Category: Viewership

BBC is back with its fourth edition of the BBC Indian Sportswoman Of The Year (ISWOTY) Award 2022 to  honour the achievements of Indian female players and a new award category introduced to honour the Indian  Para Sportswoman Of The Year. 

The nominees for the BBC Indian Sportswoman Of The Year were announced today at a press conference in  New Delhi.  

• Mirabai Chanu, Weightlifter: The first Indian weightlifter to clinch a silver medal at the Tokyo  Olympics, followed by a gold medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022. 

• Sakshi Malik, Wrestler: The first Indian woman wrestler who won a medal at the Rio Olympics,  followed by a gold at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. She has won a silver and bronze at  previous Commonwealth games. 

• Vinesh Phogat, Wrestler: The first Indian woman to win two World Championship medals in  wrestling, also the first to win gold at both Commonwealth and Asian Games. Her latest gold medal  was won at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. 

• P V Sindhu, Shuttler: The first Indian woman to win two consecutive medals at the Olympics, bronze  at the Tokyo Olympics and silver at the Rio Games. She ended 2021 with a silver at the Badminton  World Federation World Tour finals. 

• Nikhat Zareen, Boxer: After winning the Junior World Boxing Championship in 2011, she won a gold  medal at the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in 2022. 

BBC news head, Rupa Jha, elaborated on BBC’s initiative of recognising women athletes’  achievements in more categories, “We are delighted to announce that this year we are introducing the BBC Indian  Para Sportswoman Of The Year award,” she added, “This is to recognise and celebrate women para athletes and  their terrific journey.” 

Ekta Bhyan, para athlete and a gold medallist in 2018 Asian Para Games appreciated the BBC for rewarding  para athletes and sending a powerful message that people with disabilities have talents and abilities which  should be celebrated and recognised. She said, “Such recognition helps in increasing public awareness and inclusivity of para sports. I hope this leads to more opportunities for para athletes to compete and excel and  inspire more people with disabilities to participate in sports.” 

At the press conference, Vijender Singh Beniwal, first Indian boxer to win an Olympic medal in 2008 expressed  delight that the achievements of Indian female players is being praised and their stories are now reaching  people through the BBC’s initiative. He further added: “Our sportswomen have proven their calibre on the  grounds time and again. They are the real fighters, it’s not easy to quantify how much respect they truly  deserve.”  

On March 5 2023, the winner of BBC ISWOTY will be announced at the awards ceremony. The BBC  Emerging Player Of The Year award and the BBC Lifetime Achievement Player award will also be named and honoured along with the new category of Indian Para Sportswoman Of The Year. 

Mumbai: 2022 was a good year for Anushka Shah’s Civic Studio as their movie Vakeel Babu got critical acclaim and a positive response from the audience. 

Shah founded the Civic Entertainment project at the MIT Media Lab and Civic Studios in Mumbai. 
Civic Studios develops and funds long-form entertainment that is engaging and empowering. Their formats vary across films, web series, and docuseries. Their vision is to build a global community of like-minded creators and storytellers seeking to create social impact through media.

Shah has a background in applied statistics and digital text analysis. She divides her time between Mumbai, Boston and Chicago.

Edited Excerpt: 

On the inception of Civic Studio.  

Civic Studios was incubated at the MIT Media Lab as a project to explore entertainment for social & civic change. Soon after, it graduated into a production house based out of Mumbai that attempted to not just study or research this intersection but actually produce such entertainment. We now create fiction and nonfiction feature films, web series, and digital content across genres and on various social issues.

On the challenges and highlights of this journey

Understanding and keeping up with the complexity of the entertainment industry at its current pace of change is a challenge. However, some of our biggest highlights have also come from responding to these changes – from attention spans to 15-sec content, to changing algorithms, the rise of OTT, and the pandemic – all of this teaches you as a production house to be nimble and versatile, and to be able to simultaneously create various types of content and formats is a highlight.

