ITV

Category: Sports

  • SPN India strengthen’s regional presence with six language feeds for FIFA WC

    SPN India strengthen’s regional presence with six language feeds for FIFA WC

    MUMBAI: With the 2018 FIFA World Cup set to kick off on June 15, the official broadcaster Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India, increased its regional outreach with the addition of Tamil and Telugu live language feeds. This will be the first time that the FIFA World Cup will be telecast in multiple languages in India. 

    The two new languages are in addition to the already announced English, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam live feeds taking the tally to six languages.

    SPN India president, sports and distribution business Rajesh Kaul, “The telecast of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia will be done in six languages. It is our endeavor to reach out to every football fan in the country as per our commitment to go beyond to serve best sporting action through our programming initiatives. We have congregated some of the best international football players with great experience to provide incisive insights to our viewers. The live studio show Football Extraaa and the breakfast show Kick-Off will enrich the die-hard football enthusiast’s viewing experience of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.”

    Additionally, SPN announced a star-studded panel for Football Extraaa, the pre, mid and post-match live studio show that will be telecast in English and Hindi. The show will feature a list of Indian and international football stars like Sunil Chhetri, Bhaichung Bhutia, Gurpreet Singh, Robin Singh, Luis Garcia, Louis Saha and David James.

    In addition to Football Extraaa, SPN India will also showcase detailed insights for its viewers with a morning dose of football through its breakfast show Kick-Off. The show will satiate the hunger of football enthusiasts with in-depth analyses on the previous night’s game along with forecast for the forthcoming matches of the day.

    The WC will also be aired live on SonyLIV. The digital arm of Sony has launched the #ScreamLoud campaign that cuts across football fans in the country who exhibit their undying passion through a light-hearted film. Fans will have a sore throat which is going to be their constant companion through the football season as they cheer and scream. 

    The film conceptualised by Publicis Ambience and produced by Offroad Films, has been inspired by those fans whose enthusiasm and fervour for the sport sees no limits. Ardent fans of the game can now stream all matches live on their mobile devices and have a truly amazing FIFA experience.

    SPN India head marketing, subscription and content licensing- digital business Abhishek Joshi said, “FIFA is one of the biggest sporting events in the World and the excitement from fans is palpable. While conceptualizing this film, we realised that visual humour and story-telling isn’t being used much in advertising and hence we created a light-hearted film. The story is filmed from the perspective of football die-hards who lose their voices while cheering for their favourite country. This campaign will connect with fans across India and unify them for the love of the game. all types of football fans can enjoy the game on their personal devices anywhere on SonyLIV.”

    Also Read:

    SPN launches first campaign for FIFA WC 2018 Russia

    Sony bets big on 2018 FIFA World Cup

  • Regional market contributes 22 per cent to Star’s IPL viewership

    Regional market contributes 22 per cent to Star’s IPL viewership

    MUMBAI: The recently concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) final, aired across 17 different channels on Star India’s bouquet in eight different languages was a smash hit. According to the  Broadcast  Audience Research Council (BARC) All India data 2+, the contest between MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) garnered 55.6 million impressions.

    The 2018 final witnessed a massive growth of 41 per cent as compared to the 2017 one between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) that generated 39.4 million impressions.

    The growth in numbers included the contribution from pubcaster DD Sports as well.

    The regional market contributing 22 per cent to the total viewership is bound to delight the broadcaster, encouraging it to penetrate deeper into this market next season. Not surprisingly, the Hindi market led with 54 per cent of the viewership share, while English contributed 24 per cent of the total pie.

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    The total impressions grew 15% from season 10 to 11. Sony Pictures Network with only five channels managed to garner 1.2 billion impressions, whereas Star India with 11 channels for the league matches and 17 channels for the final achieved 1.4 billion impressions.

    The top three contests this season were match number one, three and the final. The opening match with 35.9 million impressions saw a growth of 37 per cent compared to opening match of season 10 between SRH and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) which garnered 28.3 million impressions. The third match between RCB and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) clocked 35.1 million impressions.

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    Star India’s strategy of focusing on regional feeds has worked in their favour. It now remains to be seen how the broadcaster ups the ante for next season of the cash-rich league.

