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Tag: Avnindra Mohan

  • Zee’s A Mohan named legal ‘icon’ of the year

    Zee’s A Mohan named legal ‘icon’ of the year

    MUMBAI: India’s first home grown media conglomerate with presence in over 170 countries Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee) now has bagged two prestigious legal awards in the media and entertainment category.

    While an award was bestowed on the Zee legal team for the ‘Best Media and Entertainment Legal team for the year 2017-18’, company’s president (legal and regulatory) Avnindra Mohan was declared the ‘Legal Icon of the Year’ at the seventh annual Legal Era Awards 2018. Both the awards were recognition for Mohan and Zee chief legal counsel Viresh Dhaibar’s contributions to the legal-media interplay in general and for having led the company’s legal team to be one of the best in the industry.

    The jury consisted of eminent persons from the legal fraternity like former justices of Supreme Court Deepak Verma and AK Patnaik, president of Bar Association of India Dr Lalit Bhasin, solicitor and senior partner at Crawford Bayley & Co. RA Shah and chairman and editor-in-chief of Legal Media Group AK Raizada. The selection was based on weight-age given for quantity of work, diversity, quality delivered and display of business-oriented vision. The jury also looked for clear and specific evidence of teamwork and signs of how the team has found a way to achieve excellence, professionalism and high ethical standards.

    Mohan, one of the early entrants to the Subhash Chandra-founded Zee family that was still in its formative stages, was recognised for his legal works and contribution to the broadcasting sector, including dialoguing with the government to formulate India’s viewpoint at international forums on issues like the global broadcasting treaty.

    In his post-award address, Mohan said: “In Zee, we do not have a ‘team’, we have a ‘family’. The award is a formal recognition of an informally accepted fact – ‘East or West, Zee family is the best’. We are extraordinary together.”

    The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, an apex body of chartered accountants, had earlier in January 2018 conferred on Mohan (also a CA and a management graduate) a prestigious award in the category of  ‘CA Distinguished Achiever-2017’ for exceptional performances and achievements.

    Also Read :

    ZEEL’s Punit Goenka receives Young CEO award

    Zee Business Awarded as Best Commodity Channel

    Dr.S.Radhakrishnan award to Ms. Mimansa Malik, Zee news senior anchor & producer

  • FICCI Frames 2016: Digitization is a boon, but subject to how it is utilized by all stakeholders

    FICCI Frames 2016: Digitization is a boon, but subject to how it is utilized by all stakeholders

    MUMBAI: Even as a general consensus emerged on digitization being a boon, questions were raised at the ongoing FICCI FRAMES meet on whether the concept and advantages of the concept have been fully understood.

    Even as the TV industry has leapfrogged to more than 800 channels, and Indian Pay TV made the leap from analogue to digital and travelled from single to multi-platforms, the session on ‘Future Proofing Broadcast Distribution’ showed there are still some apprehensions on how the new technology can be used.

    The panelist included Times Network MD& CEO MK Anand, Ortel Communication CEO Bibhu Prasad Rath, Indusind Media and Communication MD & CEO Tony D Silva and Microsoft Corporation India Microsoft Azure and server business country head Srikanth Karnakota. The session was moderated by Zee Network president (Legal & Regulatory) Avnindra Mohan.

    Mohan set the ball rolling with a perplexing question on whether the industry had fully understood the implications of ditigization and convergence and whether stakeholders realized that they can use the same network for delivering different content through different modes of mediums. Thus, he said it shows a paradigm shift in the entire gambit of the distribution system.

    “Digitization has been a boon for the broadcast industry. From the broadcaster point of view, digitization started when the Direct to Home (DTH) system launched in 2003 in India. English news and other English general entertainment channels were being treated as the outsiders for the broadcast business. We had 65 million viewers in English from 2000 to 2005 whereas the total number of television viewers was 400 million. The number of English viewers has grown to 200 million now and that happened because of digitization,” says Anand.

    Anand added that in the next five to ten years, the English entertainment viewership should cross 300 million which is almost close to Hindi general entertainment channels viewership due to digitization.  “Times Now has a very strong and loyal audience in a month we cross the viewership of two and half crores but people don’t know that we have 13 crores of viewers on New Media platform,” informs Anand.

    Being a multi-system operator sharing views on the kind of business opportunities Ortel Communication can have in such a scenario, Rath felt India has grown in a unique fashion for the last two decades but the quality of the networks has been compromised. “The Set Top Box is not a solution to a network and we need to handle Phase III and IV in a different manner and not as Phase I and II”, he added.

