Mumbai: Murty Media, a content production house, is embarking on an initiative to turn the literary works of the renowned author and philanthropist, Sudha Murty, into a captivating animated series titled, ‘Story Time with Sudha Amma.’ The show will feature 52 of the most popular stories from Murty’s titles, ‘Grandma’s Bag of Stories’, ‘Grandparents’ Bag of Stories’, and ‘The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories.’ The show will be streamed on the YouTube channel, ‘Murty Media’, a dedicated platform to showcase stories by the beloved author.
Infosys Foundation founder and the current chairperson of Murty Trust, Sudha Murty, is a celebrated Indian author, known for her engaging storytelling that taps into India’s rich cultural heritage while addressing contemporary issues. Her heart-warming children’s stories, including ‘Grandparents’ Bag of Stories’, ‘Gopi Diaries’, and others have enjoyed remarkable success. Her stories resonate with readers of all ages and have garnered a global fanbase. The animated series “Story Time with Sudha Amma” will be launched in 6 languages – Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu, catering to a diverse audience and making these beloved stories accessible to a wider spectrum of viewers.
Speaking about the launch of the series, Murty Media president Aparna Krishnan and the creative brains behind the animated series said, “We are thrilled to launch ‘Story Time with Sudha Amma’ on a platform like YouTube because it democratizes access to content. Mrs. Murty’s stories have the right mix of entertainment and meaningful life lessons. Our hope is that kids and families everywhere will watch and enjoy this values-based show.”
Sharing her thoughts, Murty said, “I have always believed in the power of stories to inspire and educate. I am delighted that this show has the potential to reach many more young hearts and minds.”
‘Story Time with Sudha Amma’ is Murty Media’s flagship animation series. To bring these stories to life, Murty Media has appointed Cosmos Maya, Asia’s leading animation studio, as its animation partner. Talking about the collaboration, Megha Tata, CEO, Cosmos Maya, shared her thoughts, stating, “We are thrilled to be part of this project that will bring Mrs. Sudha Murty’s engaging tales to a global audience. These stories will inspire and captivate viewers in multiple languages, fostering a love for storytelling and lifelong learning. Launching these stories on YouTube will make them available to a wider audience who can be inspired and educated through the life lessons embedded in Mrs. Murty’s books.”
Mumbai: GRB Media Ranch co-principals, Gary R. Benz and Sophie Ferron announced that they closed a licensing deal at MIPCOM for three popular titles from the Icons Unearthed series from the GRB Media Ranch catalog with Cote Ouest (now part of Mediawan). Liz Levenson, GRB’s distribution and acquisitions executive for Africa, CEE, Middle East ( finished programs & formats), and Scandinavia (finished programming) brokered the deal for GRB Media Ranch. GRB Media Ranch is located at MIPCOM Stand: # R7. A16.
Created in 1997, Côte Ouest joined Mediawan Africa in May 2023, the African flagship of the Mediawan Group, a leading independent European studio producing audiovisual content and has partnered with GRB Studios in the past, this is their first deal with the new JV – GRB Media Ranch.
– Icons Unearthed: Fast & Furious What should have been a one-off popcorn summer flick followed by a straight-to-video sequel became one of the largest film franchises of all time. Worth billions of dollars in ticket sales, it has spawned merchandise, spin-offs, and theme park attractions, and put a series of increasingly amazing stunts on the world’s movie screens. Despite the loss of a beloved lead actor, the franchise is a masterclass in world-building, raising the stakes, and growing a truly dedicated fan base internationally.
– Icons Unearthed: Star Wars: Travel to a time not very far, far away and witness the creation and filming of George Lucas’s two Star Wars trilogies. Interviews with cast and crew leave no stone unturned, making it the definitive account of the space saga that changed movies forever.
– Icons Unearthed: Marvel The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most successful franchise of all time and it has changed the way movies are made. Taking a cue from their comic book source material, these films tell different characters’ stories that all take place in one massive, interwoven universe. Each film would introduce one key protagonist, building toward the release of one giant blockbuster, The Avengers, that would put them all together. If a single one of those films failed at the box office, it could derail what may be the biggest gamble ever taken in the history of cinema. How did Marvel pull it off?
