ITV

Category: English Entertainment

  • Suraj Sharma joins crew of ‘Homeland’ series

    Suraj Sharma joins crew of ‘Homeland’ series

    NEW DELHI: Actor Suraj Sharma, who made an impact worldwide with ‘The Life of Pi’, has joined season four of the hit show series ‘Homeland’ which will be aired on Star World Premiere, along with its broadcast in America.

     

    Apart from Sharma, the fourth season of the drama series has two new cast members – Laila Robins (Bored To Death, In Treatment) and Golden Globe® nominee Corey Stoll (House of Cards).

     

    Corey Stoll will play the CIA chief of station in Pakistan and Laila Robins as the American Ambassador to Pakistan.

     

    ”I miss Danesy! I miss her! They’ll be starting up again now,” said the British actor, Damian Lewis and revealed how much he misses his Homeland co-star Claire Danes. The cast of the hit Emmy award winning show is currently in Cape Town.

     

    He also revealed that he almost did not join the show as Nicholas Brody. “I was very reluctant to do to another TV show. In fact, this was sent to me by my American agent. He just said, ‘Just read this one,’” Lewis recalls. His agent told him: “Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa are involved, they ran ’24’ for the last five or six seasons. Claire Danes is doing it, Mandy Patinkin is on board. This is the one that everyone’s talking about. Just read it.

     

    “I very nearly did not do it, for personal reasons,” Lewis admited. “But there were just too many compelling reasons to do it, so I did and I’m extremely happy.”

  • FOX Traveller is now FOX Life India

    FOX Traveller is now FOX Life India

    MUMBAI: If you have been an avid FOX Traveller fan, one change that you couldn’t have ignored was the change in the name, logo and packaging of the channel. It was on 15 June that Fox Traveller changed its avatar to become FOX Life India.

     

    The channel, one of FOX International Channel’s global brand, which caters to the lifestyle segment was originally launched in Italy and now reaches to 73 countries in 19 different languages.

     

    In its new form, FOX Life India aims to deliver a slate of non-scripted content that is relatable and inspired by real life. The channel will host a mix of both US and India produced reality programmes which is designed to match its modern target audience.

     

    Unlike FOX Life International, FOX Life India features only the logo of its mother brand. The current schedule of FOX Life houses FOX Traveller veteran series such as Style & the City, Eat Street and acquired reality series including Kitchen Nightmares and Styled by June. 

     

    “Being leaders in both travel and lifestyle and English entertainment category, it was necessary for us to reinvent, in order to grow the category. Also, this gave us the opportunity to align with the global brand FOX Life,” confirms National Geographic Channels (NGC) and FOX International Channels (FIC) vice president marketing and communication Debarpita Banerjee.

     

    FOX Life India is currently on the lookout for new concepts. “Being market leaders, it becomes almost mandatory for us to introduce fresh content consistently,” informs Banerjee.

     

    While the channel currently does not have its own website, it aims to engage with its core 15-25 year old TG at higher decibels, post the re-launch.

     

    According to Banerjee, FY14 has seen 57 new advertisers come on board. Coca Cola, Turkish Airlines, Borges, Microsoft and British Airways have all been valued additions. Some of the most recent advertisers to come onto the channel are Calsberg, Emirates and Twinning.

     

    FOX Life India today reaches 52 million households across the country and barring Sun Direct, is available on all the other DTH and cable TV platforms.

  • Romedy Now banks on popular 90s’ sitcom ‘Friends’

    Romedy Now banks on popular 90s’ sitcom ‘Friends’

    MUMBAI: “How you doin’?” means much more than just a greeting to people who grew up watching Friends. The iconic show about the six friends and their lives is back on the small screen.

    Speaking on the reason behind airing the sitcom, the channel’s marketing head Shantanu Gangane says, “Friends is an iconic series which has a huge fan following even today. The synergy of the show matches perfectly well with our core channel proposition of ‘Love and Laughter’ and we are certain that the viewers will enjoy the 10 back to back seasons of Friends. With the soaring popularity of the channel and with a unique line up of movies and series, this series couldn’t have found a better destination to enthrall its fans.”

