards in Yorkshire in June 2007.

IIFA’s Brand Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan will be speaking at the reception alongside dignitaries, including Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, Leader of the House, Jack Straw, and the High Commissioner of India to the UK, Kamlesh Sharma, to celebrate the return of the IIFA Weekend to the UK, informs an official release.

As the leading location for investment in Europe, dignitaries will be speaking about the economic benefit for both national and regional business partnerships with India. One of the key members of the Indian delegation is Sanjeev Aga, president of Birla Nuevo, one of India’s leading investors in Britain. Additionally, Judith Donovan, chairperson for the Yorkshire Tourism Board and Tom Riordan from Yorkshire Forward will be announcing details of IIFA Weekend and the anticipated impact for Yorkshire business and tourism, the release adds.

Speaking about the launch of the Idea IIFA Awards, Idea Cellular MD Sanjeev Aga says, “After the phenomenal success of the Idea IIFA Awards in Dubai, Idea is eagerly looking forward to the Idea IIFA Awards in Yorkshire. IIFA offers us the best platform to demonstrate the true essence of mobile and entertainment convergence. With IDEA IIFA, our privileged customer will have access to specially created merchandise, contests, video and MMS downloads and several other value added services. Only Idea can and will take you there.”

Bachchan, who was voted BBC’s Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 pushing behind Hollywood’s biggest stars and heartthrobs, will focus on the rising popularity of Indian cinema as a major global business, with an estimated global audience for the IIFA Awards in 2007 of over 480 million.

Now in its eighth year, the IIFA Weekend has previously visited Amsterdam, Dubai, Singapore, London, Malaysia and South Africa. As a direct consequence of the IIFA celebrations, tourism and business investment to each of these destinations has increased tremendously, making a major impact. Yorkshire was successful in its bid to attract the event organizers attention and the bid presentation was supported by prime minister Tony Blair.

The House of Commons launch event will be followed by a five-city launch the next day in the company of the Mayors of York, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford, who will flag off the IIFA Weekend announcement along with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. The five-city launch will be held at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT), Bradford.

Previous IIFA Weekend events have hosted popular celebrities including Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Shekhar Kapur, Ashok Amritraj, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bo Derek, Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan and others. IIFA Weekend celebrations, which were launched at the Millennium Dome in 2000, have travelled across South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Amsterdam and Dubai. IIFA Weekend Yorkshire marks the return of the celebration which has already become one of the world’s most-watched and sought after event.

November 8, 2006
John Dickie is BBC’s head of corporate affairs

MUMBAI: John Dickie has been appointed as UK pubcaster the BBC’s new head of corporate affairs.

Dickie, currently head of public affairs for the BBC and responsible for the organisation’s relationship with Parliament and politicians, will take on the new, broader role immediately, retaining the public affairs remit.

The appointment, working to the BBC’s Head of Communications Sally Osman, is part of the wider restructuring of the Marketing, Communications & Audiences division (MC&A). He will also take responsibility for all PR research, events and publications and manage a group of senior PR project managers.

Dickie has been a key member of the Charter Review team under the BBC’s Director of Strategy, Caroline Thomson, over recent years; and was involved in conveying the BBC’s position on the latest Communications Act.

A former public policy consultant with Prima and then GPC, Dickie, 41, was also Regulatory Affairs Director of the European Competitive Telecommunications Association.

Osman said, “We are nearing the end of the Charter Review and Licence Fee settlement process in which John and his team have played an integral role. The focus will soon shift to wider communications priorities through to 2012, strengthening relationships and shifting perceptions. John has great intuition, intelligence and ideas so I’m delighted he and his team are joining the Communications group.”

Dickie said, “I’m delighted to be have been given the opportunity by Sally to bring together the BBC’s public affairs and public relations teams. Working together, and with colleagues across the BBC, we will be showing how the BBC is delivering its public purposes under the new Charter.”

The four-strong Public Affairs team, which includes Andrew Scadding, a former BBC producer and ex-head of Broadcasting with the Conservative Party, will also move in to the communications team within the BBC’s MC&A division.

