ITV

Tag: Israel

  • Kuma conquers Turkey as Goquest drama tops ratings and global charts

    Kuma conquers Turkey as Goquest drama tops ratings and global charts

    MUMBAI: Talk about a drama with bite! Kuma (The Other Wife), the breakout Turkish series from Goquest Media, has clawed its way from digital darling to television titan, topping national ratings and stirring conversations far beyond Turkey’s borders.

    Since premiering on Kanal 7, Kuma has consistently ranked among the country’s top six shows, scripted or unscripted. This year, it claimed the No. 1 spot on drama portal Dizilah’s list of 2025’s most talked-about titles. Not bad for a show that only launched on Youtube in April, where it quickly racked up more than 328 million views in five months.

    The show’s leap from online phenomenon to primetime hit is rare, but audiences across Turkey were quick to embrace its heady mix of love, betrayal and family intrigue. Calls for a second season are already growing louder.

    Kuma’s popularity is hardly confined to Turkey. Licensed in more than 19 countries including Israel, Romania, Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria, the series has repeated its ratings triumph wherever it has aired. In Indonesia, demand was so strong that it graduated from an OTT platform to nationwide free-to-air television.

    The drama also marks a milestone for Goquest Media. Produced in collaboration with Stellar Productions and VIP 2000 TV, Kuma is the distributor’s first original title under its make-to-sell model.

    “Kuma’s extraordinary journey from YouTube sensation to Turkey’s top drama is a testament to the power of audience passion,” said Goquest Media, managing director, Vivek Lath.

    With its soaring success and cross-border appeal, Kuma has proved that a strong story travels well. In 2025’s crowded entertainment landscape, this Turkish drama has become a global talking point: one toast at a time, in every language.
     

  • Cake adds some icing with Anna Pokorska as sales manager

    Cake adds some icing with Anna Pokorska as sales manager

    MUMBAI: Cake, the London-based kids’ content powerhouse, has appointed Anna Pokorska as sales manager, handing her the reins to key territories across Europe and beyond. Pokorska will be baking up international sales across Italy, Benelux, Central and Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Israel for Cake’s hit slate—including Angry Birds, Total Drama Island, Lucas the Spider, Talking Tom Heroes: Suddenly Super and Armorsaurs.

    Reporting to Cake managing director of distribution Dominic Gardiner, Pokorska joins with a deep track record in animation, kids’ content and feature film distribution. She’s worn several high-level hats—SVP of sales at GFM Animation, global distribution lead at Wizart Animation, regional boss at Interfilm for Warner Bros., and casting lead at HBO CIS. Lately, she’s been consulting for MK2 Films and producing both animated and documentary projects.

    “We’re excited to have Anna join the team at Cake . Her experience in animation and strong industry relationships make her a great fit as we continue to grow our global reach,” said Gardiner.

    Pokorska said, “I’m thrilled to be joining the company I’ve admired for as long as I can remember—a true pioneer in kids’ entertainment. It’s an honour to contribute to Cake’s continued growth and help its fantastic shows reach new audiences around the world.”

    As Cake dishes up hits to kids across continents, Pokorska’s appointment adds more firepower to its global growth recipe.

  • Cineworld to buy European cinema chain

    Cineworld to buy European cinema chain

    MUMBAI: England’s largest movie theater operator, Cineworld, has announced that it will be buying over 100 multiplexes across Eastern Europe and Israel for $828 million (?503 million).

     

    The purchase will be done in a mix of cash and shares, from Cinema City International (CCI), listed on the Warsaw stock market in Poland.

     

    The company will pay CCI $448 million (?272 million) in cash, and has launched a $181 million (?110 million) share rights issue to help fund the purchase. The proposed tie-up with Cinema City will give it leading positions in Poland, Israel, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The cash and shares deal is due to complete in March.

     

    The merged group will have 201 outlets and 1,852 screens across Europe, with the addition of 966 from Cinema City making it the second largest operator in Europe behind Odeon UCI, which has more than 2,100 screens.

     

    According to The Financial Times, Cineworld, which snapped up 21 Picturehouse sites last year, shares rose 5.87 per cent at 415p, continues a run that has pushed up the price almost 50 per cent in a year. CCI shares rose 7 per cent to 32.30 zlotys in Warsaw.

