Tag: indiantelevision.com

Media HR Summit deep dives into emerging trends, work culture & HR tech

MUMBAI: Indiantelevision.com hosted the first-ever Media HR Summit in partnership with ZEE in Mumbai on 26 June at The Westin. The day-long conference concluded with some insightful discussions around how corporate and HR leaders are steering media companies into the future on the back of good teams, HR analytics, diversity and inclusivity at the workplace.

The conference was divided into four sessions, three fireside chats and three presentations related to work culture, emerging trends in HR, employee engagement models, future-focused people strategies, changing nature of employment amid the rapid changes in the media and entertainment industry.

Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari set the tone for the day with his welcome note. He argued that the media and entertainment industry has never been full of so many opportunities. At the same time, he added that it is facing challenges in terms of talent acquisition and retention. Wanvari pointed out that the human resources department has never been given the due it deserves, highlighting the key reason behind the summit.

Following the welcome address, Indiantelevision.com CEO moderated a session titled “Responding to megatrends”. MullenLowe Lintas group HR director Heather Saville Gupta, Reliance Entertainment’s Big Synergy CEO Rajiv Bakshi, Madison World executive director Lara Balsara Vajifdar, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd CEO Abraham Thomas participated in the panel discussion.

During the hour-long panel discussion, the point about the media industry getting younger emerged as a key theme. All the panellists agreed that companies need personalised communication for millennial employees. However, as older generations also work at these companies, making a value proposition for all the age groups was deduced as a challenge. Moreover, speakers stated that. with the rapid change, HR has moved beyond a soft skill or a backend process. On the other hand, digital transformation is also affecting the sector and data is becoming more important day by day.

The next item on the agenda was a fireside between Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd director Jai Maroo and Wanvari. Shemaroo has been an excellent example of evolving over the years with new entrepreneurial ideas. While the company is going through a rigorous change, Maroo mentioned key winning traits every company needs to follow – putting people first including employee, vendor, clients; the ability to reinvent when needed; seeing where the company is standing at the ecosystem, value chain. While it has unleashed a 5x transformation plan, getting the HR team aligned with that is a key challenge.

That was followed by another interesting fireside chat between Discovery Communications India South Asia managing director Megha Tata and Wanvari. Tata who has been one of the few women leaders in the media and entertainment industry outlined the reasons as to why women find it hard to shatter the glass ceiling. She noted that the ecosystem may not have been supportive of women who are rising through the ranks. The veteran media executive added that women also give up halfway through their journey due to various reasons.

Moderated by KPMG India people and change associate director Ajay Venkatesh, the next session revolved around a very compelling topic – building a great team. ABC Consultants FMCG, Internet, Media, and Development Sector director Deepika Ramani, Balaji Telefilms Ltd group head HR Ashish Pinto, Jagran Group head HR Sagorika Kantharia, VATS Consulting founder Vikas Vats, and Saregama India Ltd general manager HR Sonalika Johri took part in the discussion.

The speakers articulated how different strokes should be used for different folks while hiring. All the experts also agreed that agility and an analytical bent are having a big impact on business. However, companies also need to look at how they use the analytics, the panel said. While digital transformation is already happening, cross-scaling talent is also important, concluded by the speakers.

The conference further continued with a presentation by Publicis head HR Nikhil Natekar on “Future focused people strategies”. He spoke about cultural evolution, diversity inclusion, skill-based hiring and growth path for Gen Y who are going to be future leaders. He then sat down for a chat with She means Business content creator and workshop facilitator Dipika Singh.

VATS Consulting’s Vikas Vats presented his thoughts on 'Future of Indian HR in the Digital Age'. He highlighted that there are times when HRs need to work like CEOs. He also added that while using technology is important, focusing on people is more important.

The events of the day progressed with the session “Tackling the tech leap” moderated by HR Sampark founder and national president Ashish Banka. Reinova Biz director HR Shubham Tripathi, Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia head HR business partner Sunil Seth, Associate Professor at Department of Applied Psychology, University of Mumbai Vivek Belhekar, Consultant Analytics Rajesh Save participated in the panel. The panelists agreed that adopting and adapting technologies is very important. While HR was late to join the party of analytics, now both AI and ML have emerged as key requirements for the HR industry too. AI is now taking an active role in both hiring and firing. Belhekar and Save then gave a presentation on Artificial Intelligence in Human Resources.

