ITV

Category: TV Channels

  • Major League Cricket announces panel of international commentators for inaugural season broadcasts

    Major League Cricket announces panel of international commentators for inaugural season broadcasts

    Mumbai: Major League Cricket has announced a line-up of illustrious announcers from across the globe, bringing a rich range of international cricket experience to give color to broadcasts showcasing the historic season.

    The commentary team includes the legendary Sunil Gavaskar (India), one of the greatest batters of all-time, former South Africa captain Graeme Smith, former New Zealand international Danny Morrison, and former Zimbabwe international Mpumelelo Mbangwa. Experienced announcers Natalie Germanos (South Africa) and Alan Wilkins (Wales) along with rising star Nikhil Uttamchandani (Barbados) complete the line-up.

    MLC’s inaugural season will be broadcast live in the United States on Willow TV and across numerous major cricketing nations, including Australia (FOX Cricket), the Caribbean (SportsMax), India (Viacom18), New Zealand (Sky NZ), Pakistan (A Sports), South Africa (SuperSport) and the United Kingdom (BT Sport).

    The broadcast partnerships will bring the transformative T20 franchise competition, featuring many of the world’s top players competing in the United States for the first time, to cricket fans around the world. The broadcasts will feature world-class production, with a 30-camera set-up for the matches at Grand Prairie Stadium in North Texas and Church Street Park in North Carolina.

    Superstar players set to take part in MLC include Afghanistan T20 captain Rashid Khan, Pakistan’s Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf, South African internationals Faf du Plessis and David Miller, West Indians Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell, Australians Marcus Stoinis and Aaron Finch, England’s Jason Roy and New Zealand’s Trent Boult.

    The broadcast for Major League Cricket’s sold-out inaugural match, between the Texas Super Kings and Los Angeles Knight Riders, will be shown live this Thursday, 13 July starting at 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Six teams will compete in MLC’s inaugural season from July 13-30: the Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom. The full schedule can be viewed at majorleaguecricket.com.

    The first-ever edition of the landmark competition will air exclusively in India on Viacom18’s sports network. The multi-platform coverage will include live streaming on JioCinema and broadcast television coverage on Sports18.

  • Barc Wk 27′ 23: STAR Maa dominates All India market

    Barc Wk 27′ 23: STAR Maa dominates All India market

    Mumbai: Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India has released currency data for week 27, i.e. 1 July to 7 July 2023. As per data for the all India 2+ target group, STAR Maa is the most watched channel in India with an average minute audience (AMA) of 2654.22(000). It was followed by STAR Plus at 2430.68(000) AMA, Sun TV at 2423.82(000) AMA, Goldmines at 1963.75(000) AMA, and Dangal at 1794.28(000) AMA.

    The average minute audience (AMA) is defined as the number of individuals within a target audience who viewed a televised “event,” averaged across minutes. In the Hindi-speaking market (HSM), STAR Plus emerged as the most-watched channel at 2354.08(000) AMA, followed by Goldmines at 1936.41(000) AMA, Dangal at 1785.44(000) AMA, SONY SAB at 1634.71(000) AMA and Colors at 1577.97(000) AMA.

    In the South market, STAR Maa was the most-watched channel at 2602.62(000) AMA, followed by Sun TV at 2395.13(000) AMA, Zee Telugu at 1660.0(000) AMA, STAR Vijay at 1466.01(000) AMA and Zee Kannada at 1411.26(000) AMA.

    In the Maharashtra/Goa market, Star Pravah was the most-watched channel at 1551.81(000) AMA, followed by Colors Marathi at 448.48(000) AMA, Zee Marathi at 424.57(000) AMA, SONY Sab at 400.81(000) AMA, and STAR Plus at 332.39(000) AMA.

    In the West Bengal market, STAR Jalsha was the most-watched channel with 919.61(000) AMA, followed by Zee Bangla at 780.43(000) AMA, Colors Bangla at 158.39(000) AMA, Jalsha Movies at 139.47(000) AMA and Zee Bangla Cinema at 129.65(000) AMA.

    In the megacities market, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai, Sun TV was the most-watched channel at 426.38(000) AMA followed by STAR Plus at 366.7(000) AMA, Colors at 312.77(000) AMA, STAR Vijay at 312.04(000) AMA and STAR Pravah at 311.63(000) AMA.