On the year 2022 and learnings

The year 2022 was exciting for us – we released our short film Vakeel Babu on Amazon Mini themed on domestic violence, our mini web series Ye Saali Naukri on MX Player on unemployment in India, also two feature films and one web series which went into production. A key learning here was the importance of working with and building towards a community of change-makers within the media industry – combining synergies is what makes the process fun and the outcome fruitful.

On the USP

There’s so much content out there and yet so many more stories to be told. Our USP is that our content goes beyond just the purpose of entertainment – it educates and empowers. If the content goes deep enough to connect with a person’s fears, anxieties, or problems and provides an entertaining and engaging way to address it or think about or differently – our focus on action and constructivism is our USP.

On your recent film Vakil Babu

We’re so grateful for the response the movie has got from audiences – it’s been really appreciated across the storyline, the acting, directing and the message. The last part is most important to us. After it’s release on AmazonMini and featured as the top five short films on the platform, it’s now being taken to law colleges, bar associations and legal reform spaces across the country.

On content being king and the allocation of budgets

We green-light projects across three aspects – entertainment, engagement, and empowerment. First, the content has to be fundamentally entertaining in the form of its storytelling – a unique and exciting story that has a plotline that makes you want to watch it come to life. Second, it needs to be engaging in a way that doesn’t make you forget it as soon as it’s over – does it touch deeper emotional threads in the audience such that it’s shelf life is beyond the exposure time? And lastly, does it empower the audience in some way – a new piece of information, a new way of thinking, or an action to a problem around you?

We allocate budgets based on what the script requires to do justice to the story, the medium or platform it may be being scheduled for release on and the scale there, and the commercial ability of the content to perform in the market.

On incubation at the MIT Media Lab, USA

I worked as a researcher at the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab for three years where my focus was the intersection of Indian media and social change. My interest in exploring the role entertainment media can be in further civic education was supported by the Media Lab and I was able to incubate the project there. The lab’s work cuts across various aspects of media and technology for the future and has been sometimes called “the future factory.”

On the future of OTT

Like in other media industries, it often starts with a few players with specific libraries, then expands with more fragmentation and diversification. There are many OTT players right now and regional content has been expanding across most as audiences from various parts of the country and linguistic regions access OTT. I see more diverse stories and niche genres developing with time.

On technological disruption

From a production point of view, there’s of course much more that’s being done digitally now instead of on set. There’s also a lot of development in AR and VR and the application of AI to media.

On way forward for civic studio

Over the next five years, we see Civic Studios expanding its studio slate over various film and series titles, both in India and internationally. We have just set up a UK office and look forward to more international collaborations. A key part of what we do is run advocacy and impact campaigns for our content, and we look forward to doing this with global organisations.

On the content slate for 2023 

We have several feature films and web series in development and scheduled for release across the coming year – our content is currently all focused on fiction across drama and comedy genres and covering social movements such as India’s women’s rights movement, the polio campaign, Sec 377, etc. We also have a Marathi film, an animated feature film, and a children’s film in the pipeline. We’re looking forward to these and the international impact campaigns that will accompany these.

There are a lot of opportunities across short and long-form content, taking Indian content internationally, creating a growing market of kids content, and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to creating for AR and VR.

Mumbai : Sun TV Network Limited, one of the television roadcasters in India has released financial result for Q3Fy23.

Sun Tv’s revenues (excluding IPL and Movies) were Rs8 10.51 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2022, compared to Rs 829.57 crore for the corresponding quarter ended 31 December 2021, and overall revenues were Rs 857.51 crore ,compared to Rs 1,033.10 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2021.

The current quarter s EBITDA was Rs 573.07 crore, compared to Rs 721.87 crore in the previous quarter ended 31 December 2021.

Profit before taxes was Rs 556.91 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2022, compared to Rs 609.80 crore for the corresponding quarter ended 31 December2021.

Mumbai: India Today Group’s digital-first channel, MP Tak, has further expanded its online-presence with a newly launched website– www.mptak.in inaugurated by the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan. 

Tak is strengthening its presence and is fast establishing itself as a major player in the digital sphere. Tak’s bouquet of regional websites include – www.gujarattak.in, www.mumbaitak.in, www.uptak.in, www.rajasthantak.com, the website for MP Tak shall also focus on the local news from across the state. The website will feature news articles, videos, and web stories. 

