ITV

Tag: again

  • Zee, ESPN make a grab for cricket rights again

    NEW DELHI / MUMBAI: The battle for grabbing the coveted telecast rights to Indian cricket has started. According to industry estimates, ESPN Star Sports has bid $325 million, while SET Max’s quote is in the region of $250 million and Prasar Bharati’s $225 million.

    Though industry and Indian cricket board sources couldn’t confirm it, but Zee Telefilms is said to have bid higher than others.
     
     

    The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had called for bids to the telecast rights of approximately 130 days of cricket between October 2005 to September 2009. The bid, which closed today, would open in a week’s time.
     
     

    The BCCI had set a floor price of $2.14 million per day of cricket, totaling to a minimum of $278.2 million for 130 days. This means that only ESS and Zee Telefilms have bid higher than the floor price.

    However, BCCI had expected to earn over $400 million from the sell of this over four-year property.

    Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India chief executive officer Kunal Dasgupta was not available for comment as he is currently in London. Senior executives from other broadcasters also could not be contacted.

    Meanwhile, according to broadcast industry sources, a senior Zee representative is understood to have met up with former BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya in South Africa recently during the Africa-Asia series to patch up the differences, which had cropped up after the contentious last round of bidding last year.

    Subsequently, BCCI amended its eligibility criteria whereby it said that bidders need not have obtained licensing from the rights holders directly. It could be through an agency also, which means Zee could qualify.

    However, a senior BCCI official told Indiantelevision.com this evening that Zee’s eligibility criteria is not clear.

    In the past during the court cases involving the telecast rights to domestic cricket, Zee had argued that it had telecast matches on its international feed. Incidentally, Zee TV and Zee Sports also recently telecast the Afro-Asia Cup cricket series, which is an ICC-recognised event.

    The BCCI official, without revealing any financial details, also admitted that the bids could be lower than expected as private broadcasters are wary of a proposed legislation whereby terrestrial rights of the matches would have to shared with pubcaster Doordarshan on a mandatory basis.

  • Captain’s Hunt ‘hungama’ ready to roll yet again

    MUMBAI: Hungama TV is all set to make a splash with the second edition of its hunt for India’s seven smartest kids under the Captain’s Hunt 2005 that kicked off on 25 June.

    The seven-city hunt will travel to Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Lucknow for the 42-day period culminating in September, when the seven captains aged 8-14 years, would be part of the board of directors governing the channel.

    The hunt received almost 100,000 entries last year and this time round it has added a host of new elements to keep the ‘Hungama’ quotient intact.

    It has introduced the concept of ‘School Champion’ (one from each school), wherein a student that influences the maximum number of his or her peers to participate in the hunt would automatically be eligible for a direct entry to the city level auditions.

    Additionally the seven winning captains will be the faces of Hungama TV and will have the opportunity to anchor shows on the channel, feature in various ground promotions run by the channel.

    Hungama TV has made children an integral part of all key decisions from research to programming, which has been a great success for the channel.

    The Captains’ Hunt will evaluate each child on parameters beyond academics. Creativity, confidence, articulation, out-of-the-box thinking and teamwork will be some of the judging criteria. The auditions will consist of three rounds – self-introduction, talent hunt and mental puzzle, post which the final selection will be done.

    The intense school contact program would cover approximately 300,000 students in 320 schools across seven cities. Another 280 schools would be informed about the hunt through a direct mailing exercise.

     

  • O&M’s Sinha wins the WPP Atticus Grand Prix yet again

    MUMBAI: In a rare feat of intellectual achievement, Ogilvy & Mather India Discovery vice president Kunal Sinha has won the top honour in WPP Group plc’s annual Atticus awards for original published thinking in the marketing services, for the second time.
     

     
    His entry — The Future of Technology and its Impact on our Lives — was chosen unanimously by the judges – HSBC group general manager marketing Peter Stringham, Market Leader editor Judie Lannon and Sunday Times business editor William Lewis – as the best contribution. He will receive the specially minted Atticus statuette and a cash award of $10,000 from WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell in London, later in the year.
     
     
    Sinha’s thesis is an exercise in anticipating the future, as it explores the web of interconnections between technology creators, users and forecasters, to uncover those possibilities that hold the key to making technology brands successful.

    All this leads to a driver-model for technology brands. He last won the Grand Prix in 1996 for his paper — Communication Effect – A Reevaluation of Beliefs — and is the only person in WPP history to have won it twice. Sinha’s previous Grand Prix was won when he was with Thompson Social.

     
     
    Ogilvy Worldwide chairman Shelly Lazarus said, “Beating 285 entries from all across WPP to win the Atticus Grand Prix is no easy feat, but to have done it twice is extraordinary. It speaks of the brilliant work Kunal and the Ogilvy India Discovery team does every day. With this award they bring glory to all of us at Ogilvy.”

    Ogilvy India and South Asia CEO John Goodman said, “This is an amazing achievement and brings great honour on Ogilvy India. We are truly proud of his achievement.”

    This is a second for Ogilvy India as well. In 1999, Venkitachalam Balasubramanium (now with Group M – ATG/MCI) had picked up the Grand Prix.

    O&M India was the only WPP agency in India to be recognised at the Atticus Awards this year. It won a Certificate of Merit in the corporate category, for its compilation of award-winning communication effectiveness case studies – Effective Ogilvy. Incidentally, this casebook was edited by Sinha and designed by Sameer Sojwal and Yogesh Pradhan.

    Ogilvy Discovery is the account planning, consumer insight and knowledge management unit at O&M India.

  • Percept IMC wins Media Trans Asia Cup yet again

    MUMBAI: Percept IMC has won the prestigious 14th annual All India Media Trans Asia Cup beating Triton Communication by 169 runs for the fourth time. For the past 14 years, 16 of the top advertising agencies from India participate in this annual cricket tournament, which is played in the Round Robin League format.
     
     
    In an exciting 40 overs a side match played at the Terry Oval Ground, Gurgoan, Triton Communication won the toss and invited Percept IMC to bat.
    Percept IMC led by Sanjay Kacker made an explosive start and made a mammoth total of 315 for five wickets in the stipulated overs with fine contributions from Mukesh Walse, who scored a brilliant century (107 not out) and Sunil Talwani with 56 runs.

     
     
    In reply Triton Communications led by Manish failed to match the Percept IMC’s standard on the ground and succumbed at 146 runs. For the winning team Sunial Thanwani took four wickets while S Mullah took three wickets and Hariendra Singh took one.
     
     
    Suresh Solanki and Mullah of the Percept IMC were declared the Best Batsmen and Best Bowler of the tournament respectively.
    The winning team included Sanjay Kacker (Captain), Hariendra Singh, Sunil Y Kalra, Sunil Talwani, Mukesh, S Mulla, Surender Singh, Brijesh Solkar, Brijesh Saxena, Subhash, Solanki, Sanjeev Sharma and Harish Sharma.

    Former Indian wicket keeper Vijay Yadav, who was present to witness the finals said, “It was a great game and I saw some heartening performances on the field. I was a wonderful team effort on part of the Percept IMC and they played as a well knit unit.”

    He further added, “The tournaments like this provide excellent opportunity for team-building within companies, as well as serve as a platform to network and interface with industry peers.”