MUMBAI: From film to television to digital, the Bengali entertainment industry has been one of the strong bastions in the country over the years. But it hasn’t been a hunky dory ride always. SVF, eastern India’s undeniable entertainment king, has played the role of a game changer for the entire industry. While its digital arm Hoichoi has completed its one year anniversary and the film and distribution business is creating new records, the television business still counts as highly important.
Though the “Yashraj Films of the East” holds more fame for its film business, its television business has also fared well in the last decade. The big shot production house started its television content production in 2008. Since then it has produced many Bengali TV shows and worked with all three big broadcasters, directors and co-founders of SVF, director Mahendra Soni said in an interaction with Indiantelevision.com.
Soni said that as TV works in a cycle, the number of shows on-air changes from time to time. While SVF started with two shows Bandhan and Durga, it reached up to eight shows at a point of time. However, the focus isn’t on quantity. Currently, they there are three shows on air, two with Star Jalsha, one with Zee Bangla.
“We do television only when we have some exciting stories because our shows have been very different than the usual shows you would see on GECs,” Soni said. He cites the example of Potol Kumar Ganwala, one of its top shows, released a couple of years ago, which is being remade in Hindi now. Other than that, the production house has a number of shows which have crossed into other languages. Speaking about the future, he said there are five shows in the pipeline – two with Colors Bangla, one with Zee Bangla, two with Star Jalsha.
The experienced executive of the Bengali TV industry said good stories prevail over everything and that there cannot be a particular genre which works better than others. However, he mentioned the entry of BARC into TV measurement has impacted TV content making in the last three years. Mythological shows and fantasy drama are being made in large numbers.
“Television is very important because you can reach out to so many people at a time. It is a very different kind of storytelling and lot of pressure and competition which you love as a producer and storyteller,” Soni said.
However, the production house is a little sceptical about reality or non-fiction shows. “Lot of great properties (in non-fiction space) have already been created by international companies. So, until and unless we get something exciting, we are not going to do non-fiction at the moment,” he commented.
Category: Fiction
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SVF boss Mahendra Soni on Bengali TV biz
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Sony’s production house Studio Nxt to co-produce KBC 10
MUMBAI: The 10th season of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) is all set to see more involvement from its host channel Sony Entertainment Television (SET). The broadcaster is co-producing the show via its newly launched production house Studio Nxt along with rights holder Big Synergy. The show will be aired from 3 September, weekdays at 9 pm.
SET business head and EVP Danish Khan said, “Sony Original is the sub brand of SET, Studio Nxt is another independent entity which is a production house to produce fiction, non-fiction, scripted, non-scripted and digital IPs.”
He added that it is an independent production house that will cater to Sony as well as platforms outside.
The show was kick-started with the campaign #KabTakRokoge, celebrating the spirit of resilience in people. Viewers can look forward to a special curtain raiser episode which will be telecast on Sony on 2 September at primetime.
The network claims to have received record-breaking registrations of over 31 million within a span of 15 days. The show promises to be a visual delight for viewers with the use of Augmented Reality (AR) for the first time on Indian TV.
Since Khan’s tenure at Sony as marketing head, KBC has always seen brainstorming for every aspect except the host. “Amitabh Bachchan was the best host in our mind from the day one. Since then, every year we have been trying to do something new, last year we had introduced the Fridays, Nayi Chah, this time we are coming up with AR to happen for any reality GEC in India. We have done huge investments and it is worth it,” he said.
When it comes to the promotion of the show, Khan said that there is a lot of media explosion. He added that as there’s a lot of penetration of social media and internet, there is little to plan and more to create.
The channel expects the ad inventories to be completely sold out within the next seven days. The show is co-powered by Vivo V11 Pro and Mahindra Marazzo while Aakash Institute, Axis Bank, Asian Paints, CEAT, Raymond and Syska Wires & Cables are the associate sponsors.
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Banijay Group to launch a new studio in Rome
MUMBAI: Banijay Group is soon going to set up Banijay Studios Italy in Rome, hiring Massimo Del Frate, former head of drama at Endemol Shine Italy, to lead the new venture.
As a new scripted player in the Italian market, Banijay will now develop original IP for local broadcasters, while also looking at opportunities to locally adapt Banijay Group’s global content catalogue. Del Frate will look to generate co-productions with other parts of Banijay Group.