  • Dell Ventures to spend $ 300 Milllion for innovation

    Dell Ventures to spend $ 300 Milllion for innovation

    NEW DELHI: Dell Ventures, Dell’s strategic investment arm, has announced an expanded commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation with a $300 million Strategic Innovation Venture Fund. The fund will enable Dell to invest in early-to-growth-stage companies in emerging technology areas including storage, cloud computing, big data, next-generation data center, security and mobility.

    Earlier, Dell made major investment fund on the $60 million Dell Fluid Data Storage Fund announced last year. Since then, Dell has completed road shows to meet with entrepreneurs and VCs in Silicon Valley, Boston and Israel, reviewed hundreds of companies and invested in numerous startups that have contributed to Dell’s storage and end-to-end solutions innovation.

    As the global business environment evolves and customers are increasingly challenged by the pace of change with virtualisation, cloud computing, big data and mobility, Dell is expanding its venture investments to new areas of IT innovation.

    “Dell is committed to bringing the most innovative, affordable and easy to manage technology solutions to our customers. To accomplish this, we will aggressively pursue organic investment in R&D, acquisitions and venture investing,” said Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden in a release. “The expansion of our venture investing will allow us to stay at the forefront of innovation for our customers, and support the entrepreneurs who are helping shape the future of IT.”

     

    The Dell Ventures model is to co-invest with venture capitalists and other strategic investors, acting as a board advisor and making the full breadth of Dell resources available to the portfolio company. These resources include technical and business counsel, as well as access to brand scale, OEM solutions, channel and go-to-market relationships. 

    In addition to equipping startups with resources through Dell Ventures, Dell provides entrepreneurs an access to the technology, financing, networks and knowledge that they need to turn a great idea into a successful, growing business through the Dell Center for Entrepreneurs.

  • Big Brother enters Vietnam

    Big Brother enters Vietnam

    MUMBAI: Endemol has sold Big Brother into Vietnam for the first time, with VTV commissioning 65 episodes to air later this year.

     

    The local version will run over nine weeks on VTV6. In total, more than 20 series of Big Brother will air this year in more than 70 countries, including the US, the UK, Spain, Israel, Latin America, CEE, Asia and Africa.

     

    Endemol managing director of Asian operations Fotini Paraskakis commented: “Big Brother continues to be an unstoppable blockbuster more than a decade since it first launched. Following the format’s proven success in other Asian territories we are proud to be bringing it to Vietnam for the very first time and we’re in no doubt that VTV6’s audience will love it.”

  • Country branding on Twitter

    Country branding on Twitter

    MUMBAI: There is scope for country branding on Twitter. Only nine governments out of the 193 UN member states own their country name Twitter handle.


    @GreatBritain, @Israel, and @Sweden are notable examples of nations promoting themselves on Twitter. @GreatBritain is part of the ‘Britain is Great’ campaign launched in March 2012 to highlight everything that is great about the UK. The country marketing campaign, led by a central team at Number10 involves UK Trade & Investment, VisitBritain,
    the national tourism agency, Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the British Council.


    The @GreatBritain account, which only has 4,021 followers, is just one small part of the overall campaign which ran in 17 cities around the world and which has attracted more than 835,000 likes on its 13 different Facebook pages.
    The account tweets about everything that is great about Britain, from Team GB’s success at the London Olympics, to investment in the UK and great sites to visit in the UK. Its most popular tweet was about Prime Minister David Cameron’s favourite music, sent on 14 May 2012 and retweeted 166 times: “The Prime Minister has chosen his favourite album of all time. It’s The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd! #Music is #GREATBritain”.


    @Israel is the country’s official Twitter channel, maintained by the Foreign Ministry’s Digital Diplomacy Team. The account is one of the most followed country accounts with more than 66,000 followers and serves as the focal point for Israel’s government Twitter activity.


    The Swedish government has given its official Twitter handle to the people. Every week another Swede is in charge of the @Sweden account sharing recommendations, opinions and facts about life in Sweden with over 65,000 followers. The Curators of Sweden project was launched in December 2011 and, despite some unfortunate tweets, has been copied
    with varying success by @Ireland and @NewZealand. The project has also inspired volunteer groups in over 20 countries to engage in what has become known as the rotation-curation movement.