    Noting that “we in India do not have one definition for Digitisation.It has been portrayed differently by others”, D’silva asked what the country wanted to achieve through digitization. “I believe there should a national objective about what they want to achieve from digitization. In most the industry today including DTH, 50 per cent of revenue goes in tax”. He felt progress was difficult unless the tax was supportive, but this was not going to happen. “It is the MSOs who are putting up the money and buying the STBs. So there has to be a logical regime of taxation. The STB is the only starting point of digitization. There should be an environment where technology and digitization should go hand in hand,” he felt.

  • FICCI Frames 2016: Digitization is a boon, but subject to how it is utilized by all stakeholders

    FICCI Frames 2016: Digitization is a boon, but subject to how it is utilized by all stakeholders

    MUMBAI: Even as a general consensus emerged on digitization being a boon, questions were raised at the ongoing FICCI FRAMES meet on whether the concept and advantages of the concept have been fully understood.

    Even as the TV industry has leapfrogged to more than 800 channels, and Indian Pay TV made the leap from analogue to digital and travelled from single to multi-platforms, the session on ‘Future Proofing Broadcast Distribution’ showed there are still some apprehensions on how the new technology can be used.

    The panelist included Times Network MD& CEO MK Anand, Ortel Communication CEO Bibhu Prasad Rath, Indusind Media and Communication MD & CEO Tony D Silva and Microsoft Corporation India Microsoft Azure and server business country head Srikanth Karnakota. The session was moderated by Zee Network president (Legal & Regulatory) Avnindra Mohan.

    Mohan set the ball rolling with a perplexing question on whether the industry had fully understood the implications of ditigization and convergence and whether stakeholders realized that they can use the same network for delivering different content through different modes of mediums. Thus, he said it shows a paradigm shift in the entire gambit of the distribution system.

    “Digitization has been a boon for the broadcast industry. From the broadcaster point of view, digitization started when the Direct to Home (DTH) system launched in 2003 in India. English news and other English general entertainment channels were being treated as the outsiders for the broadcast business. We had 65 million viewers in English from 2000 to 2005 whereas the total number of television viewers was 400 million. The number of English viewers has grown to 200 million now and that happened because of digitization,” says Anand.

    Anand added that in the next five to ten years, the English entertainment viewership should cross 300 million which is almost close to Hindi general entertainment channels viewership due to digitization.  “Times Now has a very strong and loyal audience in a month we cross the viewership of two and half crores but people don’t know that we have 13 crores of viewers on New Media platform,” informs Anand.

    Being a multi-system operator sharing views on the kind of business opportunities Ortel Communication can have in such a scenario, Rath felt India has grown in a unique fashion for the last two decades but the quality of the networks has been compromised. “The Set Top Box is not a solution to a network and we need to handle Phase III and IV in a different manner and not as Phase I and II”, he added.

    Noting that “we in India do not have one definition for Digitisation.It has been portrayed differently by others”, D’silva asked what the country wanted to achieve through digitization. “I believe there should a national objective about what they want to achieve from digitization. In most the industry today including DTH, 50 per cent of revenue goes in tax”. He felt progress was difficult unless the tax was supportive, but this was not going to happen. “It is the MSOs who are putting up the money and buying the STBs. So there has to be a logical regime of taxation. The STB is the only starting point of digitization. There should be an environment where technology and digitization should go hand in hand,” he felt.

  • Strong regulatory ecosystem vital for safeguarding IPR if M and E industry has to grow in the international market

    Strong regulatory ecosystem vital for safeguarding IPR if M and E industry has to grow in the international market

    MUMBAI: The subject of intellectual property rights and piracy keep coming up at the FICCI FRAMES year after year and appeals are made by creative artistes for stringent measures to check this.

    With digitization and if India is to become a media and entertainment hub, this gains urgency and is even more imperative that steps are taken for a strong legal and regulatory ecosystem safeguarding intellectual properties.

    Saving intellectual Property in a world without boundaries saw panelists and legal experts referring to global practices and emphasizing on the importance of IPR for the growth of the Indian media and entertainment sector.

    In fact, World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry stressed the need for stringent laws in an upcoming market like India where creativity was growing at such a speed. He also referred to how WIPO was helping member countries to deal with these problems.

    The session was moderated by Saikrishna & Associates partner Ameet Dutta. The panelists were Motion Picture Association of America Asia Pacific VP regional legal counsel Michael Schlesinger, Star India senior VP legal and regulatory Pulak Bagchi and Zee Network president legal and regulatory affairs Avnindra Mohan.

    Dutta said the focus of the context in digital India has shifted from copyrights to user rights. This underlines the challenges that intellectual property faces. The question that he posed before the panelists was where India stood on the world map in terms of economics.