Commenting on the launch of the website, Tak Channels managing editor Milind Khandekar says, “MP Tak is a significant player and has been one of the most watched video news platforms in Madhya Pradesh. The idea behind the website launch is to cover the state of Madhya Pradesh in a focused manner with unbiased news reporting. The website will cover not just the local but also the hyper-local news.” He further adds, “We have a strong presence in the northern region with three regional websites – UPTak.in, Rajasthan.com and now MPTak.in”

Tak channels & The Lallantop, India Today Group CEO Vivek Gaur says, “With the launch of www.mptak.in, Madhya Pradesh will be our fourth regional market with its own destination. On YouTube and Facebook, MP Tak has already crossed over 200 million plus video views between April ‘22 and December ‘22. The launch of the own destination is a part of our effort to connect with more people and reinforce the trust of the viewers who have supported us on this journey.” 

Mumbai: Earlier this year Viacom18 stunned people when it announced that JioCinema would air the IPL for free. Speaking at a media roundtable Viacom18 CEO Sports Anil Jayaraj said that the 20-20 league offers the opportunity to provide high-quality premium long-form content. There will be 16 feeds across 12 languages. Regional he noted is very critical and it is about figuring out which geography will make a massive switch due to the feed being offered in the language of their comfort. Some languages have not been done in the sport before he said while declining to offer specifics. There will be tech innovations like 4K and Multicam. He is excited about the opportunity of CTV and said that the declining viewership in HDTV has shifted to CTV.

He said that the advertiser response has been strong and singles out FMCG, auto and beverages as being some of the very interesting categories. While start-ups are seeing a slowdown he noted that in digital a client does not need to have an outlay to have a presence which is not the case with TV. People can come in at any value digitally. One just has to define how many people one wants to reach.

“We are trying to build a sports business that delights the Indian consumer and which provides the largest aggregation of viewers. We are trying to ensure through the IPL that we can access anybody who has an Internet-enabled device. We will offer the IPL for free at least for this year. We want to be the largest aggregator of the audience ever seen in India. Advertisers will have the choice of viewers that they want to target. We want to play across the price paradigm. What I mean by that is at the top end you have CTVs and at the bottom end, you have people who use Free to Air channels. All have access to a mobile phone. We want anybody who has an Internet-enabled device to end up watching the IPL. We want a presence everywhere –urban, rural, male, female, North, South.”

He noted that the company will evaluate the free option after this year. Several metrics will be looked at and revenue is one of the metrics. He added that digital is already bigger than television. TV ratings he noted have been coming down. The IPL has not been an exception. JioCinema’s game plan with the IPL is to cut across Axis, affordability, and languages. “We will be doing 16 feeds across 12 languages. And we will provide unique experiences like multicam. Advertisers love it for similar reasons but different parameters. The scale that digital offers means that IPL will be bigger on digital than TV. 

“Advertisers also love digital in general because you can choose which audience that you want to target. You can target someone in Chennai who speaks a certain language and who is of a certain age group and has a certain level of affluence. You can also measure and have a call to action. That is the reason why digital advertising has been growing quite fast.” He added that with the Fifa World Cup, the demand from viewers and advertisers was much bigger on digital than it was on TV. Even for WPL, the interest is more for digital from advertisers than on TV. “Advertisers’ first preference seems to be digital. Their interest is significantly skewed towards digital. We are targeting advertisers who associate with live sports. This is a big, large growing market. The number of advertisers is growing quite fast due to digital.” If matches are increased digital benefits because it is sold on impressions, not on an average rating.

On the tech side, he said that the aim is to provide a high-quality premium long-form content experience which has not happened anywhere in the world digitally. This strategy is not about comparing it to any other medium. “We are building towards making the IPL the biggest event that the world has ever seen. We have had to invest significantly in technology. We want to deliver a high-quality experience on the mobile side. This is what a lot of the technology development experience is focussed on. We want to work with every telecom player. Consumers come from everywhere. The aim is to make the IPL as large as it is going to be. We believe that digital is the best medium through which we can deliver a world-class experience. From a business case standpoint, we look at events that can deliver that when the rights of property come up. Our focus lies on digital and CTVs.” 