    Romedy Now English Entertainment Channels content head Mansi Shrivastav adds, “When you look at a viewer who is switching it on, he’s not really looking at something with a telescope of time. It’s not sort of confined to whether it is old or it is new. We brought back Chaplin, which was made during The Little Renaissance (1910s), so there’s certain kind of content which is eternal. Friends is one of those; and since we are a channel which is all about love and laughter, we didn’t think twice while acquiring it.”

    “Friends is a direct fit in terms of the synergy and the brand. We may even brink back content which is 20-30 years old, but the intent will always remain to make sure that it is within the umbrella of love and laughter,” informs Shrivastav.

    About the timeslot chosen for the series Mondays to Thursdays 8 pm to 9 pm, Shrivastav says that it would only benefit the brand whilst giving the viewers what they need. “With the older show, it’s more about viewing it together. There’s a lot of binge-viewing that the country is doing. People are watching things all together. It is a show which does well anyway; it is a show which will benefit from being clubbed together as opposed to playing a half hour. Not only, are we airing the series from Mondays to Thursdays, we are also airing a marathon of all the episodes aired during the week on Saturday afternoon. It’s definitely that the consumers want, but for us as well it works because, we are giving one full hour of love and laughter into two different kinds of shows, with different kinds of library content versus premiere content.”

    Gangane adds, “Airing the show at 8 pm somehow fits in very well with our scheme of things, of the TG really. Also, the numbers happen to stack up over there in terms of TAM numbers, we have the highest People Using TV (PUT) at that time. So, we’ve seen a fairly large amount of critical mass of the TG at that amount of time, on the entire category, which is English GECS’.”

    With no title sponsor on board yet, the show is powered by Gionee Smartphones India. Romedy Now, part of Times Television Network, has acquired the exclusive broadcast rights to the show at a significant cost. According to Gangane, the brand’s TG is 15+, but that’s “more of a business bracket, than a content bracket.”

    On whether marketing a series which is decade old was a daunting task, Gangane points out, “It was very important for us to go into the medium, talk that language and find the best way to contemporise Friends. You cannot really dish out the content from a manufacturer’s way and say that ‘great, Friends has launched, please come and watch it’. You have to contemporise it in various ways; so, one is the hashtags that we’ve created like #TGIF, #ToughestFriendsQuiz; then we’ve also come out with a contest. So, it was to do with having a consumer angle to this entire activation rather than really have another mother promo.”

    Romedy Now used #ToughestFriendsQuiz which was trending across the nation on the first day of its launch. People themselves have created memes and hashtagged Romedy Now and #TGIF.

    Apart from this, the channel through an exciting contest will be giving a chance to the biggest fans of the sitcom to go to LA and have coffee at the real ‘Central Perk’. The fans have to vote for their favourite character to win this.

    Says a media veteran, “Just because Romedy Now is airing Friends in HD, it is not that big a deal. The viewers, such as myself, have seen it quite a few times on Star World or Zee Cafe. For me, it’s just a repeat show, there’s no excitement. Right now, people are savvy about the current shows… they download it as soon as it is aired abroad. Watching a TV Show is not like watching a movie, which you can repeat as many times, and still have people watching and enjoying it.”

  • Zee studio gears up to captivate the audience with Brave!

    Zee studio gears up to captivate the audience with Brave!

    MUMBAI: This month Zee Studio sets the screen on fire with heart thumping, fire igniting emotion as Brave; The American animated fantasy comes to life. Released in 2012 the make-believe world of Brave is set in Scottish Highlands, painting the adventures of Princess Merida (protagonist). Living the life of a rebel, her most prized possessions are a bow, arrow and most importantly freedom. But defiance leads her to downfall when the princess accidentally transforms her mother into a bear. Merida soon realizes the graveness of the situation and ventures off to undo her mom’s spell.