The day ended with a compelling session on “Diversity, equity, and inclusion”. Part of the panel were Voices of Inclusion author Deepa Shankar, Mondelez International diversity and inclusion lead (independent consultant) Priyadarshini Gupta, NeoSeven Solutions global HR expert Monika Navandar, with D&I evangelist and founder and MD–Vividhataa, diversity hiring consultants Ratanprabha Sable moderating the session. While diversity is not a big issue in the media industry, inclusion is a big piece that is being worked around, the speakers said. The experts agreed that the media industry needs to be inclusive at little things. Moreover, the industry should also look at creating job opportunities for disabled people, acid attack victims, and mental health patients was an important point that was voiced during the session that kept the audience hooked on till the very end.

June 27, 2019

The success of BrandVid Summit and Awards 2019

MUMBAI: Indiantelevision.com’s second edition of BrandVid that was hosted in Mumbai on 21 June 2019 was followed by its first edition of BrandVid Awards to recognise the most creative work in the branded video domain. In the era where digital platforms are mushrooming, the event, after a four-day jury process, went live on its website.

The event observed more than 200 entries and more than 100 brands participated. Harley Davidson head marketing and PR Imran Qadri, GroupM South Asia president growth and transformation Tushar Vyas, Excel Entertainment business head Vishal Ramchandani was among the jury members.

It also included various veterans hailing from agencies and brands like Friday Filmworks head business and growth Devendra Deshpande, and The Glitch co-founder and chief content Varun Duggirala among others.

The Jury:

Name	Designation	Company
Imran Qadri	Head – Marketing & PR	Harley Davidson
Vishal Ramchandani	Business Head	Excel Entertainment
Tushar Vyas	President Growth & Transformation	GroupM South Asia
Rohit Malkani	National Creative Director	L&K Saatchi & Saatchi
Kumar Deb Sinha	Executive Vice President	Dentsu Story Lab India
Harshvardhan Singh Chauhan	Head, Central Marketing	DLF Shopping Malls
Neel Pandya	Head of Media	L'Oréal
Partha Sinha	Vice Chairman & Managing Director	MWG India
Prateek Bhardwaj	Chief Creative Officer	Lowe Lintas
Rajdeepak Das	Chief Creative Officer, South Asia	The Leo Burnett India
Devendra Deshpande	Head – Business and Growth	Friday Filmworks
Varun Duggirala	Co-Founder and Chief Content	The Glitch
Madhavi Irani	Chief Officer – Content	Nykaa
George Kovoor	Group Creative Director	Ogilvy
Rubeena Singh	CEO	iProspect

Award categories included best brand integration: digital, digital format series and various other genres like movies, and television-non-fiction. It also included categories such as best publisher: brand collaboration for video, best brand influencer collaboration for video, best brand film: series, most innovative brand videos, best creative and others.

June 22, 2019

[Podcast] Media Minds: Havas Media Group’s Anita Nayyar talks about the evolving ad industry

MUMBAI: Havas Media Group is one of the most successful agencies in India right now. Having worked with a diverse bouquet of brands like OYO, Kohler, YepMe, Philips Lighting, DLF, and Reckitt Benckiser over the years, the agency owns a stronghold on the media and marketing industry.

For the second episode of its podcast ‘Media Minds’, Indiantelevision.com met Havas Media Group CEO India and South East Asia Anita Nayyar and discussed with her the ever-changing dynamics of the advertising industry and the trends that are going to be the making and breaking points for it in the coming years.

Speaking about the evolution that the advertising industry has seen, Nayyar shared, “We have come a long way as far as the advertising and marketing industry is concerned. If we look at today, we are instilling pride in indigenous content and really have the consumer as the focal point. Much more than just selling the products, we are promoting national integration.”

She added, “This shift has also happened because there has been a change in the audience that we are talking to. Specifically, the millennials who have adapted to the internet really very fast.”

Answering our question of whether brands should follow an integrated approach of advertising or keep their traditional and digital agencies separate, Nayyar mentioned that it is not the consumer who is looking at various media as different propositions but the brands. She emphasised that for the campaigns to be successful and interact in a holistic manner, integration is the right approach to follow.

She also highlighted the key trends, including AR, VR, video, voice, etc., and how the brands can effectively leverage them for their campaigns.