On the potential for CTV, he said that over the last two years HDTV viewing has almost collapsed. The number of homes in the single-digit millions who watch the IPL on HDTV. “It is fairly obvious that all of them have migrated towards watching Connected TVs because data costs are low, and there are many Smart TVs. There are multiple ways to watch CTV. You can cast it, use TV apps, use Chrome cast, Fire TV stick. CTV has become what HDTV is with the advantage of giving you addressability, targeting those digital offers. Through CTV you can deliver 4K which is not possible through HDTV or linear TV.” 

He said that the buffering issue was seen in the first two days of the Fifa World Cup. But by the time the final came, there was a peak concurrent viewing of 12 million. This worked buffer free. But realising that this is the IPL the company has invested from a people point of view and an infrastructure point of view. The company has signed up technology partners who he said are the world’s best in making this happen.

Talking about the company’s bid for the WPL he said that one cannot plan for what the competition will or will not do. The WPL followed a closed bidding process. “You have to go in with what your business case is. You have to be pretty confident that your business cases will be achieved. The first is financial which is the top line, bottom line etc. The second is that the brand reputation gets enhanced. Along those metrics, we were quite sure that this was the right value. We are quite happy to own the rights for WPL. The Under19 World Cup win came as a shot in the arm for us. Every property that we acquire should make money. Nobody has ever bought the rights to a sports property and said that it was cheap. To be honest this does not happen for any asset. 

“The good thing is all the sports bets that I have been involved in have proven to be successful. This country has a significant appetite for sports consumption. While people love to buy things cheap we want to buy the right asset even if it is at a premium and it has to meet the financial and brand objectives.”

He noted that often when rights are won people feel that the sum of money being paid is huge. But at the end of the tenure usually, if the strategy is right the property tends to be an invaluable asset. He explains that while there is the larger goal of aggregating audiences every event needs to stand on its own. “Every property needs to deliver in terms of both the business and the brand metrics. The economics have to add up.” He noted that the BCCI rights are certainly big. “Any event that has big names playing will always have great value. It is about how you market it and what the future looks like”

Mumbai: Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India has released currency data for the fourth week, i.e., 21 January to 27 January. As per data for the all-India 2+ target group, Star Plus is the most watched channel in India with an average minute audience (AMA) of 2493.81 (000) AMA. It was followed by Sun TV at 2307.79 (000) AMA, Star Maa at 2141.44 (000) AMA, Goldmines at 1978.68 (000) AMA and Dangal at 1978.68 (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 2399.21 (000) AMA, followed by  Dangal at 1958.86 (000) AMA, Goldmines at 1953.16 (000) AMA, Colors at 1695.41 (000) AMA and Star Pravah at 1630.69 (000) AMA.

In the South market, Sun TV was the most watched channel at 2290.9 (000) AMA, followed by Star Maa at 2087.78 (000) AMA, Zee Kannada at 1489.81 (000) AMA Zee Telugu at 1502.59 (000) AMA and Star Vijay at 1265.07 (000) AMA.

In the Maharashtra/Goa market, Star Pravah was the most watched channel at 1615.59 (000) AMA , followed by Colors Marathi at 416.82 (000) AMA, Zee Marathi at 411.25 (000) AMA,, Sony Sab at 361.82 (000) AMA, and Colors at 333.07 (000) AMA.

In the West Bengal market, Star Jalsha was the most watched channel with 1040.83 (000) AMA, followed by Zee Bangla at 829.06 (000) AMA, Jalsha Movies at 166.24 (000) AMA, Colors Bangla at 138.04 (000) AMA and Enterr 10 Bangla at 121.03 (000) AMA.

In the megacities market, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Chennai, Colors was the most watched channel at 461.73 (000) AMA followed by Sun TV at 410.81 (000) AMA, Star Plus at 398.05 (000) AMA, Star Pravah at 307.1 (000) AMA and Star Vijay at 255.09 (000) AMA.