“As a leading and well-respected talent in the Italian scripted market, Del Frate is the perfect partner to establish and drive Banijay Studios Italy,” said Banijay Group COO Peter Langenberg as quoted by Rapid TV News.
Del Frate worked in Endemol Shine Italy, as the head of drama and was responsible for growing the scripted division from 2002 to 2018. Previously, he was responsible for scripted operations at Mediaset’s Canal 5.
The new head feels that Banijay’s mission is to establish Banijay Studios Italy as an independent home and partner for leading Italian drama talent, as well as international authors and directors. Collaborating with the top storytellers in the market, Banijay hopes to generate a healthy scripted slate bursting with brilliant and distinctive drama.
The company has worked with a range of media companies in Italy, including the producer of local versions of x Factor, MasterChef, DRY and Don’t Repeat Yourself. The move to expand Banijay’s content creation capabilities follows the opening of a studio in Germany earlier this year.
Banijay Group has already entered the Asian market in partnership with media veteran Deepak Dhar.
An independent content creation group, Banijay Group produces content for television and multimedia platforms. Spread across entities in seventeen territories, its library includes programmes spanning genres like entertainment, drama, factual entertainment, kids and reality; all licensed internationally by its global distribution arm Banijay Rights. Some notable formats include reality television series Keeping up with the Kardashians, crime drama series Underbelly and ABC’s reality television program Wife Swap.
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Lionsgate appoints Amit Dhanuka to grow Starz Brands in India
MUMBAI: Lionsgate India has expanded its India team with the appointment of Amit Dhanuka as executive VP, who joins the company’s Mumbai-based office to develop its strategy for the Lionsgate and Starz brands and build its local operations.
Dhanuka will report to Lionsgate India managing director Rohit Jain and work closely with the company’s creative head Maitreyee Dasgupta.
Dhanuka was previously with Fox’s Star India network where he led its direct to home affiliate sales division. He has also worked with Indian film production companies E-City Films and Zee Motion Pictures in addition to Sony Pictures Television International in Los Angeles.
Speaking on his appointment, Rohit Jain says, “Amit is a very experienced content production and distribution executive and a skilled business strategist. His wealth of knowledge and acumen will further strengthen our Lionsgate India team and enable us to continue to expand our Lionsgate and Starz brands locally.”
Amit Dhanuka mentions that he was looking forward to bringing Indian audiences original, premium and bold content that aligns with Lionsgate and Starz’s mission of creating content that cuts through the clutter.
Even before opening its Mumbai office last year, Lionsgate co-produced with Endemol India a 2015 Bollywood remake of the Tom Hardy-starrer Warrior, titled Brothers, which starred top actor Akshay Kumar in the lead role.
More recently, Lionsgate announced it would produce Indian versions of Mexican comedy Instructions Not Included and South Korean action thriller The Terror Live in partnership with Globalgate and Indian banner Azure Entertainment.
Globalgate is a joint consortium of Lionsgate and 10 other leading international content companies which include Germany’s Tobis, France’s Gaumont, Brazil’s Paris Filmes and Colombia’s Cine Colombia, among others.
The first major new studio in decades, Lionsgate is a global content platform whose films, television series, digital products and linear and over-the-top platforms reach next generation audiences around the world. In addition to its filmed entertainment leadership, Lionsgate content drives a growing presence in interactive and location-based entertainment, gaming, virtual reality and other new entertainment technologies.
Lionsgate’s content initiatives are backed by a 16,000-title film and television library and delivered through a global licensing infrastructure.
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Curation brands the need of the hour in digital: Kranti Gada
MUMBAI: From starting her career at an FMCG company to mastering the entertainment business, the journey of Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd’s (Shemaroo) chief operating officer, Kranti Gada, in the world of business is quite intriguing. One of the youngest COOs in the industry, Gada was elevated to the position in March this year after witnessing many a change within the company and the industry. She has been championing the ‘Go Digital’ initiative right from its nascent stage at the company.
The beginning
Gada started working with PepsiCo after finishing her course in marketing at NMIMS in 2004. She set her sights on working for an FMCG company and only applied to such companies during campus placement. It is at PepsiCo—while moving from shop to shop selling packets to travelling in unreserved compartments of trains and conducting various surveys—that she got to know customers’ mindset innately. The lessons learnt during these two years with the company have served her well.
