ITV

Category: News Broadcasting

  • Pyramid Saimira Theatre IPO subscribed over 15 times

    Pyramid Saimira Theatre IPO subscribed over 15 times

    MUMBAI: The entertainment industry is riding on the wave of a strong stock market boom. The latest initial public offering (IPO) to have won support of the investors is Chennai-based Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd. The issue has been subscribed 15.40 times, the company said.

    The equity shares of the company are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE. Pyramid Saimira Theatre entered the capital market on 11 December with a public issue aggregating Rs 844.4 million. The price band was fixed at Rs 88 to Rs 100 per equity share of Rs 10 each

    The company has 148 screens and operates with over 1.8 million sq. ft. The IPO proceeds will be used for expansion of the current theatre chain into the northern region and consolidation in South India.

    Pyramid plans to reach 350 screens operational by March 2007 with 9.60 million sq.ft. under operational management. The company plans to have over 2000 screens in 1550 locations across India with 58.75 million sq. ft. under operational management by 2010.

    The total fund requirement is estimated at Rs 1.11 billion. This is being financed through IPO money and pre-issue capital and internal accruals of Rs 267.5 million. An amount of Rs 710.75 lacs has already been brought in by promoters on 30th November 2006 towards their contribution to the issue.

    The project also includes the conversion of theatres into digital exhibition systems by installing digital projectors, servers, VSAT terminals and audio and video equipments. Further, there will be investment in a central network operating center [“NOC”] which will enable service provisioning for content transmission, rights management, theatre management and networked revenue management.

  • China signs anti piracy online agreement with MPAA

    China signs anti piracy online agreement with MPAA

    MUMBAI: China has signed an agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Business Software Alliance, Association of American Publishers and Britain’s Publishers Association to fight against online piracy of intellectual property.

    The National Copyright Administration (NCA) of China has signed the deal, reports state. These groups have agreed to provide the NCA with a list of items that they wish to see protected, such as movies, video and audio, software, and published works.

    The NCA media reports state has, in return, agreed to investigate reported cases of piracy and keep in regular communication with the trade groups regarding copyright issues.

    Reports add that piracy was a focus of two days of talks recently between US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Chinese government.

  • BBC on-demand service for archive programmes set for trial early next year

    BBC on-demand service for archive programmes set for trial early next year

    MUMBAI: A limited consumer trial of the BBC Archive in the UK is set to begin early next year, and is expected to last up to six months.

    The BBC Archive is the BBC’s proposed service that would make parts of its repository of previously broadcast TV and radio content – an estimated one million hours of TV and radio programmes – available, on a public service basis, to licence fee payers on-demand via bbc.co.uk.

    The trial for the BBC Archive is being undertaken in order to gather evidence about consumer demand for free archive content and its ability to create public value. It will make available 1,000 hours of content drawn from a mix of genres to a closed user environment of 20,000 triallists.

    A limited amount of content – 50 hours – of both TV and radio programmes will be available in an open environment for general access. The results of the trial will inform the BBC’s future proposition for a public service archive service on bbc.co.uk, which will require approval from the BBC Trust.

    BBC director of Future Media and Technology Ashley Highfield says, “As part of our commitment to making our public service content more personal, more convenient and more relevant for all our audiences, we are developing a portfolio of services to offer licence payers access to the BBC’s archive. To this end, we are planning a limited trial of the BBC Archive early next year to learn more about interaction with the BBC’s archive content on-demand via bbc.co.uk, and the public value that it delivers. Our goal is to turn the BBC into an open cultural and creative resource for the nation.”

    The BBC’s future proposition for an archive service on bbc.co.uk will also encompass the BBC’s Creative Archive, which has already completed a successful 18-month pilot, which concluded in September.

    The Creative Archive pilot released selected BBC television and radio content in five successive national campaigns and four regionally-based campaigns. It generated a significant level of engagement from licence fee payers with nearly 100,000 regular users, and a Bafta award for technical innovation.