    The Twitter accounts of @AntiguaBarbuda, @Barbados, @Lithuania, the @Maldives, @SouthAfrica, and @Spain are run by their respective official tourism organisations to promote tourism in each country.


    However, three out of five country accounts are either protected, dormant, inactive, or suspended and almost half of the 71 remaining active accounts are tweeting an automated news feed broadcasting news about the country.


    These details were provided by Burson-Marsteller in the second installment of its Twiplomacy study (http://twiplomacy.com), looking specifically at country branding on Twitter.


    Burson-Marsteller EMEA Digital Practice head Matthias Lüfkens said, “Looking at the findings it becomes clear that few governments and tourism organisations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter. There is a huge opportunity for countries to use Twitter as part of their communications to engage with a large and
    growing audience.”


    Data used was taken in November 2012 looking at the Twitter handles of the 193 UN member countries. Burson-Marsteller used Twitonomy (http://twitonomy.com) to analyze tweeting patterns and the Twitter history of each account.

  • Third Eye Fest ends with Rang Rasiya

    Third Eye Fest ends with Rang Rasiya

    MUMBAI: The 10th Third Eye Asian Film Festival, that got underway on 22 December, screened as many as 100 feature films and 50 short films.


    The films were selected from among over 400 entries received from different Asian Countries including Iran, China, Japan, Israel, Philippines and Indonesia.


    The festival that had Turkey as the focus country, promoted and showcased several Turkish films like My Marlon And Brando, Uzak ( Distant) and Yamurta (Egg) that were earlier appreciated at other festivals around the world.


    The seven-day affair paid tributes to departed film luminaries like Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand whose cult film Guide was screened in the presence of his son Suniel. Tributes were paid to Ashok Kumar by screening of his B R Chopra-starrer Gumrah.


    The festival, that rolled with the premiere of the Chinese film 11 Flowers, ended with Ketan Mehta‘s Rang Rasiya.

  • CNN doc to examine the early days of Christianity

    CNN doc to examine the early days of Christianity

    MUMBAI: As two billion Christians prepare to celebrate the Christmas season, news broadcaster CNN offers a broad-ranging documentary on the tumultuous early years of Christianity – from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to the conversion of Constantine, the Roman emperor who first legalised Christianity in 313 A.D.

    The special CNN Presents: After Jesus – The First Christians airs on 22 December at 8:30 pm, 26 December at 8:30 am, 30 December at 7:30 pm. It examines how the earliest Christians spread their message, despite internal strife over the faith and violent persecution by Rome.

    Immediately following Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the first Christians were challenged to define their faith. Two of Jesus’ disciples – Peter, who preached that the followers of Jesus had to be Jewish, and Paul who argued that this new faith must be available to all – would emerge as Christianity’s first and most influential leaders.

    Their eventual consensus, that Christianity would be available to all through conversion, and their missionary zeal throughout the Roman Empire, helped the new faith to spread rapidly. But Christianity’s growing power was also a threat to the empire, so the Romans killed Peter and Paul and other early leaders.

    Christians were so brutally persecuted that Christianity’s survival was repeatedly in danger. That Christianity eventually became the world’s largest religion is perhaps the faith’s second biggest miracle.

    CNN examined archaeological evidence and spoke with the most renowned authorities on the ancient church to answer “the” question at the heart of the story: How did Jesus, a wandering rabbi from the hinterland, and his illiterate followers, triumph over Roman persecution and establish a worldwide faith?

    Viewers may be surprised to learn that followers of some early branches of Christianity believed in morethan one god; that there were many more Gospels than those included in the New Testament; and that Christmas was originally a springtime celebration.

    There was also a group of Christians – the Gnostics -who believed that man’s existence on Earth was a mistake and that salvation required a mystical experience of self-discovery and self-realisation. They wrote their own Gospels, and their power struggle with the orthodox Christians was a threat to the new faith.

    The special also examines the Biblical history of Israel, the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the events during the Council of Nicaea that have come to define modern Christian orthodoxy.