Category: Television

Mumbai: Viacom18 Sports is the official broadcast partner of the fifth edition of Tata Open Maharashtra. The tennis tournament will be airing live on Sports18 – 1 SD, Sports18 – 1 HD and JioCinema.

The Tata Open Maharashtra, which returns to the opening week of the ATP calendar, will be held at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune from 31 December to 7 January.

The upcoming edition will feature some of the biggest stars from the ATP Tour, including former Grand Slam champion Marin Cilic, last year’s finalist Emil Ruusuvuori and four other Top-50 players along with 11 top-100 players in the singles main draw.

“We are thrilled to welcome Viacom18 Sports on board. In a short period, Sports18 and JioCinema have caught the attention of fans across the country by bringing in world-class sporting action. I am confident that this association will take the tournament to greater heights,” said Tata Open Maharashtra tournament director Prashant Sutar.

“We are strengthening our position as the home of world-class sporting action that fans in India can appreciate and enjoy,” said Viacom18 Sports chief strategy officer Hursh Shrivastava. “The addition of Tata Open Maharashtra, South Asia’s only ATP250 event, reiterates our effort to build one of the most-loved sports networks with a rich and diverse portfolio.”

“Tata Open Maharashtra is the biggest tennis event in Indian sporting history, and this year will be a celebratory edition for us for every tennis fan in India. Broadcast of the action always helps you reach a larger audience and create new supporters for the sport, which eventually bolsters its overall growth,” All India Tennis Association joint secretary and MSLTA secretary Sunder Iyer  commented.
 

Mumbai: The IPL 2023 auctions will take place on 23 December 2022, 1.00 p.m. onward, and fans across India can watch all the action unfold live from the auction table on the Star Sports Network show “Cricket Live: Auction Special.” To provide fans with in-depth knowledge of auction strategies, player recruitment, and other topics, Star Sports has assembled a stellar team of widely acclaimed auction specialists who can share first-hand knowledge of what happens on the auction table with viewers.

A Star Sports spokesperson said, “This year’s auction panellists on Star Sports have been handpicked to provide the best insights to our viewers. These are some of the most proficient experts in the cricket domain, with years of experience not only on the field and in team management but also in technically sound auction strategies and tactics. Our English language feed boasts of names like Ian Bishop, who is arguably among the crème de la crème in the cricket world with an indelible profile that speaks volumes of his stature.”

He further added, “Tom Moody and Simon Katich, who were crucial members during the auction strategy of various IPL teams, and Aaron Finch, one of the most decorated cricketers in Australia, who has represented a record nine IPL franchises in his career. For our regional feeds, we have MSK Prasad, who brings with him years of valuable experience as the former chief selector of the Indian national team; L Balaji, who was one of India’s leading spearheads in his time and began his career in coaching with Chennai Super Kings; and Irfan Pathan, who has been the mentor-coach of the Jammu & Kashmir cricket team, which has the maximum representation in this year’s auctions.”

“Cumulatively, these legends of the game will be able to thoroughly analyse every auction strategy that franchises adopt and provide fans with a well-informed view of how their favourite team fared at the auction,”  he said.

To enhance the fan experience, Star Sports will broadcast the auction in five different languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Former cricketers and experts such as Ian Bishop, Tom Moody, Aaron Finch, Simon Katich, and Mayanti Langer for the English feed will be among the panellists for the various feeds. Along with Jatin Sapru, the Hindi feed will include top experts such as Aakash Chopra, Irfan Pathan, and Amol Mazumdar. Lakshmipathy Balaji, Sadagoppan Ramesh, and Subramaniam Badrinath will appear in the Tamil feed, while Venugopal Rao, MSK Prasad, and Ashish Reddy will appear in the Telugu feed. Vijay Bharadwaj, Srinivas Murthy, and Balachandra Akhil will appear on the Kannada feed.

Star Sports also launched the “Election Se Selection” contest for fans across India as part of an initiative to bring fans closer to the auctions. Millions of fans entered the contest, and 20 of them, along with five super fans, were chosen to visit the studios for the auction day.

Mumbai: ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZeeL) announced on Thursday that it had won a gold award at the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Technology Awards 2022 for the best advance in emerging learning technology. The Brandon Hall Group named the company’s digital learning platform, Digicademy, as one of the best technology-based learning initiatives in the world.

The prestigious awards forum has been recognising the world’s best organisations that have successfully implemented policies and programs. Brandon Hall Group has a 28-year legacy of delivering world-class research and advisory services by combining research studies with best practices from awards.

In accordance with the company’s long-term Zee 4.0 vision, the organisation has been institutionalising a strategic redesign and restructuring to develop and promote a learner-centric approach. Zee has consistently driven a culture of ‘continuous learning’ through the implementation of its iconic ‘academy of excellence’ model, taking a pioneering approach. The ‘academy of excellence’ model, which includes successful initiatives such as Compliance Academy, Digicademy, and Lead-Your-Ship Academy, is making significant strides in capability-building and developing a culture of fostering talent through upskilling, with the goal of charting the next phase of growth.

Digicademy, the company’s first-of-its-kind product, has received recognition for its robust AI-powered learning experience platform (LXP). The program’s goal was to establish four distinct propositions: skill development, learner centricity, business impact, content integration, and curation. The company has formed a strategic partnership with EdCast, providing onboarding assistance and integrating the platform’s processes. Furthermore, the AI-powered platform is augmented by Go1 Content Hub, the content aggregator.

