ITV

Tag: Brazil

  • Social Media is Important to Majority of Indians: Ipsos Study

    Social Media is Important to Majority of Indians: Ipsos Study

    MUMBAI: Majority (58 per cent) of Indians say social media is important to them; compared to 42 per cent globally, according to a new poll of online respondents conducted by Ipsos OTX – the global innovation center for Ipsos, the world’s third largest market and opinion research firm.

     

    “As Mahatma Gandhi rightly said – ‘action expresses priorities’, social media is well on its way to being a priority as majority of Indians who have access to the internet claim social media is important in their lives,” said Ipsos India head of marketing communication Biswarup Banerjee.

     

    “With proliferation of mobile internet in India, social media has become a part of everyone’s life, it influences people’s daily life and how they interact with each other. Social media has now become a mainstream way of communicating – for individuals as well as businesses,” added Banerjee.

     

    The big social media story is told in the demographics, especially age. Age appears to be the strongest demographic driver of placing importance on social media in India. Indeed, a big majority (62 per cent) of those under the age of 35 rate social media as important vs. 58 per cent for those aged 35-49 and 44 per cent for those aged 50-64. Women (64 per cent) seem more likely than men (54 per cent) to rate it highly.

     

    The countries with the highest proportions those indicating social media is important to them are from: Turkey (64 per cent), Brazil (63 per cent), Indonesia (62 per cent), China (61 per cent), Saudi Arabia (59 per cent), India (58 per cent), Mexico (54 per cent) and South Africa (52 per cent). This group of social media lovers is followed by Argentina (45 per cent), Russia (44 per cent), Spain (42 per cent), Poland (37 per cent), Hungary (36 per cent), Sweden (35 per cent), Germany (33 per cent), Great Britain (33 per cent) and the United States (32 per cent). The lower group includes: Australia (30 per cent), Italy (30 per cent), Belgium (29 per cent), Canada (28 per cent), South Korea (28 per cent), Japan (24 per cent) and France (17 per cent).

     

    Ipsos conducted this study among 18,002 people in 24 countries in the month of July.

  • Its Mipcom time again

    Its Mipcom time again

    CANNES: Frenzy marks Nice Airport as staff is in a tearing hurry to attend to the 1,200-odd delegates who’ve flown in from 60 countries across the globe to participate in the world’s largest content fair.

    Indeed, the city of Cannes is draped in finery as it gears up to host Mipcom 2013 and Mip Junior – the biggest event(s) in the television trade.

    Flagging off the extravaganza on 5 October at the Carlton is Mip Junior; a two-day content sale market-cum-conference whose focus is children’s content.

    A significant precursor to Mipcom, Mip Junior sees influential international buyers, sellers and producers of kids’ programmes converge to present, screen, license, discover and acquire the latest content. A platform that aims to offer maximum exposure to all participating companies, while focussing on new opportunities, business models and challenges facing the creative world, Mip Junior is a huge draw. Statistics-wise, 520 buyers, 44,000 screenings, 1,000 programmes and 700 companies certainly make it a not-to-be-missed event.

    This year, the who’s who of the animation industry will be in attendance, both their ongoing and upcoming shows in tow. So while, there will be Unicorn Black with Burka Avenger and Marvista Entertainment with Digimon and Power Rangers, they will share space with say a Kumanta Animation Studios that is bringing its all new Miles and Stones to Mip Junior.

    What’s more, a special workshop will be held on the first day to offer insights to producers and distributors as to how to make the most of the mainstream online platform.

    Day One of the 2013 edition will also see the return of the international competition for newest projects created for children. In the race are Being Zeth by Source Animation, India; Goris the Gorilla by Split, Brazil & Gong, Chile; Koouka by Aldebaran Distribution and Vallaround, Italy; Nelly and Nora by Geronimo, Ireland and The Little Train Choo Choo by JM Animation, Korea.

    Add to all this, participants will get an opportunity to understand and unveil new trends in kids’ content in Russia. Not to mention, Argentina, the country of honour this year, will be partnering with the Argentine National Film Board to showcase original animation, live action and digital series produced by independent Argentina-based producers.