She believes that staying connected with customers is critical for any company, whether it is B2B or B2C. “If you are B2C, you have to be in contact with these customers. But if you are B2B2C like us, while our content may be sold to a network that is B2B, the ultimate group that the stakeholders are servicing are consumers. So, knowing what he likes or dislikes is really important,” Gada said in an interaction with indiantelevision.com.
A new innings
In 2006, due to unavoidable reasons, Gada returned to Mumbai. Even as she was returning, she got an offer from a leading FMCG company that she turned down 12 days prior to joining. The very same year, she joined Shemaroo, an unlikely move for a person “who was not a heavy consumer of entertainment content”. She got into the company at a time when it was in the midst of evaluating new areas to enter. Out of those new initiatives, the digital piece was the one on which Gada focused on since the beginning. Another area on which she kept a keen eye on was gaming, a very forward-looking initiative at that point.
Unbeknownst to many, Shemaroo dabbled in the gaming sector for 1.5 to 2 years after one year of Gada’s joining. The initiative, however, did not take off as well as they thought. “We had a development studio. India had not come up with its own IPs still. We wanted to create IPs around our brands,” she said. Despite creating learnings for the future, success was elusive for the company in gaming.
The digital push
Being early in the digital piece, however, really paid off for Shemaroo. From early 2000, the company started buying digital rights in a bid to create a library. When it decided to go ahead with the mobile division, it already had a library of content to offer. While the company was largely associated with home videos in the 1990s, after the change in focus, Shemaroo reoriented its offerings by repurposing content for digital.
At present, YouTube is a monetised platform for the company. It has teams actively curating content for more than 50 YouTube channels under the umbrella. The eternal appeal of classic Hindi songs helps FilmiGaane, one of its flagship channels, to add a million subscribers every 45 days.
With the digital revolution, the Indian media landscape has changed dramatically in the last two years. While many content companies and broadcasters are coming up with OTT platforms, content curation remains a big challenge. While some of the OTT platforms have really niche content, several platforms are vying to become a “mini-YouTube”. Along with explosion of content creation, Gada feels that there is a real need for curation brands that understand consumers well.
OTT plans
“I would say that at Shemaroo we absolutely should do the curation piece for sure. But I would say that having your own OTT platform is little beyond just curation. There is the technology piece and the customer acquisition piece, which is very critical,” she commented when asked if Shemaroo had plans to get into the space.
“We will definitely have our own technology platform; we will invest in it and build out a platform. It’s the consumer strategy that we are still figuring out,” Gada added. For a brand like Shemaroo, which has been in the content business for a long time, it would be relatively easy to leverage that customer understanding after years of tracking the market one would imagine.
Areas of focus
While digital is going to remain a focus area in the next few years, few other areas such as multi-genre and multi-language strategies in content will remain critical. The company has also been building up its devotional content in a big way. In the pursuit of creating a new offering, the company has created several documentaries in the form of travelogues. Moreover, to make consumers aware about its new initiatives, Shemaroo has new marketing strategies up its sleeve.
After 12 years into her journey with the company and being an inseparable part of Shemaroo’s digital strategy, Gada, as the new COO, has come to terms with the demands of her position. Despite being young in age and experience, she is thankful to Shemaroo’s management for keeping the faith in her.
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Keshet partners Shemaroo’s inflight content distribution subsidiary
MUMBAI: Leading global content producer and distributor Keshet International Studio (Keshet) has partnered Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd’s (Shemaroo) subsidiary Contentino Media for content distribution. Keshet, globally known for producing drama, comedy and entertainment content, will now give exclusive distribution rights to Contentino to sell shows to airlines across Middle-East and Asia.
Contentino Media, which already provides movies in more than nine Indian languages, will be now providing airlines with global content thanks to the tie-up with Keshet. The library of Keshet includes top-rated shows from all across the world such as Prisoners of War, upon which the award-winning American spy thriller Homeland has been developed. The other notable shows include British show called The A Word and The Brave, an American show. With passengers looking forward to more variety in content during their travel, airlines can opt to provide best to their customers with this tie up.
Contentino connects with more than 55 airlines all around the world and provides an eclectic mix of content. Some of the major airlines that the company provides content to are Jet Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways. At present, Contentino’s content library consists of more than 4000 movie titles across languages.
Shemaroo chief operating officer Kranti Gada said, “With this partnership with Keshet, we are excited to broaden our content offering and premium international content. In 2015, we acquired Contentino Media, which helped us enter the inflight entertainment distribution space and, in just a short span of time, we have become one of the leaders. Now, with our partnership with Keshet International, we aim to further strengthen our content library in this space. We are in an era where inflight entertainment is becoming transformative with personal devices becoming gateways to a whole range of surface transport services.”