  • The Delhi chapter of ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’ to address India’s path ahead of General Elections 2024

    The Delhi chapter of ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’ to address India’s path ahead of General Elections 2024

    Mumbai: CNN-News18, India’s No.1 English news channel, has announced the Delhi chapter of ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’, set to take place on 17 July at The Taj Palace.

    Centred around the theme, ‘Exploring India’s path to 2024 Elections,’ the platform will facilitate discussions with leaders such as Nitin Gadkari (Minister of Road Transport & Highways), Hardeep Singh Puri (Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs & Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas), Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology), Shashi Tharoor, (Member of Parliament, Indian National Congress),  Manish Tewari (Former Cabinet Minister), Sudhanshu Trivedi (Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, BJP) and Sushmita Devi (Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, AITC).

    The primary focus of the event will be on understanding how political parties plan to captivate the attention of the voters. The discussions will revolve around various topics such as policies, manifestos, and strategies employed by each party. Through this discourse, the event will aim to gauge preparations of participating parties for the upcoming General Elections in 2024. Moreover, it will shed light on the steps they intend to take for the welfare of citizens.

    Commenting on the upcoming Delhi edition of ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’, CNN-News18 managing editor Zakka Jacob said, “Our Town Halls serve as a unique platform for political leaders to engage in meaningful discussions, while providing viewers with an opportunity to hear directly from policy makers on a neutral platform. With CNN-News18’s unwavering commitment to unbiased journalism, this event will empower viewers to make informed decisions, ensuring a vibrant democratic process in 2024 and beyond.”

    After its successful run with four editions in 2022, ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’ has become a prominent platform for policy makers, opinion leaders and prominent voices in India. CNN-News18’s commitment to delivering unbiased news and facilitating informed conversations makes this event an invaluable opportunity for political leaders and viewers alike.

    ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’ is an on-ground event with live audience, and will be streamed live on CNN-News18 TV channel as well as its YouTube channel 5:30 pm onwards on 17 July 2023.

  • Star Sports acquires broadcast rights for ACC Men’s Emerging Asia Cup 2023

    Star Sports acquires broadcast rights for ACC Men’s Emerging Asia Cup 2023

    Mumbai: Star Sports, India’s sports broadcaster, has acquired exclusive television rights for the upcoming ACC Men’s Emerging Asia Cup 2023. This landmark agreement not only marks the first time the tournament will be televised in its entirety but also highlights Star Sports’ commitment to promote emerging talent and grow the game of cricket. The ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup 2023 will be the fifth edition of the tournament and is scheduled to be held from 13 July to 23 July 2023 in Sri Lanka. Fans across India can watch all the action LIVE on the Star Sports Network.

    The tournament will feature ‘A’ teams of the five full members of the Asian Cricket Council: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan as well as the top three teams from the 2023 ACC Men’s Premier Cup: Nepal, UAE, and Oman. Through its extensive coverage of the tournament, Star Sports will offer fans front-row seats to witness the emergence of future Indian cricketing superstars like Yash Dhull (C), Abhishek Sharma (VC), Sai Sudarshan, and Riyan Parag among others. India A will begin their tournament on 14 July against UAE A before playing Nepal A on 17 July. The greatest rivalry will commence as India A take on Pakistan A in their final group-stage match on 19 July 2023.

    “We are extremely excited to deliver the ACC Men’s Emerging Asia Cup 2023 to countless cricket enthusiasts. At Star Sports, we are dedicated to broadcasting the best cricket action, showcasing women’s cricket, and creating a platform for emerging talent to shine. Our collaborations with key stakeholders like ICC, ACC, and BCCI, to broadcast women’s cricket and upcoming young talent, underscores our steadfast dedication to expanding the sport and inspiring the next generation of cricketers,” said a Star Sports Spokesperson

    As a pioneer in sports broadcasting, Star Sports will provide cricket enthusiasts across India unprecedented access to witness the emerging talent in action during the ACC Men’s Emerging Asia Cup 2023.

  • ABP News announces launch of its new prime time show – ‘Public Interest’

    ABP News announces launch of its new prime time show – ‘Public Interest’

    Mumbai: ABP News, one of India’s leading national Hindi news channels is proud to announce the launch of its ground-breaking prime-time show, ‘Public Interest’. This show, as the name suggests, aims to amplify people’s voices by addressing the day-to-day issues faced by them while also trying to find solutions to those issues and take the story/ investigation to its logical conclusion. ‘Public Interest’ is set to premiere on July 17 at 9 PM on ABP News.