Listen to the complete interaction on the second episode of ‘Media Minds’ here:

March 5, 2019
OTT platforms need more passion projects, experimental content, original voices

MUMBAI: 2018 saw various OTT players in India gain massive popularity. There are more than 30 sites serving hours and hours of original as well as syndicated content, in various languages, genres, and tastes. During the third edition of Indiantelevision.com’s The Content Hub, sponsored by MX Player, representatives from some of the top OTT platforms in the country the need of good and meaningful content and the kind of programs that can work in this dynamic world.

Part of the panel were Addatimes Pvt Ltd managing director Rajiv Mehra, The Viral Fever (TVF) global head of business and content Rahul Sarangi, Viacom 18 EVP and head content Monika Shergill, MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar and One Digital Entertainment COO and co-founder Gurpreet Singh. The panel was moderated by industry veteran and Hungama Digital Media Entertainment executive producer Sanjeev Lamba.

The panel unanimously agreed on the fact that the greatest need of time is to procure and create high-quality original content that resonates with the audience. They stated that all the logistics; be it production or budgets, come only after people who can create and write quality content.

Shergill said, “The competition to find good creators and partners to tell great stories is actually, by far, the single biggest challenge that we face because I feel that as a market, we kind of missed out on the golden age of content creation. While the world was producing a lot of mature content, we were leaning towards only soap opera kind of stories.”

Sarangi chipped in with some fine examples of the work that TVF has created, “To see what kind of content people watch, we pulled out a few episodes of ‘Yeh Meri Family’ from YouTube and then put it on Netflix. The show became the second-most trending content in India and has a completion rate of 70 per cent. Because the writing was so strong, people came and watched it again and again. Similarly, with ‘Pitchers’, it wasn’t a grand show shot on high production budgets like ‘Sacred Games’. But it became the highest rated show on IMDB, just because of good writing.”

He added, “I think the biggest thing we need to do right now is to invest in good writers. Also, we need to give them the time and pay them well. Groom the talent! Writers are going to be the prime thing that we need.”

Moderating the panel, Lamba put another pertinent question forward asking what sort of content OTT platforms are willing to back. To this, the panel hailed the need of bringing original voices to the paradigm that are not just fresh but can also add on to the type of content that is already working on the web.

Talwar mentioned that being the newest kid on the block, MX Player is currently trying to understand what the viewing pattern of the audience is. He said, “We have licenced quite a lot of content from people who have a high experience in actually creating successful web series, including TVF, Pocket Aces, and ALTBalaji. We have put this content online and now we are using a lot of data to understand what actually works in the space.”

He continued, “Essentially, we are looking for content that is going to appeal to 18-30-old males, largely from North India. But it is genre-agnostic because I believe, people today watch everything. We are looking out for authentic stories from heartland India as they work well with the metro audience as well.”

Mehra also agreed that the audience today loves watching all sort of content, be it long form or short form. He mentioned the need to experiment with the duration of the content and tell stories that the audience can connect to.

While Shergill vouched for the need for passion projects and experimental content, Sarangi shared that they are looking for stories that touch the hearts of people. He stated that TVF will not indulge in violence or sexually explicit content, at least for a few more years.

The panel also discussed the much-debated topic of IP rights. Shergill noted, “IP is something that is very important because this content is meant for posterity. You are believing in someone’s idea and paying to the last stream. So, the skin of the game for any platform is to have IP rights with them. But having said that, I also feel that when we know what kind of content creators we are speaking about, then there may be certain different models to work. But when you are working with teams of creators, and backing their idea, IP is the only asset you are creating and you should have the right to it.”

Sarangi mentioned that as a company they do not sell their IP rights despite having worked with several OTT platforms. He said, “The reason behind this is that it is not only about production cost. It is also because of the time and effort put in by the creative team. We thereby do mostly an output kind of a deal or a licencing avenue. Also, we can do this at this point in time because we can guarantee a hit rate.”

However, Singh shared a different angle and said, “IP has become a very crude word. Most people don’t even know what the value of an IP is. People are just fighting for it right now but they don’t even know what they are going to do of it after two or three years. So, I think if you are being compensated for the value, you must sell the rights to the platform.”

March 4, 2019
VBS 2018: Media & entertainment industry leaders address pressing issues on Day 1

GOA: Rapid advance in technology and infrastructure, entry of disruptive forces and changes in consumption habits have led the Indian media and entertainment industry to major conversion. The interesting developments are attracting international players to invest in the market, with traditional domestic players adopting new strategies for growth. Where the industry is heading in the next few years is something everyone wants to know.