November 8, 2006
Horlicks Wiz Kids ’06 grand finale to kick off on 11 November

MUMBAI: The grand finale of the Horlicks Wiz Kids 2006 is set to kick off on 11 November in Bangalore, to form the Horlicks Wiz Team. This will follow from the National Finals to be held on 8 November.

The Wiz Team consisting of four students will be awarded an opportunity to visit Philippines on an educational-cultural exchange.

In its third year, the Horlicks Wiz Team ‘06 will be selected by a panel of judges at the grand finale. In Phillipines, the winners will interact with students of ‘Community of Learners‘ and ‘Center for Positive Futures‘ institute. They will visit the urban poor community and garbage dumpsite in Payatas, Quezon City and participate in cultural programmes with other students. The trip will also include sight-seeing to learn about the culture and historical places of Phillipines.

Preceeding the grand finale, during the National Finals students will go through a host of activities that are designed to assess them on their social and mental ability and overall personality. At Pegasus – an outbound learning institute and at the Ancient School of Wisdom, the students will undergo training activities, talent rounds, project presentations, psychometric tests and many other fun, learning and recreational activities, informs an official release.

Horlicks Wiz Kids 2006 at the city level is said to have reached out to four million students, with a participation of 170,000 students from 1141 school across India.

November 8, 2006
Horlicks Wiz Kids ’06 grand finale to kick off on 11 November

MUMBAI: The grand finale of the Horlicks Wiz Kids 2006 is set to kick off on 11 November in Bangalore, to form the Horlicks Wiz Team. This will follow from the National Finals to be held on 8 November.

The Wiz Team consisting of four students will be awarded an opportunity to visit Philippines on an educational-cultural exchange.

In its third year, the Horlicks Wiz Team ’06 will be selected by a panel of judges at the grand finale. In Phillipines, the winners will interact with students of ‘Community of Learners’ and ‘Center for Positive Futures’ institute. They will visit the urban poor community and garbage dumpsite in Payatas, Quezon City and participate in cultural programmes with other students. The trip will also include sight-seeing to learn about the culture and historical places of Phillipines.

Preceeding the grand finale, during the National Finals students will go through a host of activities that are designed to assess them on their social and mental ability and overall personality. At Pegasus – an outbound learning institute and at the Ancient School of Wisdom, the students will undergo training activities, talent rounds, project presentations, psychometric tests and many other fun, learning and recreational activities, informs an official release.

Horlicks Wiz Kids 2006 at the city level is said to have reached out to four million students, with a participation of 170,000 students from 1141 school across India.

November 8, 2006
Nimbus looks to push genre frontiers with Neo Sports Plus

MUMBAI: Your Gateway to the best sporting action! This is the tagline that Nimbus is using to push its second channel Neo Sports Plus. The channel, which Nimbus says is a sports entertainment offering, has launched today. Sister cricket channel Neo Sports had launched a month back.

Neo Sports Plus will offer content from a variety of sports like soccer, badminton, motorsports. As Nimbus chairman Harish Thawani says, “Some of the recent Indian sporting achievements have come from sports disciplines like golf, tennis and motor racing, to name a few. On the back of these developments we believe that there is potential in building sustained consumer interest in sports beyond cricket amongst Indians in the medium to long term through strategic content and marketing initiatives.”

On the soccer front Neo Sports Plus has acquired content from Italy, Germany, Brazil and Argentina through leagues like Bundesliga, Serie A, Copa Suda Americana and Copa Libertadores. In motorsports it has got V8 Supercars and Superbike World Championships. Additionally, the channel is also focussing on badminton through properties like the Sudirman Cup, The Thomas Cup, The Uber Cup and The World Badminton Championship. Thawani says that the sport, despite strong grassroots support in India, has not got the backing of a channel to realise its potential.

Neo Sports Broadcast CEO Shashi Kalathil says that the aim is to build up passion for different sports in the long run. It has sports entertainment concepts on the drawing board. Some shows have gone into production. The channel is looking at chat shows, reality shows, sports serials, game shows, quizzes etc.