    Also Read :

    Star spending up to Rs 2 cr on production per IPL match

    Vivo IPL 2018 final breaks multiple viewership records

  • DoIT Ventures launches India’s first integrated talent management firm

    DoIT Ventures launches India’s first integrated talent management firm

    MUMBAI: Two of India’s creative mentors, in a unique collaboration today launched the country’s first integrated multi-disciplinary talent management firm – ‘Do IT Talent Ventures’. Darshana Bhalla and Radha Kapoor Khanna introduced the country to their new visionary talent venture firm that aims at broadening the horizon of talent management and development across genres. This new venture will work towards building skills across content platforms to further enhance the landscape of the country’s creative industries in the years to come.

    Formed in April 2018, Do IT Talent Ventures will be led by Darshana Bhalla, former CEO of Mates – the entertainment unit of Madison Communication and Radha Kapoor Khanna, Founder & Executive Director Do IT Creations – a flagship holding company of The Three Sisters: Institutional Office (TTS:IO) focused on establishing new age creative businesses. TTS:IO through Do IT Creations has incubated ventures across education, media, entertainment, sports and retail. Do IT Talent Ventures – Subsidiary of Do IT Creations, is established as an integrated talent management firm which manages and promotes some of the country’s high profile personalities in film, TV, sports and the culinary space before diversifying into various other creative verticals such as music and arts. With diverse interests in every aspect of the entertainment value chain – from talent management and consulting to creating and owning of IPs, Do IT Talent Ventures has sectorial experts with a proven record of accomplishment and experience to manage monetise and market multiple forms of properties.

    In the span of three months, the brand has already signed a number of personalities across Films, TV and Sports namely Farhan Akhtar, John Abraham, Lara Dutta, Kajal Aggarwal, Neeraj Pandey Samir Kochhar in Entertainment and Vicky Ratnani in Culinary. While in sports, the brand has signed up with Virender Sehwag, Mahesh Bhupathi, Geeta Phogat, Ashwini Ponnappa, Robin Singh, Viren Rasquinha and Aparna Popat. With a staff of trained professionals, mentors and promoters, the team posesses a cumulative experience of over 500 deals in the celebrity business.

    Speaking on the occasion Do IT Talent Ventures (India) Private Limited, CEO & Founder, Ms. Darshana Bhalla said, “Our primary vision at Do IT Talent Ventures is collective progress. We will focus on talent from various genres of the creative industries and enable constant optimization of their talents time and resources. We believe in a focused institutional approach. With this collaboration, we will render services beyond the current scope available in the market place. In the coming years, we look forward to broadening our horizon by expanding our reach to other verticals and invest our efforts to bring maximized value to our clients.”

    Speaking at the launch announcement, Do IT Creations – Founder & Executive Director, Ms. Radha Kapoor Khanna said, ‘Our vision at Do IT is to be an integral part of the creative industry based on our philosophy of DICE – Design, Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. An integrated and holistic talent management enterprise like Do IT Talent Ventures, having an ethos of long term value creation, can emerge as a market leader in this space, whilst metamorphosing the landscape of this industry with diversified revenue streams. Under the holding company Do IT Creations, with a presence in entertainment, sports, media, retail amidst other consumer focused businesses, there was a natural fit for the group to establish a presence in the talent ecosystem wherein we have the unique advantage of unlocking synergies by leveraging our portfolio of new age creative ventures’.

  • Vivo IPL 2018 final breaks multiple viewership records

    Vivo IPL 2018 final breaks multiple viewership records

    MUMBAI:  The VIVO IPL final on 27 May 2018 garnered a record viewership on both digital and TV, as per figures released by the broadcaster Star. The final, which was aired live on 17 channels across eight different languages, powered the network’s growth by 34 per cent with 52.9 million average impressions.

    The final between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad was produced with 11 live feeds across the TV network and Hotstar. The match had the highest reach (211 million across screens) in the history of the cash-rich league.

    Hotstar hit a world record for concurrent online viewing with 10.7 million viewers for the final. The contest that saw CSK’s Shane Watson score a century to hand the yellow brigade its third IPL trophy helped Hotstar create a new record of over 10 million concurrent users.

    The match witnessed a sudden hike from eight million to 9.1 million and then to 9.7 million before hitting the 10.7 million mark.

    The Grand Finale on television was watched by a historic 160 million fans across Star TV network (not including DD) versus last year’s figure of 121 million, recording a 32 per cent growth in reach. This is the highest television reach recorded for any match in the history of the tournament.

    The television viewership for the tournament as measured by average half hourly time-weighted impressions was 1.4 billion impressions (U+R 2+) with a growth of 15 per cent. The viewership growth in urban audiences was 26 per cent.