     

    Zee Studio takes its animation movie buffs on a thrilling voyage as witches and demons come alive on Indian Television! Brave has won titles such as the Academy Award for Best Animated Film, Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and BAFTA – and is surely on a mission to thrill yet again. The channel believes in showcasing the best films and with this month’s Movie of the Month: Brave, the upcoming weekend already seems to be a much awaited one!

     

    Journey into the adventurous life of Princess Merida as Brave:  THE ONE movie you must watch takes center stage! -Sunday, 22nd June exclusively on Zee Studio-

  • Comedy Central represents India with 13 awards at Promax BDA World in New York

    Comedy Central represents India with 13 awards at Promax BDA World in New York

    MUMBAI: Comedy Central, India’s 24 hour English Entertainment channel has proven its creative mettle on the global front once again by bagging13 awardsacross various categories at the PromaxBDA World Awards 2014, held on June 13, 2014 in New York, USA.

    The PromaxBDA Awards recognize excellence in promotions, marketing & design across the globe andthe channel ensured the county’s creativity was represented on a global platform, in the process bagging 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 5 Bronze across categories like Interactive Promotion, technical Innovation & Comedy Program Campaign amongst others.

    This win is a result of unique, innovative and engaging campaigns created by the brand to engage audiences on television and beyond. One such campaign was for the show ‘Anger Management’. The team put out a 360 degree marketing campaign that used both ATL & BTL marketing vehicles topping out the activity with the digital application called the ‘Destruct-o-matic. A never done before, real time anger venting apparatus to vent your anger at friends from Facebook&Twitter in a fun, healthy way. The Destruct-o-matic bagged three awards for Comedy Central.

    In addition the channel won another ten awards over 8 categories.

     

  • HBO gets quirky with its new brand campaign

    HBO gets quirky with its new brand campaign

    MUMBAI: HBO South Asia has come up with a new campaign to promote HBO’s belief ‘Nothing should come in the way of entertainment.’ 

    Executed by DDB Mudra, the campaign highlights the core strength of the HBO premium channels: HBO Defined and HBO Hits, wherein audiences have an uninterrupted ad-free viewing experience. The objective of the communication is to get people to visit the channel’s website and subscribe to HBO Premium channels or directly through DTH operator or digital cable operators. 

    “Both the HBO premium channels maximise the entertainment experience by airing HBO original content and blockbuster movies 100 per cent break-free. We have initiated a multimedia campaign developed by DDB Mudra to promote the visibility and popularity of this unique proposition of HBO Defined and HBO Hits across platforms including print, cinema, TV, digital and social media. Our aim is to spoil our viewers with the very best non-stop, high quality programming, thus providing an unparalleled viewing experience,” said HBO India managing director-South Asia Monica Tata.

    HBO premium has taken a new route in its quirky TVCs with HBO Premium Accessories like HBO Agriculture, HBO Super Clone and HBO Ultimate Couch. While HBO Super Clone is a clone that manages everything in life so that one is not interrupted while watching TV, HBO Agriculture is a set of plants that grows foods like popcorn, burgers, etc., so that hunger doesn’t interrupt one from watching TV. The HBO Ultimate Couch is a couch that has just about the whole house built into it – dumbbell holders so that one doesn’t have to get up to workout, a wash basin so that one doesn’t need to get up to go to the restroom, an in-built kitchen and phone charging station and much more. 

    Click here to watch the video

    “Through this campaign, we want to establish the HBO premium channels as your most preferred destination for break free entertainment. And to promote this belief and product of ours, we’ve come up with the idea of HBO Premium Accessories – that makes sure that life doesn’t come in the way of your entertainment either. Our creative approach for this campaign drives home this point, in a fun way. Positioned at the young adult segment, the campaign empowers the viewers to reap the benefits of a completely enhanced ad-free viewing experience,” added Tata.

    Click here to watch the video

    “Content promotion on a channel has a very formulaic approach. The usual strategy is to build intrigue through teaser like edits by using existing footage of the content that needs to be promoted. We wanted to break away from this traditional approach and leverage the USP of uninterrupted original HD quality content in a way that goes beyond just claims and announcements of the product offering. Thus came about our creative proposition of ‘addictive viewing experience’ dramatised through two TV spots showing the consumers going through the experience. We believe it is imperative for a content brand to build the ideology of viewing experience in addition to the promise of fresh content for the consumers to feel compelled to subscribe,” concluded DDB Mudra senior vice president Anurag Tandon.