– Icons Unearthed: The Simpsons – The Simpsons has reached television and film audiences around the world. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are household names and the series’ impact on comedy writing, animation, and pop culture is felt to this day. Icons Unearthed: The Simpsons takes us on an insightful journey from the original two-minute shorts to its status as the longest-running scripted primetime television series of all time. Not even lawsuits, creative disputes, and production changes have been able to stop this animation juggernaut!
Gary R. Benz stated: “GRB Media Ranch is operating both our sales, and acquisitions, work at full speed since our launch just 6 weeks ago! These deals represent a sampling of the great programs we offer. We are booked solid with meetings at MIPCOM with our partners to bring them even more fantastic programs.”
Sophie Ferron added: “We are thrilled with these deals for some of our best programs and also have them available for other territories. Gary and I are looking forward to having our full sale teams together for the first time at MIPCOM and, as our motto says, “…we’ve got stories” – over 5,000 hours of them!”
Cote Ouest CEO Jonathan Lett stated “Cote Ouest, now part of Mediawan, is thrilled to work with these ICONS UNEARTHED titles, and we value the longstanding relationship we’ve had with GRB, now GRB Media Ranch, over the years. We are so excited to share these titles with audiences in Africa and as both our companies evolve, look forward to exploring exciting new ways to work together.”
Mumbai: Connected TV has an audience base of 45 million in India, according to Madison Advertising Report 2022.
The segment contributes eight to ten per cent of the digital audience currently. In the last five years, it has grown nine times and is expected to grow by another four times to reach an audience base of 120 million by 2025. It is expected that connected TV audience base contribution will surge by 15 per cent in future.
The audience base of CTV is growing mostly due to the increase in demand for smart TVs. In 2021, CTV shipments accounted for 84 per cent of overall TV shipments as compared to 64 per cent in 2020.
These data points were presented by Madison World’s general manager Chinmay Chandratre who moderated a panel discussion at Indiantelevision Dot Com’s four-day event ‘Content-Tech, Ad-Tech, Mar-Tech and More (CAMM) Summit’ co-powered by Pubmatic and Industry Partner Adjust held on Tuesday.
The discussion was joined by legacy and new-age brand marketers, media planners and technology providers such as Adjust lead product strategist Gijsbert Pols; Starcom chief operations officer Niti Kumar; ITC Limited chief operating officer – dairy and beverages Sanjay Singhal; HomeLane chief marketing officer Udit Mediratta and Pubmatic’s regional vice president (OTT and CTV) Vijay Anand Kunduri.
Watch the full session.
The discussion kicked off by understanding how a legacy brand like ITC looked at the opportunity of CTV. “Typically, the way you build huge categories like biscuits and snacks is through mass advertising,” explained ITC’s Sanjay Singhal.
“As consumer tastes have evolved, we have found that there is a need to slice and dice consumer segments whose needs cannot be met by traditional products and communication on mass media platforms. There is a need for targeting cohorts of consumers that TV cannot do efficiently,” said Singhal.
“There is only so much that may be communicated in a 30-seconder ad on TV,” he added.
Singhal, “When there is a need to explain certain benefits of products to the consumer, a more engaging medium with a higher frequency build-up is required.”
No doubt ITC is a large spender on TV but a large proportion of ad spends are moving to new age mediums for their brands that are targeting younger audiences, alluded Singhal.
He added, “It’s not just our brands such as ‘Bingo’ and ‘Yippee’ which are youth-oriented that are moving towards digital but also our atta brand ‘Ashirvaad’. That’s the power of high frequency.”
While legacy brands are leveraging a mix of traditional TV and CTV, new-age brands such as HomeLane are comfortable advertising only on digital and CTV platforms.
As Udit Mediratta puts it, “As a digital-first brand, our target audience is largely millennials who are ‘cord-cutters’ and hence CTV is the new TV for us. There are inherent strengths in CTV whose visuals and formats are similar to traditional TV while at the same time it is also targeted and measurable. The only disadvantage at this point is scale because there are only 20 million CTV households. However, this base is expected to increase by four times in the next three to four years.”