    The Creative Archive pilot enabled people to re-edit, use and share appropriately cleared content for their own, non-commercial creative purposes within the terms of the Creative Archive Licence Scheme in partnership with other organisations (ITN Source; British Film Institute; Channel 4; Open University; Museum, Libraries and Archive Council; Teachers’ TV; and Community Channel).

    The intention would be to make selected BBC content available under the scheme within the proposed BBC Archive service, across bbc.co.uk and also within a third party web portal with partner organisations.

    The BBC Archive would be an extension of the BBC’s seven-day catch-up on-demand proposals (including BBC iPlayer) which are currently undergoing a Public Value Test.

    Subject to the licence fee settlement, the public service archive proposition will be further developed in light of the trials before being submitted for approval to the BBC Trust in the second half of 2007.

    The trial of the BBC Archive is specifically designed to test audience demand for public service archive content and how they want to access it.

  • Chyron, Madison Road Entertainment to develop ad solutions for mobile TV

    Chyron, Madison Road Entertainment to develop ad solutions for mobile TV

    MUMBAI: US firm Chyron which provides graphics software for the world’s television broadcasters and an emerging player in the field of mobile TV graphics has partnered with Madison Road Entertainment which works in the field of branded entertainment.

    Together, the companies will launch a new advertiser-supported mobile TV software suite and web-based out of home (OoH) network services platform in 2007.

    Under the partnership, the companies have agreed to develop and market a series of software application tools that will connect advertisers more efficiently with viewers through various devices and networking protocols including cell phones, OoH networks and the Internet.

    The partnership was formed to address the accelerating demand for multiple media content delivery systems, as the large, traditional audiences, which mainstream advertisers covet, spend more of their time out of home and connected to new forms of content delivery – much of it portable.

    Chyron president and CEO, Michael Wellesley-Wesley says, “Chyron has been developing its capabilities in this area for several years now.

    “Recognising that the future requirements of advertisers will include a truly immersive experience that extends beyond TV – to include cell phones, OoH networks and the Internet – we identified Madison Road, its advertising, branding, entertainment programming expertise and connections as the perfect partner and choice to integrate Chyron into these new areas of content creation.

    “Madison Road’s experience with social networking trends and viral marketing models, as well as their positioning at the crossroads of advertising and mainstream entertainment, fits well with Chyron’s competence in developing software-based solutions for content creation and content management in the digital video space.”

    In 2005, Chyron launched its ChyTV business unit to develop technology solutions for middle-service providers, addressing the newly-emerging retail digital signage and OoH networks space. Based on its initial development of proprietary content creation and scheduling software, as well as low-cost playout devices, ChyTV is now poised to offer a turnkey, web-based services solution to these high-growth, emerging markets.

  • India TV elevates Rohit Bansal to COO

    India TV elevates Rohit Bansal to COO

    MUMBAI: India TV managing editor Rohit Bansal has been elevated to the post of Chief Operating Officer of Independent News Service, the holding company of India TV. The post is a newly created one.

    He will directly report to Independent News Service managing director and co-founder Ritu Dhawan and Independent News Service chairman and co-founder Rajat Sharma.

    In his new position, Bansal will look after various new avenues that the company is looking for in 2008. Bansal said, “Independent News Service has a very tight schedule for 2008. We will be leveraging our strengths in various non-news entities in 2008.”

    In a recent development, Vinod Kapree joined India TV to replace Rohit Bansal as the managing editor. Kapree comes in from Star News where he was deputy managing editor.

  • Sanju Saha quits Star News, to join Pepsi India

    Sanju Saha quits Star News, to join Pepsi India

    NEW DELHI: Sanju Saha, executive vice president, human resources at Star News, has put in his papers and is slated to join Pepsi in a much higher capacity.

    Industry sources said that Saha, just 37, is joining as executive vice president, human resources of the Rs 70 billion Pepsi India group, a high profile job that functionally is director, HR.

    Reluctant to comment on the development, Saha did tell indiantelevision.com: “I can say that I am as of date EVP HR, Star News, but I am leaving the group, that is confirmed.”

