ITV

Category: Factual

  • Travelxp HD inks distribution agreement with M7 Group

    Travelxp HD inks distribution agreement with M7 Group

    MUMBAI: From 5 February onwards, M7 Group, one of Europe’s pay TV providers, will add Travelxp HD to its channel line-up for its pay-TV bouquets Skylink (Czech Republic and Slovakia), Canal Digital and Online.nl (Netherlands) and TV Vlaanderen (Belgium). The channel will be available 24/7 in HD.

    Travelxp HD features travel and lifestyle programming from over 45 countries across the globe. The content is 100 per cent originally-produced. While the channel is available with English voice-over, Travelxp HD will be fully localised in the Czech language. Dutch subtitling will be added over time.

    Travelxp HD CEO Prashant Chothani said, “We are committed to reach out to every potential traveler around the globe. We are therefore quite excited about our agreement with a European key player like M7 Group, allowing us to substantially boost our viewership in various important European markets.”

    In addition to being distributed via satellite and IPTV, the channel will also be available via the various M7 Live TV apps, allowing for the viewing of Travelxp HD via multiple mobile devices. 

    M7 Group VP business development Bill Wijdeveld said, “With the launch of Travelxp HD we are meeting subscriber demand for a channel that is fully dedicated to the world of travel. The channel has already proven its added value in other parts of the world and we look forward to a fruitful cooperation in our various European markets.”

    As part of the new agreement, M7 Platform Services will arrange for the safe and secure technical delivery of Travelxp HD to third party operators within the Europe-wide ASTRA 23.5 degrees east footprint coverage.

    Also Read:

    Travelxp’s Prashant Chothani’s 4K HDR TV global mission

    Travelxp and Prashant Chothani’s  4K drive

  • TV channels ready Republic Day programming line-up

    TV channels ready Republic Day programming line-up

    MUMBAI: With the Republic Day holiday upon us, broadcasters have readied a slew of programmes to keep viewers enthralled. To build the excitement around the day, various special shows and movies have been lined up. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

    Sony BBC Earth is celebrating the day by premiering shows such as Joanna Lumley’s India—recipient of the prestigious Bafta Fellowship. The show entails Lumley taking an evocative journey around the country of her birth. The other show, named The Ganges with Sue Perkins, traces the course of the Ganges, from source to sea, to tell the story of modern India at a crucial point in its history. To make things more interesting, the network will telecast World’s Busiest Cities, the most awaited Blue Planet II and Fishing Impossible.

    AXN, meanwhile, is premiering a number of shows such as the Handmaid’s Tal, which is an American television series created by Bruce Miller based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, with an IMDb rating of 8.6. Other shows include Vikings season 5. With the death of King Ragnar, his sons are at war against each other. From the executive producer of the show Homeland, The Brave revolves around DIA deputy director Patricia Cambell and her team, who put their lives at risk and embark on challenging missions behind enemy lines. Another heart-racing show is Doubt, which is about a successful defence lawyer at a boutique firm who becomes romantically involved with a client who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime.

    The list of programmes for the Sony cluster doesn’t end there. Sony PIX also has a strong line-up in place for the day. The channel will premiere Ouija: Origin of Evil, which is a show about a widow and her two daughters that use an Ouija board to help people move on with life. Other movies include Fifty Shades Darker, The Fate Of The Furious, Despicable Me 3, and American Made. Another movie to watch out for on the channel is Pitch Perfect 3.

    Sony Le PLEX HD has a line-up for shows such as When the Bough Breaks, which is about a surrogate mom for a couple who becomes dangerously obsessed with the soon-to-be father, and All We Had. Adding to the entertainment quotient are Nocturnal Animals and Sing.

    Stepping beyond the contours of television, Nickelodeon is celebrating Republic Day with the school kids across various cities. Through its Republic Day campaign, #BeRepublic, the channel took the charge of educating and bringing awareness to the kids. The campaign saw fun videos that captured quick facts about Republic Day and enlightened children about the rich heritage of our country and the importance of parades. Fun gifs and informative posts on social media supported the celebration session. The celebrations continued when Nicktoons took charge of the classroom and converted it to a fun-filled yet informative session at schools across various cities. The toons enlightened children through various placards on quirky unknown facts about our constitution-making syllabus for the day fun and memorable. 