    In an age where prime-time television news programming is studio-based and discussion-heavy, ‘Public Interest’ aims to reach out to people and opinion makers by doing on-ground reporting, investigative stories, and exclusive interviews, bringing the focus back to the common man and setting the agenda to resolve people’s issues. The show seeks to bridge the gap between the newsroom and the common man by ensuring that their stories are heard, understood, and acted upon.

    The prime-time show will be people-centric bringing exclusive content to its viewers through well-researched stories and issues. To ensure accuracy and reliability, each story presented on the show will undergo thorough investigation, fact-checking, and analysis.

    Jagwinder Patial, an acclaimed journalist with an illustrious career spanning over 25 years, will host the show. Patial is the winner of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence Award for Journalism and has consistently broken impactful stories. His ground-breaking stories from Afghanistan’s conflict zones (ISIS stronghold territories) and reporting from violence-affected/riot-hit areas have made him an acknowledged journalist. He is also known for his ‘super exclusive’ interviews with controversial figures who have made headlines. His recent interview with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi from the jail premises in Bhatinda created headlines across the media landscape in the country.

    Speaking on the launch of the show, ABP News executive editor Jagwinder Patial said, “I am honoured to be a part of ‘Public Interest,’ a show that aligns with my belief in the power of journalism. This show is a testament to our commitment to the people of India, providing them with a platform to voice their concerns and struggles. I am thrilled to bring forth stories that deserve attention and contribute to fostering a more informed society.”

    ABP News invites its viewers and stakeholders to join them on this journey toward creating a more inclusive and informed society. Through ‘Public Interest,’ the channel aims to empower the common man by ensuring that their concerns are not just heard but acted upon.

  • Major League Cricket announces further International broadcasters for 2023 season

    Major League Cricket announces further International broadcasters for 2023 season

    Mumbai: Major League Cricket (MLC) has announced that its historic inaugural season will be broadcast live across numerous major cricketing nations, including Australia (FOX Cricket), the Caribbean (SportsMax), New Zealand (Sky NZ), Pakistan (A Sports), South Africa (SuperSport) and the United Kingdom (BT Sport). MLC has already announced coverage from Willow TV in the United States and exclusive coverage in India on Viacom18’s sports network.

    The broadcast partnerships will bring the transformative T20 franchise competition, featuring many of the world’s top players competing in the United States for the first time, to cricket fans around the world. The broadcasts will feature a world class production, with a 30-camera set-up for the matches at Grand Prairie Stadium in North Texas and Church Street Park in North Carolina.

    The broadcast for Major League Cricket’s sold-out inaugural match, between the Texas Super Kings and Los Angeles Knight Riders, will be shown live this Thursday, 13 July starting at 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Six teams will compete in MLC’s inaugural season from 13-30 July: the Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom. The full schedule can be viewed at majorleaguecricket.com.

    The new cricket-specific venue in the Dallas-area, Grand Prairie Stadium, will play host to 12 matches in the groundbreaking American professional cricket championship, with seven matches also taking part at Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina.

    Superstar players set to take part in MLC include Afghanistan T20 captain Rashid Khan, Pakistan’s Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf, South African internationals Faf du Plessis and David Miller, West Indians Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell, Australians Marcus Stoinis and Aaron Finch, England’s Jason Roy and New Zealand’s Trent Boult.