Keshet’s head of Asia, Gary Pudney, said, “This deal with Contentino Media demonstrates our strategic approach to audience building. The Asia Pacific market is predicted to be the fastest-growing region for global in-flight entertainment and we hope this deal leads to other opportunities elsewhere.”
“What is exciting is that we will now offer customers hundreds of hours of international programming to enjoy during their travels which includes critically acclaimed shows like The Brave and top rated European show Holloway Prison – Women Behind Bars. Our foundation in content will help us cross sell our propositions to all airlines,” Gada added.
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Lionsgate India partners Azure Entertainment to remake shows
MUMBAI: Newly launched Lionsgate India is stitching together plans to remake two high-concept international properties in collaboration with Azure Entertainment and Lionsgate affiliate Globalgate. The two remakes, the first titles under the new partnership, are of hit Mexican comedy Instructions Not Included and South Korean action thriller The Terror Live for India.
Headed by former Reliance MediaWorks executive Sunir Kheterpal, Azure is backed by The Three Sisters: Institutional Office. It positions itself as a content development and production company with a mix of remakes and adaptations as well as in-house development of large-scale projects.
Instructions Not Included (2013) was produced by Lionsgate’s Pantelion Films and became the highest-grossing Spanish-language film in North America. It has already been remade in France by Vendome/Mars Films as Demain Tout Commence and is being developed in other territories.
Azure and Globalgate will also produce an Indian version of The Terror Live, which was a hit for Lotte Entertainment in 2013 and is under discussion for multiple other remake deals. Azure and Lionsgate India are currently finalising the writers and directors for the two projects.
“We’re pleased to partner with the world-class creative team at Azure on our first major local-language film production initiative in India. Instructions Not Included and The Terror Live are two great story-driven properties from the Globalgate library that have already demonstrated their appeal worldwide,” said Lionsgate India managing director Rohit Jain.
Azure has a two-picture deal with Warner Bros, including a reworking of Hong Kong crime classic Infernal Affairs”; a three-film deal with France’s Gaumont; and deals in Spain to remake mystery thriller The Body with Rodar y Rodar and The Invisible Guest with Atres. Azure is also working on an adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s global bestseller Can You Keep a Secret? and Sushant Singh’s Mission Overseas.
Globalgate is a consortium led by Lionsgate and involving 10 other content companies. Operated by William Pfeiffer, it will be at the Cannes Film Festival scouting for further content.
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Rahul Sarangi – Greymatter Entertainment @ Mip Formats
Mumbai, April 6, 2018: Co-founder & Director, Rahul Sarangi is the First Indian invited to be on the panel of Spot the Talent (Formats) @ MIP Formats – 7th April & 8th April 2018 at the Palais des Festivals et des Congres de Cannes in Cannes, France. Rahul will be a panelist amongst renowned industry experts like Matt Steiner, MD, Primal Media, UK; Assaf Gil, CEO, Gill Formats, Israel; Roy Aalderink, Concept Street, Germany, David Flynn, Co-Founder, Youngest Media, UK; Meredith Chambers, MD, Electric Ray, Sony Pictures, USA; Ed Waller, ED, C21Media, UK.
MIPFormats is the incubator for big ideas, the next wave of must-see formats. Taking place two days before MIPTV, MIPFormats is where the world’s leading producers, commissioners, buyers and distributors discover the very best in entertainment formats.
Spot the talent – Indies Around The World – A platform to discover exciting formats that have just been commissioned (or are about to be) in this special spotlight, featuring independent format creators and producers from around the world.
About US
Greymatter Entertainment is a young media company that offers 360 degree media solutions. We produce LIVE sports, TV shows, digital content and focus on IPR creation. One of the few Indian companies to have sold original formats globally. Our energetic core team brings to the table over 60 years of corporate experience with companies like IMG, TWI, Sony Entertainment Television, MTV, Ten Sports & Viacom 18. With significant knowledge and experience of having produced shows all over the world, we thrive on pushing the evelope!
Rahul Sarangi, Co-Founder & Director, Greymatter Entertainment
Rahul has nearly a decade’s experience as a television professional. He has worked for top-of the-line media brands like Synergy and Contiloe in production and Colors and MTV Networks India. Rahul has been associated with shows like Roadies – India’s no.1 youth reality show, Fame Gurukul, Bluffmaster, Splitsvilla, MTV On the Job, MTV Style Awards, Music Awards Asia and many more.