    With such great programming in the works, this Republic Day is all set to be memorable for viewers across age groups.

  • FOODFOOD announces veeba cook off powered by Daawat Basmati Rice and Tata Sampann

    FOODFOOD announces veeba cook off powered by Daawat Basmati Rice and Tata Sampann

    MUMBAI: Cooking doesn’t get tougher than this! FOODFOOD Pro an initiative of FOODFOOD, India’s premier 24×7 Food and Lifestyle channel is proud to announce an intense and exciting eleven – episode series, VEEBA COOK-OFF, a challenge, that is purely ‘By the Professionals and For the Professionals’. This high-octane 30-minute show will be a pure adrenaline rush for cooking enthusiasts.

    The objective is to find the best chefs for India’s hotel and restaurant industry. The contestants will have to beat-off their peers in an extremely tough competition by sheer creativity, skills and a determination that seriously pushes them to their culinary limits. The winner will be selected on the basis of Talent, Technique and Taste.

    What sets apart ‘Veeba Cook-Off’ from regular cooking shows is that there will be a winner in every episode as opposed to a single one every season. Each episode will feature a new set of young and talented to-be-chefs picked, after an intense talent search, from across India’s most prestigious culinary schools and they will be competing with each other.

    The judges are India’s leading authority on food, Padmashri awardee Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and popular host of Mummy ka Magic show, Amrita Raichand. Joining Sanjeev and Amrita on different episodes as judges include Perizaad Zorabian, Sharad Kelkar, Kunal Vijaykar, Hariharan, Anurag Katriar (Owner of Degustibus), Renuka Shahane, Rajesh Bharadwaj (owner of Junoon, An 8 time Michelin starred restaurant in New York).

    Speaking about the new series, Sanjeev Kapoor said, “The concept of Veeba Cook Off is the first-ever in India, with a twist to regular cooking competitions. A real cooking show that is ‘Of the chefs, For the chefs’, it has professionally trained Trainee Chefs competing who would be absorbed by the industry soon. The series will test skill, commitment and their ability to cook and innovate the very best food at the highest end of the culinary spectrum in a limited time.” 

    Sanjeev further added, “The twist is secret ingredients, innovative recipes, quick action and a heart filled with desire to beat the challenge. Cooking, for me, is definitely more than a job, it’s a way of life! I love to pass on knowledge to young chefs and what better than to devise a series that gets them to compete, be under scrutiny and learn from India’s best Chefs.”

    Speaking about the association, Veeba, Founder and Managing Director, Viraj Bahl said, “Our strong focus on innovation and our obsession to bring out only the best, led to our partnership with FOODFOOD to present a one-of-its-kind cookery show, Veeba Cook Off. Indian Chefs are becoming a force to reckon with globally and we are hopeful that under Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s guidance and mentorship, we will be able to discover fresh talent who will go on to become game changers in the food industry.”

    Daawat, CEO, Vivek Chandra said, “With Chef Sanjeev Kapoor as Daawat brand’s ambassador, for almost a decade, Daawat has always been very close to the Food Service fraternity. Young Chefs are the future of our Food Service industry and they should be given enough platforms to succeed. Participation in this show is our commitment towards this endeavour.”

    Tata Chemicals Ltd. stated, Head- Marketing, Consumer Product Business, Mr. Sagar Boke, “Veeba Cook Off is a platform where professional chefs are challenged to test their skill sets. Similarly, at Tata Sampann, we challenge ourselves to provide foods that are nourishing, wholesome and retain their natural goodness & taste. We continuously strive to innovate on the delivery formats, minimise processing & offer wholesome food products.”

