ITV

Category: Television

  • Communications network Avaya does the job for Fifa

    Communications network Avaya does the job for Fifa

    MUMBAI: Avaya was the official convergence Communication provider for the recently concluded 2006 Fifa World Cup. For 32 days, the network handled a huge amount of voice and data traffic — including players’ and journalists’ accreditations, photo transmissions and match details sent around the world in real time.

    The network had become operational on 15 May and carried over 21 trillion bytes of data and achieved 99.999 per cent availability without a single major outage and free of errors.

    Avaya states that a total of 21,126 terabytes of voice and data traffic was transferred over the network between 15 May and 10 July. During that time, people have logged on to the converged communications network approximately 642,538 times and made 364,395 phone calls on the network, which represents 789,810 minutes of calling time.

    On the day of the Final between France and Italy, 111,150 megabytes of data traffic traveled over the network, 55,037 people logged on to the converged network, and 3,456 phone calls were made, representing 6,217 minutes of calling time.

    The converged network, which combined voice and data on the same infrastructure, connected the 12 host stadiums, the stadium media centers, and the Fifa headquarters in Berlin. Players, coaches, volunteers and fans alike benefited from the network that was used to issue accreditations for players and journalists, report results, track materials and inventory, confirm accommodations at Fifa’s official hotels and maintain security systems.

    Avaya FIFA World Cup programme director Andrea Rinnerberger says, “For a highly visible event such as the Fifa World Cup, it was absolutely critical for the network to work without any downtime director of the. In a very real way, the network’s excellent performance contributed to the event’s smooth operations.

    “Journalists and photographers who needed to file quickly connected to the internet directly from the field and sent photos and stories via an Avaya wireless LAN network. 32 teams, and tens of thousands of Fifa executives and employees, officials and visiting dignitaries all depended on the transportation and protocol application to get to hotels, cars, trains and airports.”

  • Zee Sports to showcase Fed Cup action in September

    Zee Sports to showcase Fed Cup action in September

    MUMBAI: Zee Sports will air the semi finals of the women team tennis event Fed Cup live from 15 to 16 September 2006.

    In the first semi final, Spain will take on Italy. In the second semi final, Belgium will clash with USA for top honours.

    In the first semi final, Spain will take on Italy. This is the fourth contest between the two nations, with the countries tied with two wins each. The last time they met was at the round robin stage of the World Group in 2000 where Spain defeated Italy 3-0, and subsequently went on to reach the final.

    The line up of the Spanish team includes Anabel Medina Garrigues,Virginia Ruano Pascual, Lourdes Dominguez-Lino, Maria Sanchez Lorenzo with Miguel Margets as captain. The Italian team will be led by Corrado Barazzutti. Other players of the team are Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Mara Santangelo and Romina Oprandi.

    In the second semi final, Belgium will clash with the US. This is the fourth meeting between the two nations. America enjoys a 4-0 lead. The last time they met was in the 2005 opening round in Delray Beach, Florida, where USA easily overcame an injury-hit Belgium 5-0.

    The line up for Belgium includes Kim Clijsters, Leslie Butkiewicz, Kirsten Flipkens and Caroline Maes. America’s team will consist of Jill Craybas, Jamea Jackson, Vania King and Mashona Washington.

  • Star World looks to tantalise viewers with Criss Angel’s freaky illusion

    Star World looks to tantalise viewers with Criss Angel’s freaky illusion

    MUMBAI: In a bid to add further excitement to its programming lineup, English general entertainment channel Star World will air the show Criss Angel: Mindfreak every Tuesday at 8 30 pm from 18 July.

    From levitating ordinary American citizens, to literally dangling by his skin from a helicopter one thousand feet above the Valley of Fire in Las Vegas, magician Criss Angel brings his talents to the streets of America, live, unstaged and without the use of any camera tricks.

    Each episode captures the creative genius at work, preparing and training for his often death-defying feats. The 16 episodes will have several elements – reality, focusing on Angel’s street demonstrations and the way people are mentally affected; surreality, a look into Angel’s mind’s eye as he contemplates his upcoming feats; and behind-the-scene glimpses – a candid and captivating look into the trials and tribulations that Criss and his team face from the moment he conceives of impossible, death-defying stunts to the actual performances of those stunts.

    In the first episode, Criss Angel takes on levitation. He executes maneuvers, such as levitating up an escalator while not touching any part of it, and grabbing people off the street and completely levitating them off the ground. The other mind-blowing demonstrations this season include Burned Alive, Bullet Catch (which will have Angel catching a bullet in a cup held by his mouth), and Body Suspension (featuring Angel suspended from a helicopter by four fish hooks through his skin while being flown over the Nevada desert).

    Special celebrity guests, such as rock group Korn’s Jonathan Davis (who also co-produced the show’s theme music), Rob Zombie, Amazing Jonathan, Mandy Moore, Penn & Teller and Lance Burton will take part in the series.

    In the US, A&E Network will pick up the show for a third season.