  • DC Entertainment: The superhero of television

    DC Entertainment: The superhero of television

    MUMBAI: Long before she became famous as Susan Meyer of Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher played Louis Lane in the cult 90’s series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. This was one of the first few series produced in association with DC Comics after Superboy (1988 – 1992).  

     

    It ran from 1993 to 1997 and soon afterwards was on Star World India during the late 90s.

     

    In 2001, Tom Welling, with the blessing of the original Superman, Christopher Reeve, donned the superhero’s cape in Warner Bros’ (WB) original production, Smallville that won both critical acclaim and commercial success.

     

    It enjoyed an average viewership of 8.7 million and WB’s second-best 18-49 adult rating ever, according to Media Life Magazine. 

     

    The series follows the adventures of Clark Kent right from his pre-Superman days in the fictional town of Smallville in Kansas to his career at the Daily Planet while introducing other DC comics superheroes and villains.

     

    As earlier reported by indiantelevision.com, Smallville was aired in India on Star World with the first few seasons on Wednesday nights at 8 pm, later moving to Saturdays at 7 pm before being pulled off air.

     

    In an earlier interview with the website, Star English Entertainment business head, Kevin Vaz had reasoned, “Since moving Smallville to Saturdays, we weren’t receiving as much traction from the audience as we did during its initial run on Wednesday nights, and there was also new content then which received good response from the audience. Ergo, we had to discontinue airing the new seasons of the series.” 

     

    Smallville was a milestone in the journey of DC Comics’ Entertainment, which created a niche for itself in the global television market with the series. 

     

    Buoyed by its success, DC followed suit with Human Target, which however, failed to get the viewership it deserved and was hence taken off schedule and eventually cancelled. All the same, the series did air in its entirety on Warner Bros’ Indian channel, WB India.

     

    DC’s TV endeavours post Human Target have met with much greater success.

     

    In 2012, The CW, formed as a result of the merger between WB and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), ordered its first drama series based on a DC Comics character Green Arrow. 

     

    Arrow revolves round billionaire playboy Oliver Queen, portrayed by Stephen Amell (Dante’s Cove, New Girl), who, after five years of being stranded on a hostile island, returns home to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante with a bow and arrow as his ammo of choice. As the series develops, more characters from DC Comics were introduced like Black Canary and The Flash.

     

    Coming to 2014, DC Entertainment has five new properties currently in production with various broadcast and cable networks. 

     

    Arrow, the CW Original series has made way for The Flash, an upcoming American television series developed by the writers and executive producers of Arrow. It will be based on the DC Comics character Flash reprised by Barry Allen, a Central City assistant police forensic investigator who by virtue of being caught in a chemical explosion, gets the power of superhuman speed. 

     

    The second new property is Gotham, an upcoming television series by Bruno Heller, creator of the Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated series Rome and The Mentalist. As the title suggests, Gotham is based on the DC Comics characters Detective James Gordon and Bruce Wayne created by Bob Kane and sundry other characters in the Batman franchise. Interestingly, the series will go into the origins of iconic villains like the Penguin, the Riddler, Cat woman, Two-Face, the Joker, Poison Ivy and Scarecrow. According to inside sources, both The Flash and Gotham might premiere on Star World Premiere HD.

     

    The third newbie is Vertigo, based on an imprint of DC Comics originally created to do stories that could not meet the stringent guidelines of the Comics Code Authority. 

     

    NBC’s upcoming supernatural series Constantine is based on DC Comics’ wildly popular series Hellblazer which revolves round seasoned demon hunter and master of the occult, John Constantine, who specializes in “giving hell… hell”. 

     

    Given the number of Warner Bros Television and DC Comics properties acquired by Indian broadcasters in the past, one can expect Constantine to end up airing on Star World, Zee Cafe or AXN.