  • Get Intriguing Insights into the human mind with ‘Meet the Humans’ on Sony BBC Earth

    Get Intriguing Insights into the human mind with ‘Meet the Humans’ on Sony BBC Earth

    MUMBAI: If you think human behavior is predictable, think again. In ‘Meet the Humans’, a show on Sony BBC Earth, starting January 22, at 8pm, a trio of experts led by Dr. Michael Mosely take a microscopic look at the human behavior and discover how incredibly unpredictable and complex humans are.

    The setting of the show is a country house, rigged with surveillance cameras where a group of participants are put together, presented with a range of group activities scenario and observed carefully and discreetly by the experts. These fun experiments on Humans lead to new exploration of the human species and unravels the extent to which humans are driven by animal instinct.

    Unravel the human species like never before only on Sony BBC Earth #FeelAlive

  • GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    MUMBAI:  When largely all television channels were struggling in the aftermath of the goods and services tax (GST) implementation, Food Food channel remained insulated from all the brouhaha. Celebrity chef and promoter Sanjeev Kapoor, speaking to Indiantelevision.com, said that the channel he co-founded saw no adverse impact of the tax that has been the bane of existence of many media companies.

    The food content channel is run by Turmeric Vision Private Ltd, a joint venture between Kapoor, Astro Overseas Ltd and Mogae Consultants.

    “Bigger channels might have been impacted but not us,” he said. Food content is always on people’s minds even as male viewership has been increasing as the taboo of men entering the kitchen is fading away. “The primary viewership today isn’t always female. There is great interest from the male audience, too, which wasn’t the case earlier.”

    Unlike other content such as automobiles or sports, food is a universally loved topic. Everyone relates to it and food lovers will especially gobble it up. He said that India had three types of entertainment preferences–Bollywood, cricket and food, which wasn’t very hot until recently.

    According to media reports in 2016, the network saw an investment of around $30 million (around Rs 180 crore) and had incurred operating loss, which kept reducing year-on-year. The company achieved break even in financial year 2016-17. “We are confident that 2018 will be far better than 2017,” he said.

    Kapoor dismisses the idea of constantly thinking of improving a channel’s ratings and repackaging shows in order to ramp up viewership. Instead of calculating the impact via ratings, the channel focuses on reaching relevant homes. “If we want to be in the top of ratings chart, we will have to create the next Naagin of food and we don’t want to do that. We want to stay focussed on our content, which is more trust centred. So, the ratings are relatable for general entertainment channels (GECs) but our relevance is towards more advertisers.”

    Digitally, Food Food looks at recipe-based content while TV is all about storytelling. Although Kapoor admits that over-the-top (OTT) platforms are important, the channel doesn’t have any app-specific content yet. Instead, the channel’s social media is very active. Moreover, Food Food has associated with SonyLiv and Jio for providing live shows to the platforms; in three months, Kapoor said, the company will analyse the results and decide the future roadmap. Partnerships with two more undisclosed OTT platforms are on the anvil.

    Food Food was the first channel to go high definition (HD) in India. The channel is aware that standard definition (SD) is still more prevalent in the country and, therefore, also distributes its content in SD.

    Food primetime is 1 pm to 5 pm and 8 pm to 11 pm. Kapoor believes that in the food genre, it is not the celebrity chefs behind the channel’s success but is the channel that makes the chef a star.

    Food Food already has presence in the US (Dish Network), Canada, the UAE and Qatar and owns the IP rights to over 2600 hours of programming. It has also syndicated around 1000 hours of programming internationally to the likes of airlines, news channels in South India and to Colors in the US.

    Also Read: Chef Kapoor-promoted Food Food bolsters ops with Amagi Cloudport

    Food content dominates viewership on lifestyle channels

  • Discovery Communication ropes in Isaac John as marketing director

    Discovery Communication ropes in Isaac John as marketing director

    MUMBAI: Discovery Communication has roped in in Isaac John as director of marketing India. He is currently leading marketing for Discovery Jeet and Discovery Kids.

    Prior to joining Discovery, he was associated with HealthifyMe as Marketing VP, where he nurtured the brand voice and drove marketing leadership for the health and fitness app. As a part of the team, he contributed in growing the app from 1 million users to 3 million users in less than a year.