Further Neo Sports Plus will also air India cricket in dubbed languages like Hindi. This initiative kicks off this month with the Duleep trophy. Kalathil says that search has been done into what kind of sports entertainment concepts the Indian viewer will like and dislike.

It has already come up with some entertainment shows. One of them is Unbreakable. This focusses on a memorable performance of a batsman or a bowler or a partnership that refused to buckle under pressure. Then there is Test of Strength. This is a daily show that focusses on India’s great cricketing moments. When India Beat looks at victories by the Indian cricket team. Neo Sports Rewind provides a crisp look at classic ODIs. Mission Impossible is a one hour show that looks at some of the finest cricket matches. The anchor takes viewers through the match and sees how an individual made the impossible possible.

November 8, 2006
WWE gets over 14 million votes online for pay per view event

MUMBAI: World wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has announced that its Cyber Sunday interactive pay-per-view sent fans into a record breaking voting frenzy.

About 2.5 million fans cast more than 14.6 million votes for interactive elements in the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view, more than twice as many votes as were cast for last year’s interactive pay-per-view, Taboo Tuesday. In India WWE airs on Ten Sports.
Voting during Cyber Sunday’s live broadcast last night got as high as 6,000 votes per minute during the three-hour pay-per-view. The free voting for Cyber Sunday ran from October 16 through the end of yesterday’s pay-per-view.

WWE senior VP interactive media Chris Chambers says, “The interest of our fans in deciding the various interactive elements of Cyber Sunday just blew us away.”

WWE.com last month increased monthly unique visitors to more than 17 million. WWE says that it continues to add daily new content and video for fans to view around the clock online.

November 8, 2006
News Corp launches MySpace in Japan

MUMBAI: US media conglomerate News Corp has launched a Japanese-language version of its social networking site (SNS) MySpace. This marks MySpace’s first Asian entry.

Media reports state that News Corp has formed a 50:50 JV with Softbank to operate the site. The venture will initially offer services for personal computers. Later, people will be able to use mobile phones to post photos, write Web logs and download music.

Partial services are available on a trial basis at jp.myspace.com.

Reports add that while it is hard to predict how things will unfold , other attempts by foreign SNS’ to break into the Japanese market have not fared well. Softbank is a broadband services provider in Japan and earlier this year paid $15.6 billion to acquire Vodaphone’s Japanese mobile phone service.

Existing social networking sites in Japan – including Softbank subsidiary Yahoo Japan – have about 10 million users. Softbank has a 41 per cent stake in Yahoo Japan.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son was quoted in reports saying that his company would guide the new venture so that it met the requirements of Japanese users, while News Corp, which invested in MySpace through its Fox Interactive Media subsidiary, would provide the ‘formula’ for operating the Web site.

November 8, 2006
All India Radio elected to ABU Administrative Council

MUMBAI: All India Radio has been elected as a Member of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, ABU’s Administrative Council. In the election held at the 43rd General Assembly of the ABU in Beijing, China, AIR was elected for a two year term on the 14 Member Administrative Council, which functions as the executive of the premier broadcasting union in the world.

AIR has also been appointed to the Policy & Strategy Group of ABU.

In another event at the on going ABU General Assembly, the Engineer-in-Chief of All India Radio, Mr A S Guin has been honoured with the ABU Broadcast Engineering Excellence Award for his outstanding contribution in the field of broadcast engineering in AIR and Doordarshan, the release adds.

Formed in 1964, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) is a non-profit, professional association of broadcasting organisations with more than 150 members from 55 countries of the Asia-Pacific region. It provides a platform for co-operation in the field of news and programme exchange, acquisition of broadcast rights, training and technical consultancy. Doordarshan and All India Radio are among the most active members of the ABU.

Brijeshwar Singh, CEO, Prasar Bharati and A S Guin, Engineer-in-Chief, All India Radio are representing AIR and Doordarshan at the Beijing General Assembly.