    In case you thought a day of showcasing, networking, buying and selling was it, no way… Reed Midem hosts a night party to present Argentina as this year’s country of honour. So, time to get your LBD and dancing shoes out…

  • ESPN drops International X Games competitions, cuts jobs

    ESPN drops International X Games competitions, cuts jobs

    MUMBAI: ESPN said on 3 October it will end the international versions of its X Games extreme sports competitions because it could not make money on the events, which feature skateboarding and other sports.

     

    The sports cable network owned by Walt Disney Co will be cutting an unspecified number of jobs related to the International X Games, which took place in cities including Barcelona, Munich, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil and Tignes, France.

     

    ESPN owns the X Games and had announced the international expansion in 2011. It had organised the events for one year and had two years left on its contract.
    The US X Games, which take place in Austin, Texas, in the summer and Aspen, Colorado, in winter, will continue. ESPN started the competition in the summer of 1995 in Rhode Island.

     

    “We are proud to have run world-class competitions for both the athletes and spectators; however, the overall economics of these events do not provide a sustainable future path,” an ESPN spokeswoman said in a statement.

     

    “The company remains fully committed to the X Games brand and its full-scale competitions in Aspen, Colorado and Austin, Texas,” the statement continued.
    ESPN added it did not see a ‘sustainable path for economics of these events’.

     

    Regarding the related job cuts, ESPN said: “Changes of this nature require difficult decisions, including the elimination of some roles. Under the two-event model ESPN will require a smaller workforce to stage and support the events.”

     

    ESPN said a company-wide memo on the move was sent out.

  • ‘Water’ to be the opening film at 4th Jagran Film Festival

    ‘Water’ to be the opening film at 4th Jagran Film Festival

    MUMBAI: The 4th edition of the Jagran Film Festival, Mumbai 2013 will begin with the film Water and will be screened on 24 September at Fun Republic in Andheri, Mumbai. Water is a 120 minute feature film born out of a unique Israeli-Palestinian cinematic cooperation. Produced by the Film and Television department of the Tel Aviv University in association with Tu Vas Voir, the project Water is made in HD, colour. Yael Perlov had initiated this project and is also the artistic director of Water. Its original version is in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.

    Taking complete artistic freedom, in 2012, a small group of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers directed a feature film that explored a strong unifying subject – Water. Besides being a highly poetic and pastoral subject, Water is also a very political and violent subject with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Water is about two conflicting populations, which couldn’t overcome the prejudice and political intimidations, but ultimately finds a platform for a unique collaboration, in the form of this feature film. This is one of the reasons why Water is so special.

    Cinema always has the ability to penetrate forbidden zones and Water exemplifies that. It has made all of us realise that we all yearn for a solution to this long-going on conflict. Several Directors have interpreted this subject in their own creative way, which together has given shape to Water.

    The film, a unique piece of art has been screened at various international film festivals, Venice International Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Mostra International de Cine de Sa? Paulo, Brazil, Stockholm International Film Festival, Swedenand many others. This is the Asian Premiere of the film.

  • Mumbai Film Mart gets bigger, better

    Mumbai Film Mart gets bigger, better

     Book your dates from 18-20 October. It is time for Mumbaikars to get ready for the third edition of the Mumbai Film Mart (MFM) to be held at Taj President.  The festival that facilitates Indian films to reach international audiences promises to be bigger and better than its previous avatars.

     

    The festival is expected to grow from its 1,200 meetings last year and 400 in its first edition. These meetings, between Indian producers and buyers and distributors from several international markets have been fruitful for both parties, with Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Hong Kong, Poland, Germany, France, Sweden and even South Korea bagging valuable deals.   

     

    Owing to its valuable contribution in facilitating the sale of Indian films among these countries, MFM has also garnered the support of top Indian production houses such as Yash Raj Films, Disney UTV, Eros International, Reliance Entertainment, AKFPL and Balaji Motion Pictures.

     

    That said MFM is also an active platform for independent filmmakers to showcase their work alongside big banner Bollywood films.