To seek answers for several concerning questions, Indiantelevision.com brought together industry doyens on the first day of the Video and Broadband Summit. The conference dedicated to industry issues has been supported by esteemed broadcasters, technology companies as well industry bodies. All the speakers agreed that the VBS platform is the perfect stage to discuss relevant issues as well as to gain new insights while sharing their experience.

Indiantelevision.com founder and CEO Anil Wanvari set the tone for the day with his welcome speech. He spoke about how demonetisation and GST put pressure on business in last couple of years. He also highlighted how the burgeoning OTT industry is throwing new challenges to traditional TV, cable and DTH operators along with the new tariff order that is likely to reshape the trajectory of the sector. He also added how a disruptive force like Jio FTTH is fueling the transformation.

The first session moderated by Anil Wanvari was about the future of digital delivery platforms where Tata Sky chief content officer Arun Unni, PwC India partner Raman Kalra and One Take Media founder and CEO Anil Khera participated. As the influence of video and broadband has become unmistakable now, Tata Sky recently rolled out a broadband service. While he was asked about how it stands out, Unni said customer centric nature of the business makes their service different. While broadband and telco players are throwing a challenge for distribution, Khera thinks India still has potential for DTH and cable growth owing to almost 90 mn households still unpenetrated by TV. Kalra said while pay-TV and OTT platforms will stay together, there will be a constant battle among players to stay relevant to consumers with proper content.

In a fireside chat with Anil Wanvari, COAI director general Rajan Mathews spoke about various issues in the telecom industry. He said consumer choices are changing rapidly today, hence the model which is working at present, may get disrupted in future. He also spoke about the high cost of utilizing satellites in the country despite them being produced and launched at very low cost. Talking about 5G, he said it will take a while to be rolled out and added that it would be focusing on education, health, traffic management, smart cities and agriculture.

Anil Khera who has now ventured into the value-added service space after spending considerable time in the DTH industry, explained the importance of this vertical and how DTH players are utilizing it.

Another engaging session where audience also took an active part in the discussion, was about monetising TV in times of transition. ZEEL chief growth officer Ashish Sehgal, KMPG India media and entertainment partner and head Girish Menon and TAM India CEO LV Krishnan spoke on the issue. “Only thing TV can't do is engagement which digital platforms allow but you cannot build your brand without TV,” Sehgal made a very important comment.

The eventful day ended with a fireside chat between Viacom18 COO Raj Nayak and Anil Wanvari. Nayak shared glimpses of his inspirational journey in the industry and Viacom18 where he was the brainchild of several successful endeavors. Talking about the future, he said it will belong to those who can create content which is compelling. Moreover, he also said content cost is not going down but it's going up across broadcasters. Giving the example of Netflix’s change of fortune with House of Cards, he added that for changing the trajectory of the business, delivering two-three golden nuggets every year are enough.

For more insights stay tuned for the updates from the second day of video and broadband summit 2018!

November 29, 2018
Video and Broadband Summit to focus on technology, media and telco convergence

MUMBAI: The last two years have witnessed major transformation in entertainment and media industry in India and abroad. Entry of digital platforms, rapid rise in internet users, and disruption in the telecom industry have worked as catalysts. With the emergence of a new media, consumers are getting more attention than ever before.

During this flux, Indiantelevision.com is bringing together stalwarts from the industry on a platform that dissects the various issues at the heart of the technology, media and telco confluence. The initiative is called Video and Broadband Summit (IDOS in its earlier avatar) at Grand Hyatt, Goa between 28-29th November. Leaders from DTH, cable and broadband, broadcast, regulatory bodies, technology segments will discuss the state of the industry, address issues and find solutions.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd chief growth officer Ashish Sehgal, Times Network MD and CEO MK Anand, Viacom 18 COO Raj Nayak, Doordarshan director general Supriya Sahu among others will share their valuable insights on the state of the ecosystem, chalking out an agenda for the future.

The focus of the summit will be on the topics such future of digital delivery platforms and Pay-TV, monetization of TV, unlocking the potential of 5G, and most important of all the new tariff regime.

November 28, 2018
Hulu Japan says hello to Indian content

MUMBAI: The world has been amazed with Japan's anime and now it's time for role reversal. While international over the top (OTT) giants like Netflix and Amazon are already playing an active game in India, Hulu Japan has also arrived in search of content.