     

    The CW’s upcoming drama series iZombie is loosely based on the series created by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred and published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. 

     

    iZombie, developed by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, revolves round a medical student who becomes a zombie, and joins a Coroner’s Office to gain access to the brains she must reluctantly eat so that she can maintain her humanity. For every brain she eats though, she also inherits its memories and must now solve the deaths of these persons with help from the Medical examiner and a police detective.

     

    Also, American Movie Classics (AMC) Network – home to Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning drama series like Mad Men and Breaking Bad – in association with Sony Television, will soon bring to the small screen the satirical and supernatural comic series, Preacher, with comedy writers/actors Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, Superbad) and Evan Goldberg (Neighbours, This is the End) spearheading the project for the cable network. 

     

    Preacher follows hardened Reverend Jesse Custer. Accompanied by his ex-girlfriend and a vampire named Cassidy, he searches for God after finding out he has left heaven. The series’ antagonist is Saint of Killers, a Western lone gunman type, hell-bent on killing Jesse.

     

    Since iZombie will air midseason next year and Preacher is still in development, it is too early to speculate on which Indian broadcaster will air these adaptations.

     

    While the past decade has seen a slew of movies (The Dark Knight trilogy, Green Lantern, Superman: Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice) based on a wealth of characters from DC Comics, perhaps it’s time television followed suit as well!

  • Screenz joins hands with Google to revolutionise TV viewing experience

    Screenz joins hands with Google to revolutionise TV viewing experience

    MUMBAI: Screenz has announced its collaboration with Google to host the Screenz Real Time Platform, a global, live, interactive infrastructure for television shows enabling broadcasters and format owners to transform programs into live events.

     

    The first show to use Screenz Real Time Platform is ‘Rising Star’– Keshet International’s hit TV show that first aired in Israel in September 2013, and will be launched in over 25 countries around the world including on ABC in the US on 22 June.

     

    ‘Rising Star’ is a trailblazing interactive TV format that marks a new era in home entertainment. The show enables real-time voting by viewers from their sofas via an innovative mobile app, fully integrated to the program. It is the first talent show where the viewer is the judge from start to finish. The show features performers making their debut on stage alone, from behind a giant wall of TV screens. They can only make their entry to the studio round by securing more than 70 per cent of the viewers’, judges’ and live audiences’ vote.  The audience can see the results of their vote in real time and if they vote positively, have a chance that their picture will be shown on the giant wall.  If a contestant achieves 70 per cent of the votes, the wall dramatically lifts revealing the studio audience and expert panel.

     

    The collaboration between Screenz and Google delivers the scale to process a huge number of interactions per second and has been successfully employed so far to support the show in Brazil, Portugal and Israel. In testing the Real Time Platform processed a remarkable 100 million interactions per minute.

     

    Screenz is working with broadcasters and TV production companies worldwide to leverage its unique Real Time Platform to create and support innovative new formats. The proven benefit of the Platform for broadcasters is the way it hikes up the level of engagement a viewer has with a show at the exact time when it is aired. The system also enables sophisticated audience targeting allowing broadcasters and brands to effectively identify viewer demographics and interests.

     

    “Broadcasters and producers are constantly looking to introduce new formats which enable them to engage directly with TV audiences. By working with the Google Cloud Platform, Screenz will empower them to rip up the rule book and combine compelling live content with real time viewer interaction” said Screenz CEO Eli Uzan.

     

    Google Cloud Platform director Daniel Powers said, “Screenz is at the forefront of a revolution which is changing the way we watch television. We are delighted that they have chosen to build their game-changing products on Google Cloud Platform. Our job is to make sure that the technology behind the Real Time Platform works effortlessly so that all viewers need to worry about is which way they are going to vote.”

     

    Keshet International general manager production Granit Noham added, “We are very pleased that our partner Screenz is collaborating with the digital prowess of Google Cloud Platform to provide a robust platform and safe pair of hands for each and every international version of ‘Rising Star’.”