  • Lifeline KBC2: Star holds on with re-runs

    Lifeline KBC2: Star holds on with re-runs

    MUMBAI: It is official now. Star Plus is not discontinuing Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 (KBC2) even though it has exhausted its fresh bank of episodes. Instead, the channel will telecast re-runs of KBC2, starting 20 February on Fridays and Saturdays.

    “We are not winding up KBC2. We are expecting the show to make a come back with fresh episodes by March. To fill the void, we will air re-edited versions of some of the interesting KBC2 episodes for the next four weeks,” Star India EVP marketing Ajay Vidyasagar told indiantelevision.com.

    However, Vidyasagar refused to give any timeframe on Bachchan’s re-appearance to shoot for KBC2.

    “You gotta wait for me”
    As reported earlier, Star Plus aired the 61st episode of KBC2, the last fresh episode in its hold, on 13 January. Anchor Amitabh Bachchan, originally committed to shoot 85 episodes, was unable to continue shooting after his recent illness. Reportedly, Bachchan is expected to resume shooting for the remaining 24 episodes next month.

    Vidyasagar feels that, such a break (of fresh episodes) will be good for the show’s popularity. “It will create a lot of expectations across the nation. Hence, when KBC2 makes a comeback, we expect it to deliver better ratings. That would be good for advertisers as well,” he says.

    Star India had earlier re-scheduled its popular game show following Bachchan’s illness to twice a week (Friday & Saturday) instead of the original thrice a week run with effect from 2 December. In between, the channel also re-ran celebrity episodes. The channel has filled the Sunday slot left vacant by KBC2 with the serial Sai Baba.

  • Discovery US manages double digit ratings increase

    Discovery US manages double digit ratings increase

    MUMBAI: US broadcaster Discovery has announced that it managed to achieve double-digit ratings gains in households and average primetime audience in both the second quarter of 2006 and June 2006.

    For the quarter, Discovery garnered a year-over-year primetime household ratings increase of 13 per cent (0.9) and the network delivered an average primetime audience of 1,143,000 viewers (P2+), also representing a 13 per cent increase over the year-ago timeslot average.

    The performance was helped by the return of the show Deadliest Catch, averaging nearly 2.6 million viewers over its second-season run. Mythbusters averaged 1.3 million viewers P2+. New shows Perfect Disaster and Future Weapons also contributed to the ratings gains.

    The debut of Egypt’s New Tomb Revealed on 4 June and Krakatoa: Volcano Od Destruction on 11 June each logged significant increases in households (1.8 household rating; Egypt; 1.8 household rating, Krakatoa) and total viewers (2.3 million P2+ each for the two shows.)

  • Disney set to cut down on costs with fewer films

    Disney set to cut down on costs with fewer films

    MUMBAI: Despite the fact that the Pirates of The Carribean sequel set a record by crossing the $100 million mark in the first three days of release, US media conglomerate Disney is set to cut the number of films made each year from 18 to eight.

    Media reports indicate that the trend among Hollywood studuios is to reduce their overall costs, whether it is in production, marketing, distribution or legal costs. Disney’s plan is to make less films under both Touchstone and Miramax. It will focus on making films under its own brand name.

    The number of people employed in its film division will be reduced by upto 25 per cent. Disney is said to be looking to focus more on family films as there is more revenue potential there in terms of merchandising opportunities.

    Apart from the Pirates sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia did really well last year. At the same time, there were failures with Alamo bing the biggest. Media reports indicate that studio revenue is being affected by production and marketing costs. The DVD market is also slowing down.

  • Oxygen puts a new twist to the relationship reality genre

    Oxygen puts a new twist to the relationship reality genre

    MUMBAI: US broadcaster Oxygen will put a twist on the relationship reality genre with Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty.

    The television star comes to the rescue of men and women who are unable to muster up the courage to break off their toxic relationships with bad boyfriends/girlfriends, frenemies, or tyrannical bosses.

    Doherty joins forces with people in relationship peril who want to get out but just cant seem to do it on their own. She will listen to the plight of her new client and put their mates to the test by creating a fictitious situation caught by a hidden camera – to determine the true character of the relationship.

    If the test is failed, Doherty then helps put the relationship out of its misery. In each episode, Doherty will then help mastermind the break-up, and be on the scene to deliver the news and resolve the break-up. The goal at the end is for both parties to agree that its all for the best and its time to move on.

    Oxygen says that Doherty is the ideal addition to its roster of funny and fascinating women.

  • Disney set to cut down on costs with fewer films

    MUMBAI: Despite the fact that the Pirates of The Carribean sequel set a record by crossing the $100 million mark in the first three days of release, US media conglomerate Disney is set to cut the number of films made each year from 18 to eight.


    Media reports indicate that the trend among Hollywood studuios is to reduce their overall costs, whether it is in production, marketing, distribution or legal costs. Disney‘s plan is to make less films under both Touchstone and Miramax. It will focus on making films under its own brand name.


    The number of people employed in its film division will be reduced by upto 25 per cent. Disney is said to be looking to focus more on family films as there is more revenue potential there in terms of merchandising opportunities.


    Apart from the Pirates sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia did really well last year. At the same time, there were failures with Alamo bing the biggest. Media reports indicate that studio revenue is being affected by production and marketing costs. The DVD market is also slowing down.