A fireside chat with Hulu Japan CCO Kazufumi Nagasawa was conducted at Vidnet 2018 hosted by Indiantelevision.com powered by Verizon which had ZEE5 as title partner. The session was moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder and CEO Anil Wanvari.

Nagasawa said that the Japanese market is crowded with OTT platforms, majority focusing on SVOD service and a few on AVOD model. He claimed Hulu Japan stands with 1.8 million paying subscribers with more than 50,000 hours of content. Talking about the company making room for Indian content in the Japanese market, Nagasawa said that the plan is to offer Swastik Productions' Porus in its content line-up with Japanese subtitles.

He added, “We prefer period drama and are usually not excited for miniseries. Moreover, I got a chance to look at the Porus trailer at Mipcom and I was fascinated by it.” Baahubali was also another option that the company had offered to the Japanese viewers which worked well with them.

Apart from this, Hulu acquired Turkish and Russian shows and its performance did better than their expectations. “The reason for acquiring Indian content is because it is affordable as compared to Turkish content. Because of the given resources that we have, we need to be very choosy. In the next two years, we might acquire Indian shows including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada among others but with subtitles as we cannot afford to dub them.” He also said that in 2019, its plan is to focus on developing original content and to be less dependent on studio content (American).

Hulu Japan was initially launched in the US in 2011. Then it got acquired by Nippon TV in 2014. Nagasawa said that Hulu is a pure SVOD service and that is its primary focus. “We have 50,000 hours of content and out of that, 3000 are films and the rest are series. As far as content from domestic and international markets is concerned, 60 to 65 per cent are from domestic and the rest is from international, which is mostly from US. We actually launched our service with pure US content initially because we couldn’t get local content, especially from broadcasters.”

He further said that now most of the content the company gets is from its parent Nippon TV and the content that it provides is catch-up, exclusive content, drama series, extra footage etc.

When it comes to age diversification, Nagasawa said that initially, men were majority users. Right now it is 50:50 and especially the audience from Nippon TV has a big skew to women. "This happened because we started US drama series. Half of the consumption comes from living room set and majority of the users are watching on mobile that means many users are using multiple devices to watch content. In terms of hours, living room is most important but that doesn’t mean people doesn’t use mobile,” he concluded.

November 21, 2018
OTT conversations to take centre stage at Vidnet 2018

MUMBAI: Indians have now warmed up to over-the-top media services making them even mainstream at times. In the last couple of years, the OTT industry has witnessed rapid growth thanks to several factors like cheaper data and affordable smartphones. Many new players are experimenting in this area leading to higher competition. From high-quality content to high-end technology, marketing OTT players are leaving no stone unturned to grab more eyeballs.

At a time when the industry is thriving, Indiantelevision.com is again bringing together all the stalwarts in the ecosystem on the stage of Vidnet 2018 at The St.Regis, Mumbai on 16 November. The experts from platforms, production studios, advertising agencies, data analyst firms, creators, technology and investors will discuss the state of the industry, address the issues and find solutions. ZEEL’s digital venture ZEE5 is the title sponsor of Vidnet 2018 and the event is powered by Verizon.

As the market is at the stage of development right now, there are several questions that need to be answered. The focus of the conference will be on these topics broadly – what could be the leanings from other countries like US, China and Japan; which business models will work out properly; what is the content trend in domestic and international market; how to increase user engagement; uniform data measurement metric; importance of data, AI, machine learning, cloud technology and how to combat piracy.

Amazon Prime Video India director and country general manager Gaurav Gandhi, Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sunil Lulla, Hulu Japan chief content officer Kazufumi Nagasawa, YouTube entertainment head Satya Raghavan, ZEE5 India CEO Tarun Katial along with many other experts will speak on the compelling issues chalking out the right direction in the ecosystem.

According to KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2018, the industry with more than 30 players is expected to grow at a CAGR of 45 per cent to reach Rs 13,800 crore by the end of FY23. Till now advertising revenue is the dominant contributor in the market, subscription revenue is nonetheless expected to be about 33 per cent of the total revenue in the space by end of FY23.

November 12, 2018
IDOS 2017: Cable TV sector needs more collaborative broadcasters, say MSOs

NEW DELHI: Even as the multi-system operators and cable operator are doing their bit to aid digitisation, broadcasters need to participate more in the process which officially has been completed. They need to be more transparent and supportive of the distribution platform operator — in this case the MSO and cable TV operator — and not be like a tax collector always asking for more.