     

    Apart from the repeat participation from its earlier breakthrough markets, MFM has confirmed attendance of new buyers and broadcasters such as Astro (Malaysia), MBC (UAE), Shoreline Entertainment (USA), Happiness Distribution and Aanna Films (France), international film services providers such as 3D Alliance (France) and KFTV (UK) and key International exhibitors such as the VOX chain of cinemas operating across the Middle East.  

     

    MFM 2013 will continue to expand the scope of the business of cinema with a focus on new technologies such as 3D, new distribution models for independent films, Books2Screen to encourage film adaptations, India Project Room for pre-selection of work-in-progress films and Filmy Room an exclusive DVD viewing library.

    This year, MFM will grow its scope manifold by hosting pre-scheduled meetings, on-the-spot networking through speed dating, informal meetings during happy hours, themed round table meetings and greater visibility for select participants through SPOTS.

  • Conax all-inclusive DRM portfolio for Latin America now includes in-the-cloud solutions for pay-TV operators and content distributors

    Conax all-inclusive DRM portfolio for Latin America now includes in-the-cloud solutions for pay-TV operators and content distributors

    MUMBAI: S?o Paulo, Brazil, August 5th, 2013: ABTA 2013 Expo & Conference — Conax, a leading global provider of solutions for securing multi-device and digital video content distribution, today announced an all-inclusive strategy for the Latin America pay-TV market. In addition to the recent announcements of secure DRM deployments at Cablemás, Nuevo Siglo and Montecable, content protection specialist Conax is partnering with systems integrator Bold MSS for a hosted IPTV solution, based on Conax Contego Unite™ and including middleware from Cubiware. Now operators of all sizes can readily embrace new pay-TV solutions, launching advanced platforms with low capital expenditure while positioning for market-differentiating offers such as OTT VOD and multiscreen services.

    Bold MSS will provide a hosted IPTV solution designed for smaller Latin America operators keen to embrace VOD and other interactive services enabling enhanced consumer offerings. In addition to the expertise provided by the highly skilled technicians at Bold MSS, the new service will include world-class security from Conax and market-leading middleware from Cubiware.

    “We are very excited by the tremendous demand for advanced services in Latin America and the opportunity to help operators grow. When selecting a security solution, operators should choose a partner with a solid security history and a long record of profitability to assure themselves a strong future. To help operators yield profits on their OTT investments, Conax is cultivating strategic partnerships to enable highly diverse pay-TV market segments to earn on advanced On-demand offerings – through flexible, fast-to-market and secure DRM solutions,” says Rohit Mehra, VP Americas, Conax.

    Together with Bold MSS and strategic partners, Conax is offering a highly unique portfolio of advanced content security solutions tailored for the varying needs of operators and providers of pay-content delivery in varying market segments.

    Secure solutions for all sizes of operations

    Latin American operators of all sizes can maintain and increase their market share and make money by enabling a unique consumer experience by adding new features and solutions, through deployment of market differentiating services such as VOD, Live TV, and multiscreen offerings for a growing ecosystem of broadband-savvy consumers. Conax is offering operators secure, Hybrid OTT solutions with fast time-to-market at reduced costs allowing operators to profit on multiscreen content. A sample of solutions offered by Conax:

    1) Conax Xtend Multiscreen™: Pre-integrated solution with fast time-to-market, based on Conax Contego Unite™ secure DRM, chosen by Cablem?s, Mexico

    2) Conax Contego Unite™ – highly flexible OTT solution based on 25 years of market-leading experience and security track record, selected by Nuevo Siglo and Montecable

    3) Hosted secure IPTV Solution, based on Conax Contego Unite™ and hosted by Bold MSS, for smaller operators in Latin America looking to enhance their broadband offerings by including pay-TV and On -demand services

  • Actress Sakshi Tanwar starrer Bawra Mann to open 2nd Bangalore Shorts Film Festival

    Actress Sakshi Tanwar starrer Bawra Mann to open 2nd Bangalore Shorts Film Festival

    NEW DELHI: A total of 45 films will be screened in the Bangalore Shorts Film Festival to be held in the garden city on 22 June.