     

    Screenz’s Real Time Platform utilises Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage and Google BigQuery, which are part of Google Cloud Platform. The application is deployed globally on Google’s cloud infrastructure, to provide scalability and robustness. The needs of the local broadcaster and audience will always be met, even if multiple countries are broadcasting the live show simultaneously. By utilising BigQuery, Screenz is able to provide broadcasters with the ability to analyze the large amounts of data collected.

  • ‘Pretty Little Liars’ renewed for seasons 6 and 7!

    ‘Pretty Little Liars’ renewed for seasons 6 and 7!

    MUMBAI: In anticipation of the fifth season premiere of Pretty Little Liars (PLL), ABC Family president Tom Ascheim and ABC Family executive VP original programming and development and chief creative officer Kate Juergens have announced that the network has picked up unprecedented two seasons of its longest-running original hit series, Pretty Little Liars, from Warner Horizon Television. Season six is set to air mid-2015, and season seven in mid-2016 on the American network ABC Family.

     

    According to the Nielsen US television viewer ratings, Pretty Little Liars is ABC Family’s #1 series in the network’s history in Total Viewers (3.8 million) and across all target demos: Adults 18-34 (1.5 million/2.2 rating), Women 18-34 (1.3 million/3.7 rating), Adults 18-49 (2.0 million/1.6 rating), Women 18-49 (1.7 million/2.7 rating), Viewers 12-34 (2.6 million/2.8 rating) and Females 12-34 (2.3 million/4.9 rating).

     

    Pretty Little Liars holds the record as the most-tweeted scripted-series telecast of all time, and across all genres, it holds 7 of the Top 15 most-tweeted series telecasts ever. The show also generated the highest average number of tweets per episode (675,000 tweets) of any TV series during the 2013/14 broadcast season. Based on total followers, Pretty Little Liars recently became the #1 scripted television series on Instagram, according to ListenFirst Media.

     

    “Pretty Little Liars has taken its place in the zeitgeist and reigns supreme in pop culture,” said Ascheim in a statement. “I am glad to bring another two seasons to our audience because ‘A’ has a lot in store for our Liars.”

     

    The season five premiere of Pretty Little Liars, entitled ‘Escape from New York’ aired in the US on Tuesday, 10 June and the storyline picked up where the season four finale left off, with Aria and the Liars reeling from Ezra’s shooting at the hands of “A.” The five girls quickly realise that as the one person who truly knows “A’s” identity, Ezra is in grave danger. While Aria watches over Ezra at the hospital, Alison and the PLLs lay a trap to finally flush out “A” and are shocked by who is ensnared. Meanwhile, Detective Holbrook steps up his efforts to find the girls and puts the Hastings family on alert. And as news of Alison’s “resurrection” spreads, Mona is not pleased.

     

    The new season of Pretty Little Liars will debut in India on 14 June, airing Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., exclusively on Zee Cafe!

  • ‘Game of Thrones’ becomes the most popular series in the history of HBO

    ‘Game of Thrones’ becomes the most popular series in the history of HBO

    MUMBAI: With two episodes remaining in the fourth season of Game of Thrones, the show has now become the most popular series in HBO’s history, according to a statement released by HBO.

     

    Episodes of the show, which debut Sunday nights in the US, have an average gross audience of 18.4 million viewers, surpassing the previous record set by the 2002 season of ‘The Sopranos’, which had an average gross audience of 18.2 million viewers per episode. Season three of Game of Thrones had an average gross audience of 14.4 million viewers per episode.

     

    The next episode of Game of Thrones debuts in India on Sunday, 8 June, followed by the penultimate episode on Sunday, 15 June and the season finale on 22 June, exclusively on HBO Defined.

     

    Based on the bestselling fantasy book series by George RR Martin, Game of Thrones is an epic story of treachery and nobility set on the continent of Westeros, where summers and winters can last years, and only the lust for power is eternal. The EMMY and Golden Globe-winning series was recently renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

     

    The executive producers of Game of Thrones are David Benioff, DB Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger and Bernadette Caulfield with co-executive producers Guymon Casady, Vince Gerardis and George RR Martin. Chris Newman and Greg Spence produce the series.