    Schlesinger said: “India is a mine of creativity. This is evident with the number of features films, television channels or other platforms available in India. Our existence will depend on a surge of creativity and invention. India is maximizing its potential but has to find a place on the global map. For example, India showed total box office collection of $2.5 million in 2015 while China had $6.5 million and US had $11.1 million. These figures clearly show that just making products or content in India will not help until India can acquire international content as well. India has to maximize a lot of things like job creations, movie screenings etc.”

    Mohan shared the scenario about the regulatory environment in India. “For the broadcasting sector, there is no copyright at all since 2003. It is always user rights. In India, the content producers and broadcasters are same to the extent of 90 per cent unlike US. If a distributor comes to you, you have to provide content on non-discriminatory basis with equal prices irrespective of the size. This is the only sector where a broadcaster is asked to provide its content with prices frozen in 2003. I am forced to give my content to the distributors at a frozen price.”

    Bagchi generally agreed with Mohan and said with the challenges faced by the entire sector, the impact of regulatory laws on channels and the challenges faced by broadcasters cannot be neglected. “Consumers are our kings. I agree with Mohan about the prices being frozen since 2003. Imagine what would happen if the Indian government asks Bill Gates to sell all the Microsoft versions and its tools today on the prices that were relevant in 2003,” said Bagchi. He stressed that this was one reason why international parties hesitate on investing in Indian IPs, and the archaic guidelines and regulations prevent the growth of intellectual property.

    For a session that was aimed at how one can survive the digital divide, it ended with the panelists agreeing on the importance of having sectoral regulations in sync with the copyright laws. This will also retain the India IPR regime with the best practices in the field of intellectual property rights.

  • Strong regulatory ecosystem vital for safeguarding IPR if M and E industry has to grow in the international market

    Strong regulatory ecosystem vital for safeguarding IPR if M and E industry has to grow in the international market

    MUMBAI: The subject of intellectual property rights and piracy keep coming up at the FICCI FRAMES year after year and appeals are made by creative artistes for stringent measures to check this.

    With digitization and if India is to become a media and entertainment hub, this gains urgency and is even more imperative that steps are taken for a strong legal and regulatory ecosystem safeguarding intellectual properties.

    Saving intellectual Property in a world without boundaries saw panelists and legal experts referring to global practices and emphasizing on the importance of IPR for the growth of the Indian media and entertainment sector.

    In fact, World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry stressed the need for stringent laws in an upcoming market like India where creativity was growing at such a speed. He also referred to how WIPO was helping member countries to deal with these problems.

    The session was moderated by Saikrishna & Associates partner Ameet Dutta. The panelists were Motion Picture Association of America Asia Pacific VP regional legal counsel Michael Schlesinger, Star India senior VP legal and regulatory Pulak Bagchi and Zee Network president legal and regulatory affairs Avnindra Mohan.

    Dutta said the focus of the context in digital India has shifted from copyrights to user rights. This underlines the challenges that intellectual property faces. The question that he posed before the panelists was where India stood on the world map in terms of economics.

    Schlesinger said: “India is a mine of creativity. This is evident with the number of features films, television channels or other platforms available in India. Our existence will depend on a surge of creativity and invention. India is maximizing its potential but has to find a place on the global map. For example, India showed total box office collection of $2.5 million in 2015 while China had $6.5 million and US had $11.1 million. These figures clearly show that just making products or content in India will not help until India can acquire international content as well. India has to maximize a lot of things like job creations, movie screenings etc.”

    Mohan shared the scenario about the regulatory environment in India. “For the broadcasting sector, there is no copyright at all since 2003. It is always user rights. In India, the content producers and broadcasters are same to the extent of 90 per cent unlike US. If a distributor comes to you, you have to provide content on non-discriminatory basis with equal prices irrespective of the size. This is the only sector where a broadcaster is asked to provide its content with prices frozen in 2003. I am forced to give my content to the distributors at a frozen price.”

    Bagchi generally agreed with Mohan and said with the challenges faced by the entire sector, the impact of regulatory laws on channels and the challenges faced by broadcasters cannot be neglected. “Consumers are our kings. I agree with Mohan about the prices being frozen since 2003. Imagine what would happen if the Indian government asks Bill Gates to sell all the Microsoft versions and its tools today on the prices that were relevant in 2003,” said Bagchi. He stressed that this was one reason why international parties hesitate on investing in Indian IPs, and the archaic guidelines and regulations prevent the growth of intellectual property.

    For a session that was aimed at how one can survive the digital divide, it ended with the panelists agreeing on the importance of having sectoral regulations in sync with the copyright laws. This will also retain the India IPR regime with the best practices in the field of intellectual property rights.