    In 2016, for six months, John was engaged with Arvind Fashion Brands as a marketing consultant. He has also headed marketing for Puma in India, managed a team of 10 for close to four years. 

  • Sony BBC Earth reveals Republic Day programming plans

    Sony BBC Earth reveals Republic Day programming plans

    MUMBAI: Just as the new year commences, the latest entrant in the infotainment genre, Sony BBC Earth, has planned its 2018 Republic Day programming.

    The network is all set to premiere three special shows on 26 January 2018. The first is Joanna Lumley’s India—recipient of the prestigious Bafta Fellowship, an evocative journey around the country of her birth. In another show—The Ganges with Sue Perkins—comedian and presenter Sue Perkins traces the course of the Ganges, from source to sea, to tell the story of modern India at a crucial point in its history. Beginning her journey in the Himalayas, Sue travels through the agricultural and industrial heartlands of the Gangetic plain, visits Varanasi and travels on to the river’s vast delta on the Bay of Bengal.

    The channel also plans to premiere World’s Busiest Cities, which takes a closer look at the secret systems that keep the world’s most crowded, complicated and chaotic cities on the move. From transport and engineering to food and trade, the show highlights the logistical and social challenges faced by some of the most iconic megacities.

    It will also premiere Blue Planet II—the series that shares discoveries coupled with awe-inspiring and wonder revealing new places, charismatic new characters, and extraordinary new behaviours.

    The series on three fishing fanatics, Fishing Impossible, will see Jay, Charlie and the Blowfish embark upon an exciting journey packed with adrenaline-fuelled fishing antics and plenty of friendly rivalry. This trio’s crazy fish-luring inventions feature the search for monsters in the freezing Icelandic Atlantic.

    Sony BBC Earth, in its initial phase, had planned to target the urban mega cities constituting 10 million towns. BBC Earth has garnered great traction from viewers despite a plethora of players competing across the infotainment genre.

    During the launch of the channel in March 2017, NP Singh had stated that a year down the line, “I wish to see BBC Earth in the top three lists.”

    The year holds a lot of promise for Sony BBC Earth as it unveils new plans and strategies going forward. So far, the newest entrant in the infotainment genre has attracted a great number of eyeballs, building anticipation by providing a strong line-up to woo audiences.

    Also Read:

    Sony BBC Earth to air 19 hrs of content every week, local programming on the cards

    Sony BBC Earth presents the Best of 2017

    Sony BBC Earth explores wildlife in 3 shows with Steve Backshall

  • Experience space with BBC’s new VR experience

    Experience space with BBC’s new VR experience

    MUMBAI: The BBC is giving you a chance fly. Home – A VR Spacewalk is an interactive virtual reality (VR) experience launched today for the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift, and is available to download for free via the Steam Store and the Oculus Store.

    Inspired by the NASA training programs used by British astronaut Tim Peake, Home – A VR Spacewalk enables would-be astronauts to embark on a spacewalk 250 miles above the Earth’s surface, something only 217 people have ever done in reality. They are tasked with making a repair on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS), before being confronted with a terrifying emergency situation.

    Peake said: “Exploring space is something that motivates a lot of young people to enter careers in science and technology. This is a really exciting time because the new generation will have unprecedented opportunities to really fly into space. The HomeVirtual Reality experience brings that opportunity even closer, in a very authentic and accessible way.”

    To mark the launch, a series of 360-degree films have been produced using footage from the experience. Viewers are able to look around as they float above the earth, while astronauts Dr Helen Patricia Sharman, Luca Parmitano and Ron Garan recount their real-life experiences of visiting space.

    BBC Studios and director of Home– A VR Spacewalk head of interactive and virtual reality Tom Burton said, “Home represents the very best of the BBC, bringing brilliant creative together with cutting edge technologies to create an experience you wouldn’t get anywhere else. Making this experience available to those who have the devices will give people a taste of what it must be like to visit the ISS and walk in space for real.”