    Sources who know him say that Saha was looking for a higher profile, which Pepsi has now offered him. And though no one is putting a date to either his finally leaving Star or joining the F&B global major, sources said he is joining Pepsi in the first week of February.

    Saha had been working with Star News for the past two years and was responsible for streamlining the HR department and making it market oriented, getting the right people and generally “ruddering the ship in an industry that has seen so much turmoil”, a Star insider says.

    Saha has previously worked with Aaj Tak, thus having worked in senior capacities in both the top Hindi news channels of the country.

    “I come from a banking background, having worked with American Express before joining the media, Aaj Tak,” Saha said.

    Before AmEx, he had worked with Britannia and Vazir Sultan, the Hyderabad based tobacco manufacturer.

  • NATPE Mobile++ announces Peter Cowley, Cyriac Roeding and Gary Carter to Keynote 15 January event

    NATPE Mobile++ announces Peter Cowley, Cyriac Roeding and Gary Carter to Keynote 15 January event

    MUMBAI: NATPE Mobile++ organisers have secured three digital and interactive media executives as keynote speakers for the third annual NATPE Mobile++ event, which will kick off NATPE’s conference and exhibition on 15 January 2007.

    Endemol UK director interactive media Peter Cowley; CBC Corporation vice president wireless Cyriac Roeding and FMX FremantleMedia chief creative officer Gary Carter will participate.

    In an interview format hosted by Paidcontent.org publisher and editor Rafat Ali, Peter Cowley’s opening keynote will discuss Endemol’s mobile, gaming and interactive broadcast activities for a number of its properties, including Deal or No Deal, Get Close to the Sugar Babies and Big Brother. Cowley will also speak about the UK £15 million digital investment fund they have set up to develop new opportunities in digital media, asserts an official release.

    Billed as the most valuable thirty minutes you could spend all year, Cyriac Roeding’s keynote session will address the next generation of media and the newly expanded media model: the convergence of Hollywood and Silicon Valley; the next generation of content; how traditional media platforms become interactive assets and how advertising needs to quickly follow this trend.

    Digital veteran and visionary Gary Carter’s closing keynote will reveal the biggest business opportunities and pitfalls in the digital industry. Carter will share his perspective on the most lucrative opportunities in the media space.

    NATPE Mobile++’s line-up of guest speakers also includes: BET EVP and COO BET Interactive Scott Mills; Microsoft VP corporate media content and partner strategy group Blair Westlake; CBS EVP chief of research David Poltrack; Amp’d Mobile founder and CEO Peter Adderton; Americas VP integrated fremantle licensing worldwide marketing and interactive Keith Hindle; QuickPlay Media CCO and co-founder Raja Khanna; Fox Sports Interactive senior VP business development Jon Smelzer; Sprint senior manager consumer communications partner development Howard Coonley and Mobile content consultant Graeme Ferguson.

  • CNN Young Journalist Award 2006 winners announced

    CNN Young Journalist Award 2006 winners announced

    NEW DELHI: While Tejeswi Pratima Dodda and Rohit Vishwanath won this year’s CNN Young Journalist Awards, announced at a glittering function yesterday punctuated by rank bad compering, it was the inevitable choice of Ajit Jaykar as the CNN Citizen Journalist Awardee that drew the loudest applaud from the audience.

    Jaykar had done the ‘biggest story of the year’ shooting from his video camera, the first person to capture footage of the Mumbai blasts. It was thus sad that Jaykar was unable to collect his award at the function, for as Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN said, “like all good Indian journalists, he must be working somewhere on a Friday evening.
    Jaykar will receive a trophy, citation, Rs 20,000 in cash and a digital camera.

    Dodda – from NDTV 24×7, Hyderabad bagged the TV category award for her reporting “Children for hire”, on kids being used as domestic help, which was aired on CNN-IBN and which provoked the CM of AP to order a probe into the issue.

    Vishwanath, who works for Business World from Mumbai, won the runner-up award for his report on “Shop floor jobs are hot once again” a report on the fact that engineering jobs and not just those in IT, are still a favourite among Indian youth.