November 8, 2006
Rive Gauche TV to introduce specials at 2006 Asian TV forum

MUMBAI: Rive Gauche TV senior VP of sales Dorothy Crompton has announced that they will introduce their slate of series and special programming to Asian broadcasters at the 2006 Asia Television Forum in Singapore.

Rive Gauche Television is dedicated to the production, co-production, acquisition and worldwide distribution of television programming.
Entertainment and Reality series:

The Dog Whisperer (20 x 60′) is hosted by canine psychologist Cesar Millan, who has appeared on Oprah and the Late Show with David Letterman. Millan trains the dog owners to become the pack leader to resolve their pet’s behavioural issues.

The series follows Cesar as he visits client’s homes and works with the dogs and their distraught owners to solve even the thorniest behavior problems. Produced by MPH Entertainment, The Dog Whisperer is already sold in 14 territories including UBC (Thailand), BSkyB (UK), TVNZ (New Zealand), Channel Nine (Australia), TV2 (Denmark) and SBS6 (Netherlands), asserts an official release.

Beyond The Badge (10 x 60′) is all about thrilling video footages of catastrophic crashes, shootouts and attacks on officers which are captured from police car dashboard-mounted cameras, helicopters and news cameras. The series is a co-production between Matchlight Entertainment and Rive Gauche Television.

Wild Weddings 2 (13 x 60′) gives a sneak-peek into some hilarious and bizarre events selected from footage of countless weddings that happen every day around the world. For example a bride goes crazy at her own ceremony, attacks a guest and is whisked away in handcuffs by the cops instead of her groom; a groom gets too close to a candle and ignites his tuxedo. The series is produced by Steve Rotfeld Productions and is distributed by Rive Gauche Television.

Documentary Specials:

Dino Lab (1 x 60′) combines the latest scientific technology with a ratings-proven cast of living, breathing digital dinosaurs created by the same electronic animators who first brought the creatures to life in Dinosaur Planet for Discovery Channel.

A wide variety of prehistoric creatures are dropped into a modern, controlled laboratory setting where lab technicians attempt to test the creatures’ abilities with a number of laboratory experiments. Outside the lab, the technicians put the digital dinosaurs to “real-life” tests as they demonstrate their colossal size and strength.

Part Olympic trials facility, part obstacle course, the lab is designed to illustrate paleontologists’ latest insights about these creatures in a dramatic and highly entertaining way. Dino Lab is co-produced with Discovery USA, Discovery Canada, NHK Japan and Sky UK.

Anatomy of a Giant (1 x 60′) is a special that introduces viewers to 23-year old Sun Ming Ming, a young man from Northern China who hopes to parlay his tremendous size into a professional basketball career with the NBA. Towering over every other NBA player at 7′-9″ and 320 pounds, he is the second tallest man in the world, adds the release.

November 8, 2006
Fox to kick off sixth season of ‘American Idol’ in January

MUMBAI: US broadcaster Fox has announced that the sixth season of its music based reality show American Idol returns for its sixth season in a special two-night, four-hour season premiere on 16 January 2007.

In India the show will air on Star World.
The search for the next superstar began last summer, as the show travelled to several cities in the US. Over 100,000 people turned up at the auditions for the sixth season.

The show’s host Ryan Seacrest is back, and judges Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson return to lend their professional expertise, personal comments and sometimes tough criticism to a new crop of aspiring singers. Some will get the judges approval and others will hear the cold, hard truth!

Guest judges Olivia Newton John, Carol Bayer Sager and Jewel also joined the road trip this season. Viewers will find out what these celebrity judges had to say about the talent around the country and who gets the gold ticket to Hollywood.
Last year’s season culminated in the crowning of Taylor Hicks as the fifth American Idol. Hicks joined previous winners Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia and Carrie Underwood as holders of the coveted title. In total, American Idol artists have sold 10 million singles and 23 million albums since the show first aired in 2002. Now the stage is set to turn a sixth singer’s dream into reality.

November 8, 2006