ITV

Tag: enters

  • Zee Network enters Australia on PanGlobal TV

    MUMBAI: Zee Network has signed a multi-year agreement with the Sydney-based PanGlobal TV to bring its five-channel offering to the South Asian population in Australia and New Zealand. The programming bouquet will be delivered on the PanGlobal TV platform via PanAmSat’s PAS-8 Pacific Ocean Region satellite.
     
     

    Zee Network will offer five channels, Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee News, Zee Muzic and Zee Smile on PanGlobal TV.

    PanGlobal TV is a joint marketing alliance between PanAmSat and GlobeCast Australia delivering DTH multi-ethnic programming that reaches tens of thousands across the Australian continent. It is one of nine DTH platforms that PanAmSat supports around the globe, states an official release.
     
     

    “In one short year, PanGlobal TV signed deals with the top names in multi-ethnic programming. Now, with Zee Network joining our DTH platform, we can offer viewers an even wider array of global fare,” PanAmSat VP Asia Pacific David Ball said. “The addition of such a highly-regarded customer as Zee Network to our programming roster is an ideal way to celebrate our one-year anniversary.”

    “Zee Telefilms Limited is very pleased to announce this relationship with GlobeCast Australia,” said Zee Tele international business president Dheeraj Kapuria. “With this extension, Zee Network continues with its efforts to reach out to South Asian Diaspora across the globe. Through these channels, we will be bringing Indian culture and Bollywood into the homes of 45,000 South Asian families in Australia and New Zealand.”

    PanGlobal TV offers 24 different channels of multi-ethnic programming, including Zee Network, to viewers across Australia. The line up includes NHK World Premium, MySAT, the Arabic Pay TV service which carries ART, LBC, Al Jazeera, ART Movies, Future TV, MBC and Noursat. It also features Horizon World Plus TV Pty Ltd which distributes a bouquet of five Russian television channels: ORT (Channel 1), RTVi, Teleklub/Detski Mir, Nashe Kino and RTR Planeta. It also hosts TV Plus which offers Serbian services Pink Plus, ExtraTV, BN and BHTV1, the release adds.

  • UTV enters into JV with Astro Malaysia for launch of two kids channels

    MUMBAI: Malaysia’s Astro All Asia Network – the largest DTH and Pay TV Operator in the region – seems to be fast becoming the platform of choice for broadcasters looking to expand in Asia. UTV Software Communications is the latest to announce a joint venture to launch two kids channels in South East Asia which will be on the Astro DTH platform across Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and later Singapore.
     
     

    The JV announcement made in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange today follows similar deals announced earlier with the Prannoy Roy-promoted New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) and Kalanidhi Maran’s Sun Network.

    Astro will be making the entire capital investment for the launch of these channels. It will provide the entire knowhow, the content, the formats, marketing and brand building expertise for the launch of its channels. The successful format of UTV and Hungama TV, UTV’s joint venture in broadcasting business from India will be created locally in Bahasa Malay and Bahasa Indonesia languages, UTV informed the BSE.

    UTV and Astro will jointly develop these channels targeted at kids in the 4-14 age group. The first of these channels, in Bahasa Malaysia, will Include some 400-500 hours of local production annually. These channels, which will include a mixture of animation and live action content incorporating Asian cultural values and edutainment elements, will be distributed on the Astro pay-TV service in Malaysia from early 2006, and in other regional markets soon after.

    Over and above the fee to be paid by Astro to UTV annually, UTV has been granted a three year option to subscribe for 20 per cent stake in these channels, at par plus royalty for formats taken from UTV and Hungama TV.

    Shares of UTV were last traded on BSE at Rs 157.80, down by 1.41 per cent.

    It was on 30 August that NDTV announced it was entering into a JV with Astro where it would hold up to 20 per cent in the proposed entity with Astro Broadcast Corp LTD, a wholly owned subsidiary of Astro All AsiaNetwork, to set up and broadcast 24-hour channels in South East Asia.

    The venture will initially launch television channels in Indonesia and Malaysia. The two companies have signed a term sheet. This, however, is subject to a long form joint venture shareholders agreement and legal, regulatory and licensing requirements as applicable.

    Last year, Astro and Sun TV had entered into a $25 million agreement for the establishment of a joint venture to originate, aggregate and distribute television programming and channels for a global audience. The content creation would be for filmed and other entertainment products in Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Bengali for distribution to international markets. The agreement also proposed to launch a Bengali channel for distribution in India, South East Asia and other markets within the Bengali diaspora. The channel, Surjo, will launch next year.

  • Zee’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 enters ‘Gharana’ round

    MUMBAI: Zee TV has announced the launch of the second phase of the musical reality show, Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005. In the forthcoming weeks, viewers will be privy to competition among the contestants belonging to the privileged “gharanas” of the four mentors – Adesh Shrivastav, Himesh Reshammiya, Ismail Darbar and Jatin-Lalit.
     

    Speaking on the occasion, Zee TV business head Abhijit Saxena said, “Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 is a show that has brought the country’s leading music directors together, for the first time in the history of Indian television. The real Maha Yudh between the musical mentors flags off in the second phase of Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005″.