The platform provides personalised learning experiences to all Zee employees based on their roles, functions, and levels through content recommendations. Furthermore, it offers access to upskilling and role-based skill development via a unique feature known as the “skills directory,” which uses the “Burning Glass Taxonomy” to recommend courses on functional, behavioural, and leadership skills for each role. Another intriguing feature of the platform is the ability to create custom dashboards and gain in-depth visibility on learning metrics.

Talking about the award victory, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. head HR and content SBU culture and capability development Dheeraj Jaggi said, “With an ethos consisting of technology, disruption, and innovation, Zee has been successfully pioneering the digital transformation in India’s media and entertainment industry. Following a future-ready approach, Zee has been laying the roadmap for the next phase of growth, directing employees towards self-development and business growth while also creating an agile, data-driven, creative problem-solving, innovation-driven enterprise culture. Keeping up with rapid digitization globally, Digicademy aims to democratise learning by making it convenient, accessible, and learner-centric.”

The enterprise culture & capability development team chose a quirky, new-age approach to ensure widespread and effective adoption by driving topical internal learning campaigns on a monthly basis, garnering positive employee feedback, and ensuring a progressive work environment. Digicademy received a tremendous response from both internal and external stakeholders as a result of these tactical campaigns, successfully onboarding 98 per cent of employees and consistently breaking global and AMEA records.

The enterprise culture & capability development team chose a quirky, new-age approach to ensure widespread and effective adoption by driving topical internal learning campaigns on a monthly basis, garnering positive employee feedback, and ensuring a progressive work environment. As a result of these tactical campaigns, Digicademy received a tremendous response from both internal and external stakeholders, successfully onboarding 98 per cent of employees and consistently breaking global and AMEA records.

Production houses in the mainstream Indian film market have traditionally invested their resources in making Hindi movies, or what we colloquially refer to as ‘Bollywood’ films. Over the years they have reaped monetary rewards and viewers accepted this form of Hindi films over regional ones. Sure, there are content-driven films, too, but the focus until recently remained on traditional Hindi movies. Lately there has been a shift towards the viewers shifting their attention to cinema from other languages as well, and these movies are doing exceedingly well. Here’s examining this gradual yet very real change that we are witnessing in the audience’s tastes and why it makes good business for producers to invest in regional cinema.

OTT expanding horizons

It was in 2016 when India witnessed the launch of two of the biggest OTT platforms, Netflix and Prime Video. The two rivals initially started with mostly English content. Later, Indian originals were introduced which was soon followed by regional content in other Indian languages including Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, and more recently even Assamese, among others. Over time, these OTT channels along with several others drew viewers and expanded their libraries. Viewers got a chance to witness content from around the world and then, in 2020, we witnessed a tectonic shift with the advent of the pandemic-induced lockdown which has worked brilliantly for regional cinema.

Lockdown being the game-changer

With people being unable to step out of their homes, and no new content being made as movie production came to a screeching halt, the thirst for content became even more intense. This is when viewers turned to existing libraries of movies from regional languages. With availability of subtitles and dubbed versions of cinema, Hindi movie watchers suddenly found themselves experiencing cinema from across India, with personal stories that exposed viewers to cultures across the world and widened their movie horizons. Their tastes evolved and stories from around the world, on the strength of their content, found an entire new audience.

Post-pandemic

As theatres opened up, we witnessed that Hindi movies were now not such a huge draw anymore. On the other hand, crowds lapped up regional cinema with Telugu and Tamil films. With this shift in audience tastes, it is prudent that Indian production houses venture into creating regional cinema. Today it is important for production houses, big or small, to have a varied slate of movies across languages and genres. Take for example our production house, Golden Ratio Films. While we do produce movies in Hindi, a large portion of our slate of films varies from Marathi, Tamil and Telugu to even Hollywood films. This gives us an edge and helps us offer unique cinematic experiences to our viewers.

The business case for production houses

When it comes to making regional films, mainstream production houses have realized that the budgets are far less when compared to mainstream Hindi cinema. Given that the marketing and promotions are far more in Hindi cinema, the case for making regional cinema is even stronger. Apart from OTT platforms, which are always looking for good quality regional content, the market for regional cinema is also growing with each passing year. Not only in the state where the language is spoken where that film finds a market, but there is also the regional diaspora abroad who look forward to these films. To add to that, technically, regional cinema has technicians that are quite talented, and their work speaks for themselves through their films. Take the case of Bahubaali. Its breathtaking visuals and spectacular technical effects took the nation by storm. Even while the movie was made on a huge budget, it opened doors for other regional films like Puli Murugan (Malayalam), Chal Jeevi Laye (Gujarati), Amazon Abhigyon (Bengali) or even the 2022 film Kantara (Kannada).

With such glaring examples of cinema successes achieved on a budget that is safe and too small to affect a production house even in case of a flop, one can say without fail that small, mid-sized or large production houses in the Hindi mainstream will be increasing regional Hindi films on their slate. This, more than else, will just benefit and enrich the landscape of Indian cinema.

The author of this article is Golden Ratio Films president Ashwini Chaudhary.