From a media planning perspective, CTV allows brands to reach incremental audiences, states Starcom’s Niti Kumar. “When you look at CTV and what it brings to the table, it is the largeness of TV in terms of screen size and format coupled with the biggest advantage of digital i.e., targeting/precision. CTV should be included in media plans based on two criteria – where’s the consumer and the brands’ business outcomes.”
“In terms of inventory that is available and targeting, CTV in India is still in its nascent stage as compared to what a YouTube or Disney+ Hotstar can provide. There’s a lot of development that is needed in the technology but it can be layered onto media plans from an incremental reach perspective,” she adds.
The rise of CTV also implies that publishers must be more conscious of hygiene factors while displaying an ad that negatively impacts the user experience. “What we’ve seen is a movement from the small screen to the big screen,” observed Pubmatic’s Vijay Anand Kunduri.
“In most of the Indian market, digital penetration is largely due to mobile but in the last 24 months, we’ve seen the transition from ‘me’ to ‘we’ viewing largely in front of CTV. On the broadcaster side, the trend where the content was first being created for linear and then streamed on OTT as catch-up has reversed. Now, content is being streamed on OTT-first followed by linear telecast,” Kunduri added.
“Parallel to CTV there’s also the emergence of free ad-supported TV (FAST) or advertising video-on-demand (AVOD) and publishers must take into account that when their ad is playing on CTV it should not face technical issues such as buffering, back-to-back ad reels and showing competitor product ads consecutively as this creates a bad user experience,” he added.
Adjusts’ Gijsbert Pols mentioned that in terms of measurability, CTV measurement on digital platforms is just like Facebook and YouTube, however, there is an important caveat that marketers and planners must be aware of.
He said, “Across the world, performance marketers are entering the TV space via CTV because it has become measurable. I don’t think we are far away from a fully digitalised way of measuring performance and branding as the technology and data are there. The problem is implementation which is a tough cookie to crack.”
“While you can measure CTV in the same way you measure other digital channels, it does require you to adjust key performance indicators (KPIs). CTV is more upper-funnel as there are no clicks. For the last decade, digital marketers have been used to measure digital looking at last touch data, however, CTV requires you to adopt a multi-touch approach when it comes to measurement,” he concluded.
KOLKATA: The Indian media and entertainment industry is standing at a point when the requirement for video content is, more or less, growing in tandem with the investment in it. While Indian producers are branching out into new types of content across genres, formats, they need to scale up their investment in technology.
To deliberate upon this changing landscape, Indiantelevision.com hosted a virtual webinar on Friday themed ‘Accelerating the new age of content with technology,” and moderated by founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari. At the beginning of the discussion, Wanvari elaborated why more focus is required on faster seamless content delivery in the emergence of various formats like HD, 4K, 4K HDR. He also mentioned that a new breed of machine called workstation has emerged which is being increasingly used in studios across the world to deliver on hard and extremely tough specifications that are demanded by platforms.
Media Partners Asia vice president Mihir Shah agreed that technology is going to play an increasingly crucial role going forward. In terms of production, there is a lot of innovation that is yet to be seen on the online video side. While India has tried to emulate the west, we have only been replicating what’s successful on television and films. Hence, there are a lot of things to be done on the online video side where different streaming options are available, he opined.
“Technology will be used widely as ever before with the online opportunity available right now and you will see a lot of interactive videos coming in, short videos coming in, different format, vertical videos, we have just touched the tip of the iceberg,” Shah stated.
He also brought up the aspect of the gap in creating franchises as the audience is used to seeing a lot of daily soaps. If the country starts focusing on more franchises, more innovations will come around. He believes a lot of local franchises can be created and monetised by utilising technology.
In a fireside chat during the webinar, Dell Technologies’ Dell Precision Workstations marketing consultant & product evangelist Suhas Pingat remarked upon the importance of using workstations and technology to create content. He stated that times are changing and 5G is going to be widespread in a period of 18 to 20 months.