This was the general view of both, S N Sharma of Den and Ashok Mansukhani of Incable in a discussion in ‘The Indian MSO: Redefining the raison’etre’, who also said it was only now that the MSO was beginning to monetise almost five years after digital addressable system was first launched.

Furthermore, the broadcasters were still free to fund the business as they wanted, and, as Sharma put it, there are only two laws that control the broadcaster – the Programme and Advertising Codes and the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995. Thus, there is virtually no regulation for the broadcaster, Sharma said.

Both, Sharma and Mansukhani agreed that MSOs and even LCOs had put in a lot of effort to get DAS off the ground — that too in a period of four to five years, which is unprecedented globally.

“The DAS regulation was brought in for transparency and to allow everyone to have a fair share of the huge subscription revenues that viewers were paying to watch cable TV,” said Sharma. “But, the sad part is that broadcasters are constantly asking for rate increases of 24 per cent or so without even asking if it were possible,” added Mansukhani.

They said that it would be better if the broadcasters were to communicate rate increases to viewers and invest in promoting that, rather than expecting MSOs who are just about recovering from the hangover of the huge investments they have put into DAS as well as getting robust systems and processes in place. “Also, we are not equipped or have the creative mindset to communicate this effectively for all channels,” agreed both Sharma and Mansukhani.

Rather than going to courts to stall the TRAI tariff order, they said, broadcasters could collaboratively work with the DPOs to take DAS on to the next level. “Neither the government nor the regulator has been able to do anything,” they said.

“We have our own troubles, recouping our investments to bring back profitability into the cable TV sector, as well as dealing with piracy and leakages which broadcasters take time to check and stop because they have procedures to follow,” said Sharma.

Mansukhani disagreed with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari that the cable TV sector will not be in a position to manage complicated skinny a la carte bundles for the millions of customers that it serves. “Our backends are ready,” he said. “Our SMS, billing and KYC of the customers is in place,” he said. “We are just waiting for the (court) order to come through.”

He opined that the industry would ultimately survive the changes, and he was also confident that the cable industry was ready to adapt to any new technology.
To a question about monetisation, Sharma said the MSOs were not beginning to reap the monetary benefits of Phase I. Even the DTH industry was beginning to break even only now, more than a decade after it was launched.
Mansukhani said he was happy that the Hinduja’s headend in the sky (HITS) NXTDigital was reaching 1.5 million consumers. But, the need was to break even as early as possible and “giving a dividend to my shareholders.”

But, he stressed the need to keep the dialogue open with the LCOs who are the ones dealing with the consumer. Consumer connect has to continue. He regretted that the level playing field that he had hoped to get from the government has never came.

Both Mansukhani and Sharma agreed that, though the government had not made a difference between the urban and rural viewers, this was necessary if there has to be penetration in rural areas. Otherwise, they would go to Doordarshan’s FreeDish.

Sharma said his company was soon launching a device that would not be internet-based and could be used for all gadgets including mobiles, TV, tabs, and so on.

Mansukhani said that it was clear that the MSO will have to graduate from being a TV MSO to a multi-screen MSO.

September 29, 2017
Boxing Federation of India set to extend pro-league bid submission date (updated)

MUMBAI: The BFI has announced the extended date of submitting the bid documents as 11 September 2017. The tender documents are available on its website. Previously the last date for submitting the bid documents was 16 August. The BFI is looking at licensing the league for 10 years.

” BFI secretary-general Jay Kowli told Indiantelevision.com. “The date has been postponed as several companies, owing to many bank holidays this month, requested for it,” he added.

BFI had earlier invited companies to bid for the licence through a tender notice. It is looking at licensing the league for 10 years to ensure continuity and a return on investment for the company that invests in the league.

Several announcements had been made about leagues being organised in India. The Super Boxing League was announced earlier this year by Royal Sports Promotions in association with the Asian Boxing Council. But, the BFI withdrew support to it, saying it would not allow its boxers to participate in it. It however went ahead with the league which is underway in Delhi.

Also Read:

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MTV’s Nescafe Labs picks 12 finalists

Pro-boxing in India would gain if Vijender is world champ: Neerav Tomar

Super Fight League will have niche audience: SPNI

Sports TV 2016: Digital explosion, player consolidation & confusion

August 16, 2017