    He further added, “Through rigorous selections and eliminations processes we have selected 32 contestants, who have gathered their rightful place in the gharanas of the four magical mentors. From here on, the valuable training imparted by the mentors will reflect in the performances of the contestants and will take the competition to greater heights”.
     
     
     

    Each gharana has a set of eight contestants – four boys and four girls. The gharanas have been formed through four selection rounds namely Guru Round, Shishya Round, Saubhagya Round and Deeksha Round. In the Guru round each mentor chooses a contestant for his gharana. In the Shishya round, a chosen contestant gets a chance to choose his gharana. The Saubhagya round introduces the wild card entries, who get a chance to pick their gharanas, and the Deeksha round proved as an opportunity for the contestants who were eliminated earlier, but had what it took to find a place in the privileged gharanas, states an official release.
     

  • Raj TV Network enters e-commerce domain

    MUMBAI: Chennai-based Raj TV Network (RTN) is going the e-commerce way to sell its content online internationally. The portal www.amazingraaj.com will be used to sell video, audio and television content.

    “We will be offering movies and related entertainment content from the Raj TV Network-owned Raj Video Vision (RVS). The television content mainly includes comedy and event programmes telecast on Raj TV,” says RTN Post Production and R&D head Kalai Rajan.

    For this venture, RTN has associated with ICICI Bank for the payment gateway facility. ICICI will charge RTN 3 per cent of the total charge of every transaction.

    Amazingraaj will initially target international customers. “For India, we have to put our systems in place. Once we sort out our logistic issues here, the service will be open in India as well,” says Rajan.

    RVS offers movies from Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu. RTN is making available RVS’ 3000-movies strong library for online trading now. compared to the television content, movies will bear a higher price tag. RTN has plans to offer streaming videos on the website in the next phase.

    “Since the television content has a shorter shelf life when compared to movies, it will be offered for lesser price. We won’t be selling our entire TV library through this facility. We have picked up particular programmes, especially from the event and comedy genre, to offer through the online facility,” says Rajan.

    Rajan said, in the long run Amazingraaj would be converted as a full-fledged E-mall offering even products outside the entertainment loop, such as gifts, flowers and jewelery.

  • Mobile management software provider mFormation enters Bangalore

    BANGALORE: mFormationâ Technologies Inc., a global provider of mobile device management software based in the US has opened its office in Bangalore. mFormation’s India office is expected to be a key software development center as well as providing professional services, sales and support for mobile operators in the growing Asian market.

    The India office will be involved in creating new mobile device management server products for emerging networks such as WCDMA and WiMax, building embedded software for new wireless devices, creating integrated offerings with mFormation’s leading partners, and creating a support organization for global operators.

    With $35+ million investment from top-tier venture capital firms, including Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Intel Capital and North Bridge Venture Partners, mFormation plans to grow the India team to more than 200 personnel over the next two to three years, states an official release.

    The official release quotes Mark Edwards, mFormation’s CEO as saying “The expansion into India comes as demand increases in Asia and around the world for mFormation’s market-leading mobile device management software. By expanding our operations into India, we can leverage its deep pool of technical talent to build new products and provide the sales and support resources our global operator customers require.”

    mFormation has appointed Bhasker Sharma as country manager and director of operations, India who has had 23 years of experience in the Indian software industry, including most recently as Director of India Operations at Clovis Solutions, a provider of system infrastructure software for telecom equipment manufacturers.

    “mFormation is well positioned to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity in mobile device management as adoption of new devices and services grows globally,” said Sharma. “I look forward to building a team in India that can play a critical role in expanding mFormation’s worldwide presence to take advantage of this opportunity.”

    mFormation has also appointed Chittur Sreenivasan, with over 20 years experience in the India software industry, as the new VP of engineering, India, whom the official release quotes as saying “I am excited to be part of building a world-class R&D and engineering team in India to support mFormation’s growing customer base of global operators. I expect that within the next 12-18 months the India office will take complete responsibility for certain areas of the product and will also actively contribute to the evolving OMA standards.”

    Headquartered in Edison, New Jersey, and with offices in the UK, Europe, India and China, mFormation is a privately held company funded by Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Deutsche Bank, Intel Capital, Kingdon Capital and North Bridge Venture Partners.

  • Crest Animation enters DVD space

    MUMBAI: Crest Animation Studios has entered into the DVD space, bagging three contracts worth $4 million.

    Being focused on animation content for television series, the company is moving up the value chain with plans to have a presence in the feature film and burgeoning DVD market.
     

    Last week, Crest signed a $2 million outsourcing deal with an international company. The other two projects, worth $ one million each, are in the last stages of delivery.

    “Crest is getting into DVD contracts. Recently, we signed a $2 million outsourcing contract. In the other two deals, we are in the production delivery stage,” Crest Animation Studios chief executive officer AK Madhavan tells Indiantelevision.com.

     
     

    He, however, did not disclose the names of the companies for which Crest would be doing the animation content.

    The company is having contracts on gaming and is also working on the final lap of a feature film deal, Madhavan adds.