    The total television viewership for the tournament as measured by gross impressions was 9.985 billion impressions with a growth of 19 per cent across urban + rural and 30 per cent in urban audiences.

    Also Read:

    Star spending up to Rs 2 cr on production per IPL match

    Hotstar creates record of 10 mn plus concurrent viewers for IPL finale 

  • eSports viewers to cross 800 mn globally by ’22; India’s share minor

    eSports viewers to cross 800 mn globally by ’22; India’s share minor

    MUMBAI: In a new research, the UK-based Juniper Research has forecasted that unique viewers of eSports (competitive playing of video games) and Let’s Plays content (tutorials and talk-throughs of game content) will reach 858 million by 2022, up from 630 million this year with the Indian sub-continent too being a minority contributor.

    The largest driver and most significant revenue source of the eSports industry has been the use of advertising and sponsorship deals.

    Juniper said that advertising spend will dominate in terms of revenues and spend (accounting for 50 per cent in 2022), with this currently the preferred monetisation strategy. As more non-endemic advertisers come on board, this will only strengthen with a greater number of brands seeking to take advantage of a rapidly growing audience, the report explained.

    The unique viewers forcast has been split by eight key regions, which include North America, Latin America, West Europe, Central and East Europe, Far East and China, the Indian sub-continent, Rest of Asia Pacific and Africa & Middle east. The region which contributes the biggest is Far East and China.

    Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.

    The report highlighted that instead of having sponsorships from more traditional players in the market such as NVIDIA, the past year has seen increased prevalence of non-endemic advertisers, including brands such as Lynx, Gazprom, Visa, Xfinity, T-Mobile, Taco Bell and Mountain Dew. Juniper believed that this has grown purely due to the audience size and scale seen at major tournaments.

    “While some brands show links to traditional gaming culture, i.e food and drink brands, others are more commonly associated with traditional sports sponsorship, ie Gazprom, and their branching into eSports shows belief that this will also become a major sporting industry,” the report stated, adding, “The issue is that eSports has been a volatile industry for a number of years, having previously had periods of growth and interest. In the mid 2000s, for example, where hype spiked, before furore around the market died down, only to be rejuvenated from 2010 onwards.”

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    Meanwhile, eSports arrived in the Indian sub-continent later than other western countries and also regions in Asia like China. However, it has been announced as a medal event in 2022 Asian Games, which is a testimony to its rapid growth in this part of the world.

    Indiantelevision.com’s research shows that U Cypher promoted the first multi-gaming platform on TV for eSports competitions in India. It comes under U Sport, which is founded by media tycoon-turned-angel-investor Ronnie Screwvala and his partner Supratik Sen.

    U Cypher’s ambition is to present a platform to talented gamers that helps them achieve their maximum potential as well as shape their careers in e-Sports leagues.

    When Indiantelevision.com spoke to eSports experts in India, one of them said, “The combined eSports and gaming market is estimated to be Rs 3,900 crore with more than 2,000 teams consistently participating in tournaments across India and abroad with over 500 million players worldwide. The industry has a number of major tournaments throughout the year with viewership in the tens of millions.”

  • Sony bets big on 2018 FIFA World Cup

    Sony bets big on 2018 FIFA World Cup

    MUMBAI: With the 2018 FIFA World Cup set to kick off on June 14, Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) is gearing up for the company’s most-anticipated event of the year. Banking on the rising popularity of football in India, the formidable FIFA brand and a viral ad campaign, the sports cluster of Sony Pictures is aiming to double up its viewership this year.

    While the football viewership in India on the rise, FIFA events tend to enjoy a further spike in the television rating as they draw both fans and fringe-viewers to the screens. In a bid to heighten the excitement around this edition of the World Cup, Sony has opted for a fan-centric campaign instead of a player-centric one.

    “When we looked at data, we saw that there is a football audience and there is a FIFA audience, wherein the FIFA audience is far greater than football audience. People follow FIFA since we don’t have our own country’s participation it and it was a challenge to drive communication around it,” says Sony Pictures Networks senior VP of marketing and OAP of sports Kedar Teny.

    Titled ‘Meri Doosri Country’, the campaign aims to encourage Indian fans to cheer for an ‘adopted’ country. The campaign idea took shape over a cup of coffee between Sony and agency Culture Machine. Sony was clear about what it wanted – a campaign that goes beyond clichés of football to make it relevant for the fans.

    While Sony was part of the creative process, it did not interfere with the creative freedom of the agency.