  • Disney explores strategic options for its Star India business

    Disney explores strategic options for its Star India business

    Mumbai: Disney is exploring strategic options for its Star India business, including a joint venture or a sale, a sign of strain at one of the premier properties it acquired from Fox. The company has talked to at least one bank about ways to help the India business grow, while sharing some of the costs, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are in the early stages and it is unclear which options, if any, Disney might pursue. Disney and many of its rivals are in the throes of a costly pivot toward streaming and away from traditional TV businesses. Toward that efort, they spent heavily on deals, content and technology at home and abroad, with mixed success. Disney paid $71.3 billion in 2019 for entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox.At the time, Star India was considered one of Fox’s crown jewels, and it was an important part of Disney’s plan to build out its fledgling streaming business globally. The deal gave Disney the broadcast and streaming rights for increasingly popular Indian Premier League cricket matches as well as dozens of TV channels in several languages and a stake in a production company that makes Bollywood movies. Star’s Hotstar mobile-first streaming service, which at the time offered most of its content free, had 150 million monthly active users and was growing rapidly, largely because of the popular cricket rights.That business’s fortunes changed last year after Disney lost a bidding war for the rights to continue streaming those cricket matches. Without that programming, the service became less appealing to many users. Hotstar is expected to lose 8 million to 10 million subscribers in its fiscal third quarter, some of the people familiar with the matter said. Star’s overall revenue for the fiscal year ending September 2023 is expected to drop around 20 per cent to slightly less than $2 billion, the people said. Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation is expected to fall roughly 50 per cent for that time period, from about $200 million last year, they said. That is a sharp decline from Fox’s projections before the deal that Star India would earn $1 billion in Ebitda by 2020. Star is expected to lose money in Disney’s 2024 fiscal year, the people said. Disney earns far less per streaming customer in India than in the U.S., and that number has dropped. Hotstar generated an average of 59 cents in revenue per subscriber each month in the April quarter, down from an average of $1.20 at its peak in the summer of 2022, according to Disney earnings reports. Disney lost the digital cricket rights in a bidding war last year to Viacom18, a joint venture between Paramount Global and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. That joint venture also includes Bodhi Tree Systems, run by Uday Shankar, a former CEO of Star India, and is backed by Lupa Systems, a holding company controlled by James Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox. James Murdoch is the son of media baron Rupert Murdoch, executive chair of Wall Street Journal parent News Corp. At the time, Disney agreed to pay $3 billion to retain the rights to broadcast the IPL on its Star India television network through 2027, a price tag that raised eyebrows among Wall Street analysts. Research firm Media Partners Asia projected Disney+ Hotstar could lose 15 million subscribers in fiscal 2023 as a result of the lost streaming rights. Disney has told investors it aims to make its streaming business profitable by September 2024, a goal that was set by former CEO Bob Chapek and that current CEO Bob Iger has said he will hit. Some of the businesses that had helped subsidise streaming have experienced weakness of late, including the legacy TV business and theme parks.

  • Network18 platforms lead digital space, acquire record breaking viewership on YouTube & Facebook

    Network18 platforms lead digital space, acquire record breaking viewership on YouTube & Facebook

    Mumbai: Network18’s digital platforms have achieved exceptional performance by garnering the highest number of video views on YouTube and Facebook in June 2023. Recent studies conducted by Socialblade, Tubebuddy, and Crowdtangle reveal that eleven digital platforms of the group including News18 India, CNN-News18, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC-TV18, News18 Tamil Nadu, News18 Kannada, News18 Bihar/ Jharkhand, News18 Madhya Pradesh/ Chhattisgarh, News18 Punjab/ Haryana, News18 Gujarati, and News18 Jammu/Kashmir/Ladakh/Himachal accounted for a whopping 2.2 billion views on YouTube and Facebook combined. News18 India (651 Million views), CNN-News18 (231 Million views), News18 Punjab/ Haryana (170 Million views), News 18 Tamil Nadu (301 Million views), CNBC Awaaz (29 Million views), News18 Kannada (263 Million views), CNBC-TV18 (18 Million views), News18 Bihar/ Jharkhand (172 Million views), News18 Gujarati (295 Million Views), News18 Madhya Pradesh/ Chhattisgarh (84 Million views) and News18 Jammu/Kashmir/Ladakh/Himachal (21 Million views) have emerged as the preferred choice for viewers seeking news content on digital.Network18 Group is an undisputed leader in terms of viewership both on TV and digital platforms. The group garnered the undivided attention of viewers in every segment, emerging as the go-to source for general and business news in both Hindi and English genres. The group currently runs 19 digital channels in 13 languages. In total, all group platforms acquired a total of 5.1 billion views in June on YouTube and Facebook.

  • Atrangii TV to air Korean, Turkish & Russian content on Hindi GEC

    Atrangii TV to air Korean, Turkish & Russian content on Hindi GEC

    Mumbai: Atrangii TV, helmed by the media baron Vibhu Agarwal, has been entertaining the audiences with its clutter-breaking content since its launch last year in May 2022. It recently completed its first anniversary and is now set to revamp its proposition and content offering. From 17 July, Atrangii TV will be the first ever Hindi GEC to air international language content dubbed in Hindi, with English subtitles for the audiences across the length and breadth of the country. Atrangii will now have a ‘Firangii’ flavour to it wherein television viewing audiences can watch quality content from the highly acclaimed Korean, Turkish, Russian and other international family Drama series dubbed in hindi.