Apart from producing shows, Rahul also directs live events and has directed international events like the Shakira Concert, Roger Waters Live, the Standard Chartered Marathons, IIFA Celebrity Cricket Live, IPL Funfeed – Live on Youtube and Horse Racing among others.
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Applause Entertainment bags rights for three Armoza series
MUMBAI: Content and IP creation studio Applause Entertainment has now taken the local rights to three of Armoza Formats’ scripted series: the highly acclaimed crime-thriller Hostages and hilarious comedies La Famiglia and Honey Badgers.
Produced by Yetzira Ivrit, Hostages is an intense psychological crime-thriller that follows a renowned surgeon about to perform a routine operation on the president. But there is nothing routine about it when her family is taken hostage and she is ordered to sabotage the procedure and kill the President–or her family will die. As viewers follow the battle to save both her family and the president, they are taken on a journey where all are fighting for their survival.
Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair said, “We are most excited to be adapting these Armoza shows for India. I have been a big fan of Israeli content as our countries have a close cultural affinity and I believe stories like ‘Hostages’, ‘La Famiglia’ and ‘Honey Badgers’ are incredibly universal. Writing, casting and production on all three shows is already underway and filming should commence soon.”
Produced by United Studios of Israel, La Famiglia follows the lives of a perfectly normal suburban family living in the divorce capital of the country. With many reasons to be happy, they have even more reasons to go to therapy–their sex life, his best friend, her complaints, and his mother. Their therapy sessions provide the entertaining basis for the series, through which we flashback to the comical, stand-alone scenes from their daily life. Each episode is a new therapy session in which they bring up the most embarrassing, bizarre, awkward and insane moments that are a part of every family’s life.
Applause Entertainment is a content and IP creation studio with a focus on films, digital series, television, animation, music and live events. Whereas, Armoza formats is established in 2005, is the key player in the international content market and an independent creators and distributors of global content.
Armoza Formats CEO Avi Armoza, “As we continue to expand our scripted and ready-made series catalogues, we are thrilled that Applause Entertainment, a highly acclaimed creative house, has chosen to take three of our top scripted series to be adapted in one of the most important content arenas in the world.”
Honey Badgers, produced by Naor Zion and originally aired on Reshet’s Channel 2, follows the lives of four small-town friends who change their identities to get jobs at one of the world’s top financial firms. They will fake it all to appear more sophisticated and achieve their fantasy of opening up their own investment company.
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Banijay Group in 50:50 JV with Deepak Dhar for India ops
MUMBAI: French content powerhouse Banijay Group is setting up its operations for India and South East Asia in partnership with former Endemol India managing director Deepak Dhar.
Dhar will hold 50 per cent equity in Banijay Asia as its founder-CEO for South East Asia operations. He will head the new business, leading content strategies, partnerships and alliances across the region, with a central focus on India. He stepped down as managing director of Endemol Shine India in December last year having previously held key positions at Star TV, Channel V and MTV.
The new JV, Banijay Asia, will produce content across multiple genres, including digital and films for India and South East Asia. Dhar will lead business, content strategies, partnerships and alliances in the region, with India being central focus.
“Creating innovative and engaging content has been a passion for me, and I am always on a lookout for challenging opportunities,” Dhar said in a statement. “Creating a strong foundation in Southeast Asia is the next crucial step for [Banijay Group] and I am excited to be helming this move.”
Banijay is an independent content creation group for television and multimedia platforms. Spread across entities in seventeen territories, its library includes programming spanning genres like entertainment, drama, factual entertainment, kids and reality; all licensed internationally by its global distribution arm Banijay Rights. Some notable formats include reality television series Keeping up with the Kardashians, crime drama series Underbelly and ABC’s reality television program Wife Swap.
Banijay Group COO Peter Langenberg said, “This is an extremely significant partnership for us as we continue to build our presence in India and South-East Asia, one of the most dynamic and burgeoning regions in the world. We are very excited about the wide-ranging opportunities Deepak’s experience and expertise will bring to the group.”
“After my last role at Endemol, I was looking for an opportunity that could satiate my passion to create innovative and engaging content, while at the same time, have the potential to scale at multiple levels. This partnership with Banijay Group matches perfectly with what I was seeking,” Dhar said.
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