    The campaign was shot at various locations in Mumbai, Kolkata and Goa and an enormous cast of over 800+ actors. Interestingly, the last (closing) shot itself featured over 300 people.

    The campaign has adopted a 360-degree approach and is spread across TV, digital, print, and radio and will be telecasted in English, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam.

    The world feed in English will be on SONY TEN 2 SD and HD channels, the Hindi feed will be aired on SONY TEN 3 SD and HD channels while Bengali and Malayalam feed will be available on SONY ESPN SD channel.

    The company is aggressively advertising and marketing the tournament on television and various digital platforms. Soon after launching the first campaign, Sony has launched a series of short format content on television and digital.

    Sony’s partnership with FIFA has been a successful one, claims the network. Some of their previous collaborations with the world football’s governing body include the 2014 FIFA World Cup, FIFA U-17 WC India, FIFA Confederates Cup, FIFA U-20 World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup.

    “The association with FIFA has been good for business for Sony Pictures Networks. Our viewership numbers have exceeded our expectations in all events and we are extremely proud of our association,” highlights Sony Pictures Sports Networks president of sales and distribution Rajesh Kaul.

    Sony is confident of having a successful tournament. Given the instant success of its promotional campaign, one cannot fault the management for being in a buoyant mood ahead of the showpiece event. Now, all they can hope for is an exciting tournament that will keep the fans glued to their television sets.

  • SPNI elevates Abhishek Joshi at digital biz

    SPNI elevates Abhishek Joshi at digital biz

    MUMBAI: Another media executive awarded for good work. Abhishek Joshi has been elevated as head of marketing, subscription and content and licensing of digital business at Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI). The digital business for SPNI is headed by Uday Sodhi.

    Joshi, till now VP and head marketing analytics and content syndication of digital business at the company, has been a core member of the digital business leadership team and looked after global monetization and syndication/distribution of SPN’s content across digital platforms in addition to heading marketing for SonyLiv.

    Prior to SPNI, he was the CEO of Zenga Media where his core focus was on the needs of two basic constituencies — viewers and advertisers.  

    Joshi has over 17 years of experience in broadcast media and digital realm. With an in-depth knowledge of digital broadcasting, his expertise lies in content licensing and subscription, business planning and forecasting and contracts.

    He started his carrier with the Kolkata-headquartered ABP Group as a group executive of circulation sales. After ABP, he did stints at a couple of other media organisations, including Reliance Big Pictures, before joining SPNI.  

    Joshi holds a post graduate diploma in marketing from a management institute in Pune.

    Also Read :

    OTTV 2017: Co-existence with traditional TV predicted, scope for OTT kids content

    Shishir Gupta elevated as head content acquisition sports at SPNI

    ZengaTV names Abhishek Joshi as CEO

  • PKL S6: Bengaluru Bulls expects 50 pc sponsorship rates hike

    PKL S6: Bengaluru Bulls expects 50 pc sponsorship rates hike

    MUMBAI:  Who would have thought few years back that a kabaddi player would be bought in an auction for Rs. 1 crore (Rs 10 million) or above? But it happened this year — and with quite a style. The mark was breached not once or twice, but six times, highlighting that Premier Kabaddi League (PKL) and the sports — considered indigenous with limited following in South Asia — is slowly coming of age with the potential to get bigger as television and Star Sports keep on adding their marketing might behind the league.

    No wonder, the various team owners are as excited as the players. Team management of Bengaluru Bulls, for example, feels sponsorships this year may be more encouraging, especially as the league starts around festival time in India when advertising spend by brands are generally high.

    “The sixth season is happening around Diwali and I’m expecting around 50 per cent hike in sponsorship rates this time round,” Bengaluru Bulls CEO Uday Sinh Wala told Indiantelevision.com, adding the team was open to take on board all types of brands across FMCG, construction, education and banking sectors.

    With a more balanced team this year — “we have a great back-up to our raiders and defenders that was missing in the previous season” according to Sinh Wala — Bengaluru team management is hopeful that the new-look squad would attract more sponsorship backers that could help it to, probably, break even too.

    Bengal Warriors, on the other hand, too predicted an increase in sponsorship rates this year, but of around 20-25 per cent.

    Meanwhile, the other team owners too are looking forward to the new season and predict a great future for the PKL and players. UMumba and Jaipur Pink Panthers owners Ronnie Screwvala and Abhishek Bachchan, respectively, had earlier predicted big player buys before the auction process, saying that several players could breach the Rs. 1 crore mark.