    The film Bawra Mann; directed by Mitu staring Sakshi Tanwar (of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain fame) which tells the story of women desire will open the day-long Festival organised by Miniboxoffice.

    This festival received a total of 187 films this year. The dilemma directed by Sushil Bhati shows the inner conflict of a person who is doing something but wants something else, while Sando Da directed by Abhirup Ghosh is about an aspiring detective, and Tales of the Road tell a road story in very exciting.

    The aim of the Festival is to popularise the work of young & experienced filmmakers from across the India and the world.

    Films from Spain, Germany, Brazil, Russia, US and from almost every region of India are being screened. The festival jury includes national award winning director Unni Vijayan and documentary filmmaker Amit Mitra.

    This is the second edition of this festival, which began last year to mark 100 years of Indian cinema and salute the contribution of the Kannada film industry towards the development of cinema in India.

    The festival provides a platform to aspiring and professional filmmakers for showcasing their talent with networking and marketing opportunities in film industry.

    The festival objective is to create a short films culture in India, promotion of upcoming filmmakers, developing sources of revenue generation for short films and to make short film making a commercial enterprise.

    This year, the festival will introduce more workshops and master classes. The Miniboxoffice HL meet will be the highlight for those filmmakers who want to venture into feature film production, conducted by Festival director Rambhul Singh

    BSFF-13 is organised by India‘s only independent film festival organising company Miniboxoffice. BSFF-13 provides networking and contact building opportunities to filmmakers. BSFF-13 gives marketing and distribution facility for filmmakers which no other festival in India is providing.

    Miniboxoffice has established festivals in Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bhopal and a few more festivals are coming up. All Miniboxoffice festivals have completed one or two editions.

  • Amazon expands Appstore availability to 200 countries

    Amazon expands Appstore availability to 200 countries

    MUMBAI: Amazon.com continued the global expansion of its Appstore by announcing that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea, and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City.

    These apps will be made available in the coming months when the Amazon Appstore for Android launches internationally for consumers. Registered developers who want international distribution will have their apps automatically made available for download, unless they designate otherwise. This international expansion is the latest in a series of Amazon Appstore for Android launches, which have included the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

    “Amazon‘s platform is a complete end-to-end solution for developers wanting to build, market and monetize their apps and games on Kindle Fire and Android devices,” said Amazon Vice President of Apps and Games Mike George.

    “Allowing developers to target distribution of their apps and games in even more international countries is yet another important milestone as we strive to serve consumers and developers globally. Many of our existing developers have localized their apps and games for international consumers, and we look forward to working with new developers that have been waiting to bring their apps to more Amazon customers across the globe.”

    Amazon.com claims that developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetisation and user engagement through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore.

    The success is being driven by Amazon‘s large customer base and industry-leading e-commerce features like 1-Click purchasing, Amazon‘s APIs for In-App Purchasing (IAP) and A/B Testing, and GameCircle, Amazon‘s gaming experience for Kindle Fire. A recent study of more than 500 games that utilize in-app purchasing on Amazon found that GameCircle-enabled mobile games earned 83 percent more average revenue per user (ARPU) than non-GameCircle games.

  • India’s strong showing in Publicis Groupe’s global growth in Q1

    MUMBAI: India continues to be a driving force for France-based global media conglomerate the Publicis Groupe in 2013. The group‘s business in the country grew at 10.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2013. It was the region to record the second highest growth after China that grew at 15.2 per cent.

    Publicis Groupe‘s consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2013 was Euro 1,563 million, up 7.6 per cent from Euro 1,452 million for the same period in 2012. The group registered overall organic growth of 1.3 per cent for the first quarter (8.5 per cent organic growth in digital and -2.3 per cent in analogue/non-digital business).

    The growth by geographies was led by the BRIC+MISSAT (Brazil, Russia, India and China + Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey) regions at 14.2 per cent. The two combined territories grew from revenue collection of Euros 176 million in Q1 2012 to Euros 201 million in the first quarter of 2013. Russia grew at a rate of 5.7 per cent.