    Sonia Faleiro of Tehelka (Mumbai) won the runner up award in the print and online category and Poonam Agarwal from NDTV Delhi won the runner up in the TV category.

    CNN Aspiring Journalist Award was won by Raksha Kumar from Lady Shri Ram College in the TV category.

    The jury decided to give a special mention to Piyush Bhatia from Indian Institute of Mass Communication for his notable performance in the final rounds of the selection process.

    Satinder Bindra, CNN’s Senior International Correspondent, along with Rajdeep Sardesai and other jury members said the selections were a tough fight between young people who had at least two things in common: passion and determination.

    For the Young Journalist Awards, the contestants were given repeated inputs from incidents taking place in Iraq and were asked to report – depending on the medium – either stand in front of a live TV camera and report, or file in print or online.

    The winners in all categories were given a trophy and citation. The winners of the YJA will be sent to the CNN headquarter to work for a month.

    However, as Gurbir Singh, media editor of Hindustan Times, pointed out, despite the fact that there was a lot of zeal and passion, somehow, in terms of print, basic things like grammar, syntax, writing skills and expression remain to fulfil the highest standards, and “the industry needs to look inwards and see what can be done about this”

  • Oprah Winfrey to foray into reality series on ABC Entertainment

    Oprah Winfrey to foray into reality series on ABC Entertainment

    MUMBAI: Talk show host Oprah Winfrey plans to enter into the reality space with two shows tentatively tilted Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give and Your Money or Your Life. This announcement was made jointly by Harpo Productions and Disney owned ABC Entertainment.

    To be rolled out as eight-episode show, Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give will challenge 10 people to take the money and resources they are given and multiply them to come up with the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others.

    An official release stated that each week the group will face a “big catch” that will test their nerve, drive, ingenuity and passion. The stakes will get higher, with one person ultimately being chosen to have his/her wildest dream come true for making the biggest impact. The series will center on the drama, emotion and magic of making a difference in peoples’ lives.

    In addition, the two companies are also developing the primetime series Your Money or Your Life. Each week will feature families facing a life crisis. They will need to make drastic and immediate changes before they are consumed by disaster. In every episode, an expert action team will move in and viewers will watch a dramatic total money and life makeover.

    “Less than 100 days since we launched our new television development group, we’re delighted to be announcing our first two primetime series,” said Harpo Productions president Tim Bennett.

    “Oprah Winfrey getting into series TV is monumental. Our relationship with Harpo has been wonderful for us, and this latest partnership takes it to a phenomenal new level,” said ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson. “These two shows are a perfect fit for our alternative brand with their focus on wish fulfillment and making lives better. I can’t wait to get started.”

  • Americans love for media continues to grow : Census

    Americans love for media continues to grow : Census

    MUMBAI: Americans spend more time watching TV, listening to the radio, surfing the Internet and reading newspapers than anything else except breathing.

    Data released by the US census bureau forecasts that Americans will spend a total of 65 days watching TV next year and 41 days listening to the radio. A week each will be given to reading newspapers and surfing the internet. All that reading, surfing and listening will occupy 3,518 hours of the average American adult’s year – almost five months. The average American will spend $936 on media in the coming year.

    Americans spend an average of 4 1/2 hours a day watching television, far more time than they spend on any other medium. Next come the radio and the Internet. Reading newspapers is fourth, passed this year by Internet use.

    An increasing variety of cable TV channels has cut into broadcast viewers, but it has helped increase overall viewership. Before, if you looked at kids’ TV programming, it was on Saturday morning. Now there is always targeted programming available for anyone in the household.

    The number of hours projected for next year in different categories are as follows:

    -1,555 hours watching television, up from 1,467 in 2000. The estimate includes 678 hours watching broadcast TV and 877 watching cable and satellite.

    -974 hours listening to the radio, up from 942 in 2000.

    -195 hours using the Internet, up from 104.

    -175 hours reading daily newspapers, down from 201.

    -122 hours reading magazines, down from 135.

    -106 hours reading books, down an hour.

    -86 hours playing video games, up from 64.