According to him, India is not behind as far as accepting content is concerned. There are some technologies that are superior in developed markets, among which is MoCap (motion capture), then there is virtual filming which is taking place. In the west, the adaptation of technology is progressing at a pace that far outstrips India, noted Pingat, although he believes the scenario is slowly changing with the rise of OTT platforms.
However, broadcasters and content studios still have a lot to catch up on, said Pingat. Moreover, there is a need for change in the way content is given to consumers in India and we need to move far ahead, as far as adapting technology is concerned. He also elaborated on how Dell Technologies has a very industry-specific approach to the business ecosystem, with a large media and entertainment vertical. He also touched upon the topic of how Dell workstations are helping its partners in the domain from a technology standpoint.
“These are exciting times ahead in terms of technology. Whatever is available abroad, globally, is available in India too, in terms of not only workstations but from an infrastructure standpoint as well. That’s one pint which is very good with Dell. We are the oldest workstation brand. We do partner across industry platforms which would be ISPs, global customers. We have a separate work team that has been helping solve customers’ problems. We look forward to fantastic content being delivered by our great partners in the country. Look forward to more exciting immersive years ahead,” he detailed.
Post this discussion, the webinar hosted an engaging session on the role of technology with eminent experts. The panel included Excel Entertainment CG supervisor Apul Mehta, Endemol Shine India chief operating officer Gaurav Gokhale, Hats Off Productions chairman and managing director JD Majethia, Contiloe Pictures CFO & Illusion Reality Studioz business head – animation & VFX Nitin Dadoo, Redchillies VFX technology head Rajiv Sharma, and Epic On chief operating officer Sourjya Mohanty.
The experts came to the conclusion that innovation is key to implement new technologies at this point of time. The transformation journey has started already but a lot more needs to be done. Storytelling and execution need to be in sync with upgradation of technology. It is imperative now to leverage technology at its best because consumers are demanding more quality content, not only on OTT bit also on TV. While media organisations are significantly upping their investment in content, there is no point in shying away from technology.
Technology needs to be brought to speed in the country. The demand side constraints can be met by great content and marketing strategy but supply side constraints can be rectified only by technology. Moreover, if big tech companies can look at the media and entertainment vertical as an industry and offer a solution rather than a product, a sea change will take place.
Mumbai: Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, India’s leading content powerhouse, has acquired rights for the live feed of one of the most popular Ganpati Mandals of Maharashtra-“LALBAUGCHA RAJA” for Mobile apps, Internet and DTH platforms. LIVE Darshan of Lalbaugcha Raja will be available on Shemaroo Bhakti app & other platforms from 2nd Sept 2019 onwards. Shemaroo Entertainment will distribute content of Lalbaugcha Raja (video and images) to all leading telecom operators across the country.
Consumers will now be able to enjoy Live Darshan & Maha Aarti of Lord Ganesha on their mobile and TV sets. It will be available on Shemaroo’s Hindu devotional app ‘Shemaroo Bhakti’. Simply give a missed call on 8824022011 to download the app to watch Live Darshan of “Lalbaugcha Raja”. Consumers who wish to enjoy the Live Darshan on their TV will have to subscribe to the devotional service from their DTH Operators. Live Darshan will be available on Airtel – Om Shakti (Service No 674), Tata Sky – Devotion (Service No 1051), Dish – Bhakti Active (Service No 1069) & Videocon Bhakti Active (Service No 481). Shemaroo will also distribute the live feed via some selected mobile app & websites to reach out maximum audience.
After the immense success of last year’s live streaming, Shemaroo was able to satisfy the desire of millions of viewers and engaged 7 lac devotees with a total view of 2.3 million by making them a part of the biggest devotional moment in their lives. Shemaroo also won the ‘Best Live Streaming’ award for Shemaroo Bhakti Facebook page for the above offering.