    The channel will have an eclectic library of various acclaimed international shows and will cater to over 15 female and male audiences.  There has been an increased demand for Korean and Turkish shows by the Indian audiences but most of it is consumed on OTT. On the other hand, India still has television viewing households who do not have access to hi-speed internet. To fulfil this gap, Atrangii TV has brought to your homes gripping stories from around the world in their original form with Hindi dub and English subtitles.

    Vibhu Agarwal on the announcement said, “We are extremely excited to add quality international dramas to Atrangii TV.  There have been researches and data from our OTT app that shows that Korean and Turkish drama series are loved by the Indian audiences and have found a loyal audience base in the country. Its increase in demand, led us to revaluate the content strategy for our GEC. It has been our constant endeavour to provide quality content for Hindi speaking and understanding audiences across the country. There exists a gap in content consumption between Tier 1 and television viewing households with limited hi-speed data in tier 2, 3 and tier 4 parts of the country. We wanted to bridge this gap and get the same quality content on OTT to the television sets of people across the country for family viewing. Atrangii will now air Korean, Turkish, Russian and other acclaimed international language series from all around the globe, dubbed in Hindi for its loyal audiences. We roll out with four hours of original programming.  This will be the first time ever a Hindi general entertainment channel will offer this unique experience to its consumers.  We will further bolster this content offering with other acclaimed international language content gradually.”

    Atrangii TV will be running drama series which are entertaining, thought provoking, gripping with great visual storytelling and performances by renowned actors from the world. It’s all new programming will include Korean, Turkish, Russian content which will be followed by other International language content. From the Korean content, they have an eclectic line-up of drama shows such as My Strange Hero, ‘Love Temperature, My Lovely Girl, Divorce Lawyer in Love, Doctors, Birth of a Beauty, The Secret House and The Second Husband. From the Turkish series which are globally renowned for their romantic and family drama, Atrangii TV has currently chosen Aziz, The Last Summer and Broken Destiny for its revamped content library.

    Atrangii TV is a Hindi GEC and is available on Tata Play, Airtel, DISH, D2h and Sun Direct, and other local cable operators.

  • Game-Changers Unite: For the first time ever, sports journalists from across India lead the charge in boosting morale for the Indian Contingent at the 19th Asian Games!

    Game-Changers Unite: For the first time ever, sports journalists from across India lead the charge in boosting morale for the Indian Contingent at the 19th Asian Games!

    Mumbai: Sony Sports Network, known for its sports campaigns, has once again set the stage ablaze with their latest campaign, ‘Iss Baar Sau Paar,’ for the highly anticipated 2022 Asian Games. With an extraordinary lineup of luminaries, including esteemed personalities like chief of Defence Staff, general Anil Chauhan, Sudha Murty, Amitabh Bachchan and Kapil Sharma, the campaign aims to ignite the nation’s fervour for this multisport extravaganza. In a ground-breaking move, Sony Sports Network has unveiled a captivating film that captures the essence of Indian sports journalism, engaging the very individuals responsible for tracing and documenting the remarkable journeys of our sporting heroes. These sports journalists, who have tirelessly worked to popularize sports and elevate our athletes, are now the beacons of support for the Indian contingent. The broadcaster also welcomes more journalists from across the country to join in and share their message of support for Team India. The film boasts an all-star lineup of sports journalists hailing from esteemed publications such as Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Rajasthan Patrika, The Telegraph, Deccan Chronicle, and regional newspapers including Dinakaran, Lokmat, Eenadu, Gujarat Samachar, Sandesh, and Asomya Pratidin. Additionally, it features charismatic RJs from popular radio channels like Radio City and Radio One, along with representatives from leading news channels Aaj Tak and NDTV 24X7. Notably, a Sportskeeda scribe also graces the screen, adding to the tapestry of media support. As the official broadcaster of the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022, Sony Sports Network has taken on the mission of uplifting our athletes and igniting their spirits at this prestigious event. Building on India’s impressive performance at the 2018 Asian Games, where they clinched 69 medals, the nation is now poised to conquer new heights by setting their sights on an ambitious milestone — a triple-digit medal tally of 100. With ‘Iss Baar Sau Paar,’ Sony Sports Network aims to rally the entire nation, uniting millions of hearts, and minds, to stand beside our athletes as they strive for excellence and glory. This campaign is a resounding call to break barriers, inspire champions, and witness the remarkable journey of India’s sporting triumphs at the 2022 Asian Games.