    The big buys of the two-day auction process were led by Monu Goyat, bought by Haryana Steelers for Rs 1.51 crore (Rs.15.1 million). Though by cricketing and IPL standard, the price is chickenfeed, but it has put the 26-year-old Goyat in an elite league of PKL.

    Rahul Chaudhari has been retained by using final bid match by Telugu Titans for Rs 1.29 crore (Rs. 12.9 million). Deepak Nivas Hooda is the third player in the `crorepati’ list with Rs 1.15 crore (Rs. 11.5 million) having being bought by Jaipur Pink Panthers. Nitin Tomar, previous years highest earner, was sold for Rs 1.15 crore (Rs. 11.5 million) to Puneri Paltans followed by Rishank Devadiga, who was snapped up for Rs 1.11 crore (Rs. 11.1 million) by UP Yoddhas.

    Out of the 422 players in the auction list, only 181 players were sold in the auction process.

    Also Read :

    Pro Kabaddi League concludes auction for season six

    Pro Kabaddi League makes first ever player auction of Rs 10 mn

  • Pro Kabaddi League concludes auction for season six

    Pro Kabaddi League concludes auction for season six

    MUMBAI: Vivo Pro Kabaddi League successfully concluded the player auction in Mumbai. Day two was dominated by players and category-B stars, with franchises finding the perfect balance between experienced and young players to craft winning teams.

    The first day of the auction saw the Rs 1 crore barrier breached six times with Monu Goyat leading the way to Vivo Pro Kabaddi history.

    The top five players of the second day’s auction are Prashant Kumar Rai, sold for Rs 79 lakh to UP Yoddha, followed by Chandran Ranjit to Dabang Delhi for Rs 61.25 lakh. The third player in the list is Vikash Khandola bought by Haryana Steelers for Rs 47 lakh while Dharamraj Cheralathan went to UMumba for Rs 46 lakh. Vishal Mane will play for Dabang Delhi and earned Rs 45 lakh.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Bengal Warriors CEO Sandip Tarkas says that the team has managed to fill all the gaps which it had in the previous season and has also retained its strength. “We have retained some of our last year brands like Big Bazaar and Tasty Treats. We broke-even last season itself and covered all our cost. Coming season we are expecting higher expenses with the festive season starting at the time of season six. We are looking at 20-25 per cent increase in sponsorship this year.”

    Tamil Thalaivas CEO Viren D’Silva told Indiantelevision.com that its aim is consistency. “We are focusing on getting three strategic partners for a long term. We have started a residential academy for 70 students with free education, training and housing. We are not looking at this business as a break-even business, our objective is very clear, building the human kabaddi association. Money and profitability are the bi-products. Profitability is not far away. We have aggressive targets on revenue.”

    Puneri Paltans boosted its raiding unit this year by buying Nitin Tomar. “We already have Force Motors as our title sponsor and the deal will continue till season seven of PKL. Our inventory apart from title sponsor is available currently which are almost nine spots. This season is going to be the break-even year for the franchise. We are in advance talks with some of the last year’s brands and will mostly close the deal with them,” said Puneri Paltans CEO Kailash Kandpal while speaking to us.

    A total of 181 players were sold in the two days auction process.

  • VIVO IPL WEEK 7 – THE WEEK BEFORE FINALE!

    VIVO IPL WEEK 7 – THE WEEK BEFORE FINALE!

    MUMBAI: Vivo IPL continues to enthrall fans with record numbers on both viewership and engagement across screens. The data provided below is for the first 59 matches- excluding the finale. Finale viewership will come in next week on Jun 7 (for BARC reporting week no 22)  

    TV Viewership Trend: A 7-week perspective (not including Finale) 

    Television viewership shows strong growth as measured across audiences – Urban + Rural at 14% and Urban audiences demonstrating enhanced viewership growth at 25%. 

    In the elusive, hard to reach affluent urban male audiences, the Tournament to date, excluding finale is delivering a whopping 31% growth v/s year ago. 

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    Total Audience Viewership: First 7 weeks (not including Finale)   

    Overall viewership of the tournament across all platforms TV (In-Home & Out-of-Home) and Digital in Urban Audiences up to week 7 was 41%* higher than the comparable number of matches last year. Within this, TV urban viewership is 824 million impressions, +25% growth v/s year ago and Digital viewership at 132 million impressions is 3.8X of last year.