    While North America contributed to nearly 50 per cent of the revenue, majority regions in Europe saw significant negative organic growth. Publicis‘ revenues in North America grew from Euros 724 million in Q1 2012 to Euros 776 million in Q1 2013, an increase of seven per cent. The region saw organic growth of 4.4 per cent.

    Europe (excluding Turkey and Russia) registered organic de-growth of 6.5 per cent. It saw advertising investments decline sharply, mainly in the non-digital segment (analogue). The vast majority of countries in this region recorded negative growth, including Germany (-4.8 per cent), the UK (-6.1 per cent), France (-11.3 per cent), Spain (-13.1 per cent) and Italy (-13.7 per cent) while Central Europe grew by 3.8 per cent.

    The group has maintained its thrust on India with its only acquisition in the quarter coming in the form of full service digital marketing and consulting agency Convonix. It is expected to align with Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) in India to provide search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing and online reputation management to an extensive roster of clients.

    Major account wins for Publicis Groupe in the country in this period included HP (DigitasLBi), Eureka Forbes (DigitasLBi) and Subway India (Publicis Worldwide).

    Publicis has also recently made it known that it plans to make more acquisitions in the country. A technology services firm is said to be the next target on the group‘s mind which will be merged with its digital entity Razorfish on acquisition. Details of the agreement are expected over the next month.

    Other major investment for the group in Q1 2013 was the completion of the share purchases of digital agency LBi International and the buyback of shares (approx. 3.9 million for a total price of 181 million euro) from Japanese media giant Dentsu.

    The Groupe expects its revenue stream to grow slowly in the first half-year, then gathering pace in the second half-year, with annual growth for 2013 exceeding the market and its own performance in 2012. The Groupe‘s internal objective is between 3.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent.

    Publicis chairman and CEO Maurice Levy said, “As I predicted, 2013 is turning out to be a difficult and contrasted vintage, with on the one hand the United States consolidating its growth and on the other hand Europe suffering. Our first quarter ended satisfactorily, and while 1.3 per centorganic growth may seem modest, it is above our internal objectives and compares with the strong growth recorded in the first quarter of 2012. This is particularly true for Europe with a 10 points gap between 2012 first quarter (+3.6 per cent increase) and 2013 (6.5 per cent decrease). The Groupe‘s transformation continues apace: digital activities now represent 37 per cent of total revenue, and strongly stands as our first activity. When combined with revenue from the so-called “emerging” markets, our business in these high-growth segments generates close to 60 per cent of our total revenue, in keeping with our five-year goal of 75 per cent from these segments. North America accounted for 50 per cent of our revenue in the first quarter of 2013. This rebalancing is very encouraging in order to meet the challenges of 2013 and 2014. They bear fruit as shown by our performance in net new business wins surpassing the high level of $ 2 billion. The pipeline remains solid and comforts us in the Groupe‘s ability to reach its objectives for 2013, namely to improve its margin and to outperform the market and our own 2012 in terms of organic growth.”

  • Room for smartphone growth in emerging countries: Nielsen

    Room for smartphone growth in emerging countries: Nielsen

    MUMBAI: While smartphones have gone mainstream in many regions around the globe, adoption among emerging countries is still developing. According to new research from Nielsen, China is the only country among the high-growth Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets where smartphones are predominant, owned by two-thirds of Chinese mobile subscribers as of the first half of 2012.

    In contrast, feature phones—devices with no touchscreen, QWERTY keypad or operating system—are still dominant in India and Russia, owned by 80 per cent and 51 per cent of mobile subscribers, respectively.

    There’s no clear favourite type of mobile device in Brazil, with mobile ownership split between 44 percent feature phones, 36 per cent smartphones and 21 per cent multimedia phones (touchscreen and/or QWERTY keypad, but no operating system).

    Much the same manner as social media, smartphones–with their advanced functionality and access to a multitude of apps–influence everything from consumers’ interaction with both brands and each other, to and shopping and purchase decisions.