Mr. Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd shared his thoughts on the occasion, “After the overwhelming response and acceptance of previous year’s Live Darshan of Lalbaugcha Raja, we are happy to announce our association again with Ganeshostav Pandal to bring this special service to our viewers. Our endeavour from the past few years has been to create services and properties that reflect the passion of the emergent digital audience. The good news is that technology is helping to bridge the gap between the devotee and the deity, and we are powering this through our strong base in devotional content, technological prowess and strategic tie-ups. Our services will be available on Shemaroo Bhakti app along with our other platforms like DTH & Internet. We look forward to tie-up with more such holy places and bring devotees closer to their faith”.
MUMBAI: He ran a successful DTH business in Videocon d2h up until it was merged with Dish TV. And now he’s off to establish an independent identity. Former Videocon d2h CEO Anil Khera has set up his own company One Take Media (OTM) that specialises in content production, global content acquisition and distribution, providing value added services (VAS) to global DTH/cable TV and OTT platforms.
As per data published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the Indian DTH industry has around 8-10 million VAS subscribers availing the services in some form. DTH alone generates around $80 million as annual VAS revenue which is bound to touch $200 million by the year 2020. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Khera says that there are still gaps to be filled as far as content is concerned which is available on platforms such as OTT, DTH and cable. “We are identifying that gap and we are introducing that as the VAS services,” he says.
The company sees kids’ genre as the fourth largest after movies, entertainment and others and plans to launch a channel in the near future. “I have a long term plan to start a kids’ channel as we have a very sufficient library for kids’ content,” he says.
Khera said that he has kept one library separately for the channel and it will contain both original and acquired content. He denied disclosing the production houses that OTM has acquired the content from due to the NDA agreement with them. He said, “We have acquired the content from various Indian and foreign production houses. We have our own IP in animation rhymes which is called Nyra World and as far as languages are concerned, we will be looking at the largest sector which is the Hindi speaking market,” he explains.
Premium content from foreign countries will be dubbed and shown in Hindi. The initial experiment will be to offer both acquired and original content to understand the audience. OTM has Kids1st TV, a channel targeting 2-6 years of kids, Cartoony TV–TV series in comedy, entertainment and adventure for the kids in the age group of 4-11 years old and Cartoony Movies for all age groups.
Khera says the company is working with telecom clients based in Africa and MENA region besides OTT customers in Singapore and Malaysia. In India, it is working with Dish TV. “There are several telecom companies around the world. We have Indonesia Telecom where they have their app and MENA region telecom like Ooredoo. We are also in discussion with Etisalat and in Nigeria, we have the telecom company called Tingo for our kids and cooking content (The Great Indian Global Kitchen) that we own the IP for,” he reveals.
Recently in India, the company signed a content deal with multi system operator (MSO) and headend in the sky (HITS) platform IndusInd Media and Communications Ltd (IMCL) to launch VAS. As part of the partnership, OTM will provide ad-free and unique content to IMCL subscribers. The subscription-based services are available to all InDigital subscribers. The unique services from OTM include animated cartoon series in Hindi for various age groups of kids across three services, nursery rhymes, TV series and animated Hindi movies. Other services are celebrity chef-based cooking shows, songs and Bhojpuri, Tamil and Telugu movies. Other unique services also include Hollywood and South Indian movies dubbed in Hindi.
Khera said that as far as Hollywood cooking content is concerned, the company is in talks with Airtel DTH. Also being the first company to dub Turkish and Korean content in Hindi, he feels that there is a great pull for this content. “We want to provide the global content experience to the Indian customers. There is no demand as such but being in the media company for so many years, I believe it has a great pull,” he says.
MUMBAI: The budding animation industry in India has a long way to go till it can compete with the likes of Disney and Dreamworks. The digital medium, however, gives even smaller content creators the chance to become global sensations. One such studio based in Mumbai that was thrilled to have been picked by one of the largest media companies to partner on a project was Supari Studios (Supari).
Supari is a digital content studio that is focussed on generating engaging content on the web through live action and animated films. Supari founder Advait Gupt has worked with both national and international companies and while the latter may sound impressive, it is not without its challenges. “The one natural challenge we faced is time zones. When you are working with a client in the US, you take calls at 5 am; the time zone is a factor we can’t control.” He adds that international companies are driven by process and ethics that have enabled his team to create content within two weeks. “They have a certain style of work and the transparency of work is very high,” he says.