  • Former US president Bill Clinton in an exclusive interview with CNN’s senior International correspondent Satinder Bindra

    Former US president Bill Clinton in an exclusive interview with CNN’s senior International correspondent Satinder Bindra

    Discusses his plans to fight against AIDS in India
    through the William J. Clinton Foundation

    Interview aired on: Sunday, February 19, 2006 at 17:30hrs (IST)
    Former US President, Bill Clinton announced another initiative in New Delhi in his ongoing fight against AIDS. The latest plan is to train more Indian nurses to deal with 5 million HIV positive patients in India. President Clinton has over the years managed to convince pharmaceutical companies to bring down the prices of AIDS fighting drugs. To find out more about his plans, CNN’s senior International correspondent Satinder Bindra met up with him and started by asking him what the world should be most concerned about in the battle against AIDS.

    Given below is the full transcript of the interview:

     

    Bill Clinton: Clinton
    Satinder Bindra: Bindra
    Clinton: The thing that I am most worried about is that there were approximately 5 million new infections last year, and that primarily is because 90 per cent of the people who are infected, don’t know it. That is, when you and others including me, say that there are 43 million people in the world who are HIV positive – truth is we are guessing. So I think that’s the next big frontier here besides finding a vaccine and ultimately a cure.

     

    Bindra: With your foundation, these tests to find out if someone is HIV positive are cheaper, you have also brought down the price of AIDS fighting drugs but does more still need to be done?

    Clinton: We know for about fifty cents can give people the test which will tell you in 20 mins if you are HIV positive. We have brought down the medicine very low and we can test and see whether it’s working and we are now working on the second line of drugs. But, its all irrelevant unless we have people in the rural areas, for example, who are trained to do this, so we are doing more and more work to train personnel that’s what we are doing here in India working with nurses in rural areas. Even in India, which has the largest number of doctors anywhere including in rural areas, there are still numerous areas without doctors, without enough nurses, and paramedical people to do this work.

     

    Bindra: When you first approached these companies Mr. President asking them to reduce the prices of these drugs, how did they look at you, what was their reaction…
    Clinton: We knew that the reason these drugs were priced as they were, as I was told, relatively speaking, a low volume, high profit margin business where the buyers were often poor countries where payment was often delayed and sometimes uncertain. So we said that we want you to go to a high volume low profit margin business with prompt and certain payment. We will work out the prompt and certain payment and we’ll get the volumes up. That’s what got the prices down. None of these people are losing money. None of our partners lose money, but, they have a whole different business philosophy now.

     

    Bindra: If you and me were to meet Mr. President a year from now, would 8,000 people still be dying of this disease every day?
    Clinton: Probably! but I think that a year from now instead of a million people getting the medication we should have 3 million or more. A year from now, we should have far more people, like the nurses we are talking about here. And that means that the more you have education prevention and testing. I hope a year from now it would have drastically increased by millions, tens of millions the number of people getting tested. It will take a little while once you do all three things. Then that 8,000 a day will go down. Don’t, let anybody tell you that you can’t do it, I saw the death rate in Brazil drop 80 per cent in two years. In my first term, we dropped the death rate in America by 80 per cent.

     

  • Content differentiation key for FM radio business

    Content differentiation key for FM radio business

    MUMBAI: Radio has the potential to grow at a compounded rate of 30-35 per cent over the next 10 years. “In India, radio has the potential to become a 13 per cent medium. Currently, its share is just 3 per cent while the world averages 7-8 per cent,” said Radio Mirchi deputy CEO Prashant Pandey while speaking at the India Radio Forum 2006 here today.

    Several issues, however, need to be addressed, Pandey pointed out. “Spectrum needs to be freed, infrastructure needs to be set up. Radio operators must be given the permission to operate multiple frequencies in a city. Music royalty has to be settled. The government should also open AM for privatization too,” he added.

    Speakers at the Forum agreed that FM radio stations had to fix a differentiation strategy. “FM radio has to strive for differentiation while targeting an aggregated mass of listeners. In India it is difficult to carry out a segmentation by genre or even, perhaps, by era,” said Radio One CEO Rajesh Tahil.”

    Red FM COO Abraham Thomas stressed on difference in the delivery and advertising revenue should not be the only support, but to look for alternative revenue stream. Being aware that music is the only content available amongst the operators, thus bringing a differentiation in content is a task.

    Lintas Media Group chief strategy officer Raj Gupta pointed out that, 22 per cent of products advertised cater to youth. This accounts for 59 per cent of total adverting.

    He also said, 61.2 per cent of the population is below the age group of 30, and hence, the youth constitutes the main audience segment for any medium. “The Youth reach and spend more time on radio and hence, radio holds a lot of potential for the advertisers in terms of youth appeal. Radio has moved from background to foreground and has become relevant to the youth,” opined Gupta.

    Gupta also threw light on commodised content. “This has led to undifferentiated content and similar audiences,” he said.

    The session was moderated by Banyan Tree chief managing director Anish Trivedi.