    Zillah Watson, head of content commissioning for the BBC’s recently launched VR Hub, says, “Home is an extraordinary piece of content that enables viewers to get as close an experience as possible to what it must really be like to visit space. In the future, we’ll be looking to use the lessons we’ve learned in making fantastic pieces of content like this to develop even more impressive, immersive and inspiring experiences for audiences.”

  • Sony BBC Earth presents the Best of 2017

    Sony BBC Earth presents the Best of 2017

    MUMBAI: Sony BBC Earth revisits some of its most popular episodes of the best shows in a special programming line-up titled Best of 2017 starting 18 December 2017, every night at 7 pm and 11 pm.

    Sony BBC Earth launched in March this year as India’s premium factual entertainment channel with stories ranging from nature to science to adventure and human interest.

    Best of 2017 will have one of the most fun-filled science shows, Inside the Factory, which takes viewers on a gastronomical and visual feast in some of the largest factories world over. Snow Chick: A Penguin’s Tale brings in some fluffy, feathery fun this Christmas with the thrilling journey of a penguin’s life.

    Planet Earth II will take you on a breathtaking journey again. The series features India, its diverse landscapes and wildlife prominently across several episodes.

    Shows like Kolkata with Sue Perkins and Hidden India inspire the traveller in you to celebrate the diversity, vivacity and flavours of the Indian subcontinent. Britain’s Biggest Adventures with Bear Grylls gives exploration a new meaning and shows the famous wildlife presenter visit Britain’s most extreme landscapes.

    While Tribal Bootcamp embarks on a challenging yet fun trip to tribal communities, the wildlife exploration continues with Spy in the Wild, which uncovers intimate stories of different animals and how they live, love and learn like humans through 30 spy cameras.

    Viewers are also treated to action-packed adventure with two famous shows, The Hunt- a series capturing the dramatic world of predation and Fishing Impossible, which showcases adrenaline-fueled fishing antics and a healthy dose of friendly rivalry.

    The special line-up further includes popular shows, like Bang Goes the Theory, Factomania, Nature’s Greatest Dancers, Nature’s Weirdest Events, Generation Earth, Weird Wonders of the World and many more.

    Keywords: sony bbc earth, Best of 2017, Bang Goes the Theory, Factomania, Nature’s Greatest Dancers, Nature’s Weirdest Events, Generation Earth, Weird Wonders of the World, Inside the Factory, Planet Earth II, Kolkata with Sue Perkins, Hidden India

  • No deal yet with MT Educare: Zee Learn

    No deal yet with MT Educare: Zee Learn

    MUMBAI: After reports of Zee Learn’s acquisition of MT Educare, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sought a clarification from Zee regarding the purchase. The company replied stating that as part of its continuing business strategy, it constantly sought potential opportunities in various capacities to expand its business. “The company currently has not finalised any deal with MT Educare Limited,” said its response to the BSE.

    According to media reports, Zee Learn is looking to buy a controlling stake in MT Educare that runs Mahesh Tutorials, a popular coaching-class network in Mumbai. The company initially plans to buy the entire promoter share of 42.78 per cent and later make an open offer for another 20 per cent stake. Institutions and public shareholders own the remaining 57.22 per cent.

    MT Educare, which went public in 2012, is a leading education services company that prepares students for competitive examinations. It had a market capitalisation of Rs 324 crore by end of trade on Friday.

    At 15:30 hours, MT Educare was trading at Rs 81.10 per share, down by 0.49 per cent, while Zee Learn was trading at Rs 43.95 per share, up by 0.80 per cent. Just last month, Visa Capital bought a 0.60 per cent stake for Rs 68.05 a piece.

    Ninety three per cent of MT’s revenue comes from its coaching classes and the rest from Robomate+ app, which provides recorded video lectures.

    Zee Learn has a pre-school network of 1700 Kidzees in Asia as well as 115 Mount Litera Zee Schools at the end of financial year 2016-17. It also runs film and TV and animation courses.

    In its communiqué to the BSE, MT Educare said that the company was not carrying out any discussion or negotiations and “hence we have not given any intimation to the stock exchanges.”