Supari and Post Office, in association with Warner Bros Records, released the official lyric video for the song New Rules by Dua Lipa on digital that garnered 300 thousand views within 24 hours and over 2.1 million views in two months. New Rules has got most traction from Mexico, Spain and Brazil and has received over 2000 comments on the video.
Gupt shares insights on how the association came to be. “Warner Brothers got in touch with us in the middle of last year. They had seen our animation work and were impressed with the quality. The association with Warner Brothers started with a work for an artist called Adam Lambert in June last year. It was an animated lyric video that got a lot of traction and was received positively by millions of people globally. Post that, they approached us to make a 2D animation lyric video for an artist called Dua Lippa who happens to be topping the chart in the UK and the US as well. Warner Brothers wanted us to make a similar kind of video out of her track,” he says. The project was completed in just two weeks. Eighty per cent of the work-from developing the concept to design, VFX and 2D animation-was done by Gupt’s in-house team.
Both the type of animation and length are important in determining production factors. A typical one-minute 2D animation video costs Rs 3-5 lakh.
Gupt has two more entities under him-Post Office and Vitamin Stree. Post Office is the animation studio while Vitamin Stree is a content channel from Supari focussed on cultural, political, artistic and ideological perspectives that are shaping the lives of women in contemporary India.
Vitamin Stree has recently launched a campaign to raise funds for Nisha Gupta who is a para-athlete and is paralysed from her waist down. She plays for the women’s wheelchair basketball team that represents Maharashtra and Supari is raising funds for her and the whole team.
Gupt feels that the animated short film Outsider, which they made in early 2017 on domestic violence in South Asians communities in the US, gave Supari tremendous recognition across the world. The film was shortlisted for nine film festivals globally. After seeing Supari’s work and recognition in the global market, Warner Brothers pitched them to work on their own projects.
Supari has a big line up for 2018. Projects with Redbull, Viacom18 and Hotstar are in the pipeline. A food and talk show with Hotstar was recently completed and a travel show with Viacom18 is currently in progress. These projects are expected to go live from March to April. Doppelganger was a show done in association with Redbull that took content from India for the first time.
Since its inception in 2012, Supari has had the opportunity to work with a diverse set of brands such as Absolut, Nike, Dolby, Google, Skype, Uber, Maybelline, Estee Lauder, Godrej, Asian Paints, Amul, Mahindra, YouTube, ITC, Maggi and L’Oréal.
Gupt and his team are on cloud nine with all the praises being showered by global companies. “We are proud that a global music label like Warner Brothers saw value in finding a small, young and creative studio such as ours to deliver global quality content while meeting the standards,” he says. Some more discussions are to be held for future possible liaisons.
BENGALURU: Indian integrated media content house Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd (Shemaroo) reported 15.3 percent higher y-o-y consolidated total revenue for the quarter ended 31 December 2017 (Q3 2018, the quarter under review) at Rs 132.85 crore as compared with Rs 115.22 crore in Q3 2017. Revenue from operations increased by 16.8 percent y-o-y to Rs 132.63 crore from Rs 113.54 crore.
In its investor presentation, Shemaroo says that 22 percent of its revenue came from digital media and 78 percent from digital media in fiscal 2017. Revenue from digital media grew by 40.9 percent y-o-y in Q3 2018 to Rs 33.1 crore (20.7 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 23.5 crore (25 percent of operating revenue). The company caters to all types of revenue models such as pay per transaction, subscription and advertisement supported. Shemaroo says that due to its large library ownership, it has the ability to slice and dice content and package it in different ways that are more suited for the digital media platforms. During the nine-month period of the current financial year, revenue from digital media grew by 41.7 percent to Rs 95.8 crore (25.8 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 67.6 crore (20.8 percent of operating revenue) during the corresponding year ago nine-month period.
In Q3 2018, the company said that it had crossed 50 lakh (0.5 crore) subscribers on its YouTube channel ShemarooEnt. Shemaroo has agreements with various internet video platforms like YouTube, Hotstar, Reliance Jio, Apple iTunes, Google Play and YuppTV. The company has agreements with major telecom operators, namely Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, for mobile value-added services (MVAS). Shemaroo distributes imagery, videos, full songs and live streaming under MVAS through both operator branded portals as well as its own branded portals
Although revenue from traditional media grew by 10.6 percent y-o-y during the quarter under review to Rs 99.5 crore from Rs 90 crore, its contribution to operating revenue declined to 75 percent from 79.3 percent. Shemaroo’s traditional media platforms include television syndication, subscription-based services through DTH players and cable operators, home entertainment services and other media like airborne rights for in-flight entertainment, overseas, international film festivals.
Shemaroo’s consolidated profit after tax, or PAT, for the quarter under review improved by 26.5 percent y-o-y to Rs17.95 crore (13.5 margin) as against Rs 14.19 crore (12.5 percent margin) in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Shemaroo’s EBIDTA, including other income in the quarter under review, at Rs 36.03 crore (27.1 percent margin on total income of operating revenue) increased by 12.8 percent y-o-y from Rs 31.94 crore (27.7 percent margin on total income of operating revenue).
The company’s total expenditure in Q3 2018 at Rs 105.55 crore (79.3. percent of operating revenue) was 13.6 percent more y-o-y than the Rs 92.66 crore (81.6 percent of operating revenue). Its cost of raw materials consumed declined by 29.2 percent y-o-y in Q3 2018 to Rs 71.98 crore (54.3 percent of operating revenue) as compared with Rs 101.72 crore (89.6 percent of operating revenue).
Employee benefits expense increased by 26.9 percent y-o-y during the quarter under review to Rs 10.25 crore (7.7 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 8.08 crore (7.1 percent of operating revenue). Other expenses grew by 4.6 percent y-o-y in Q3 2018 to Rs 5.74 crore (4.3 percent of operating revenue) from Rs 5.49 crore (4.8 percent of operating revenue).
MUMBAI: FremantleMedia has launched the first episode of India’s Digital Superstars. The digital talent hunt has already received a million views in less than a month.
This is first of its kind digital talent hunt where the audience will be judging the next ‘Big Digital Star’ across a span of 14 weeks. The talent hunt has mentors like Sunny Leone, Anu Malik, Vishal Dadlani, Salim Merchant, Jazzy B, Andy, Raftaar and Anubhav Sinha on board.
The show has already received 1400+ entries within the month and continues to invite entries across all demographics and talent genres. The winner will be given a contract worth Rs 20 lakhs from FremantleMedia and One Digital.
The show is presented by Amazon.in, powered by Gionee in association with radio partner RedFM. The auditions were open to all Indians across the world over 13 weeks.
Moreover, the Indiasdigitalsuperstar.com platform encourages participants to upload multiple videos of their talent and will be judged by the audience through the number of views and likes across YouTube, ZengaTV and Facebook.
MUMBAI: Amazon Studios, known for television series such as multi-Golden Globe winner Transparent, and comedy Mozart in the Jungle, has now added the hit comedy Catastrophe to its line-up of Amazon Original Series available exclusively on Prime Instant Video, for Prime members to enjoy at no additional cost to their membership.
Written by US comedian and bestselling author, Rob Delaney, and award-winning actress, Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe is a half-hour comedy set in London about an Irish woman and American man struggling to start a relationship after their clumsy lust leads to pregnancy. Already a critical hit in the UK, Catastrophe is an Avalon Television production with co-producers Birdbath Productions and Merman. The series will be available exclusively for Prime members in the US this spring and will come to Prime Instant Video in the UK later this year.
“Rob and Sharon have created an engaging, contemporary, funny and moving story. We are excited to bring Catastrophe exclusively to our Amazon Prime customers and can’t wait to hear what they think of the series,” said Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price.
“We are delighted to be working with Amazon Studios, whose programming is rapidly proving to be some of the most original television currently being produced,” said Avalon Television joint managing director Jon Thoday.
Catastrophe is produced by Jack Bayles and directed by Ben Taylor along with executive producers Richard Allen-Turner, Kara Baker, Rob Delaney, Sharon Horgan and Jon Thoday.
