ITV

Tag: Jyotindra Thacker

  • BBC’s new mobile bulletin targets the globalised Marathi viewer

    BBC’s new mobile bulletin targets the globalised Marathi viewer

    MUMBAI: The necessity of adapting to India’s innumerable languages has even brought a broadcaster like the BBC out of its reverie. To cater to this growing demand, BBC News Marathi has launched BBC’s first ever news bulletin for a mobile audience in India as part of a 24/7 video stream on the Reliance Jio TV app. Titled BBC Vishwa, the bulletin will broadcast live from 7-7.20 pm from 17 September 2018. The partnership with Jio enables BBC News Marathi to engage with the largest 4G network in India.

    BBC Vishwa is an innovative, fast-paced digital bulletin with specially created content that will include enriching analysis. It will draw on the full reach of BBC news reporters in India and around the world to deliver engaging stories and features to Marathi speakers.  

    Talking to Indiantelevision.com, BBC World service director Jamie Angus said, “India has got a fantastically vibrant and exciting news market which I love to consume just as a visiting consumer. But there are some deficiencies in the national news market where BBC can make a real difference. We want to bring the best international news offer for the English audience and the multiple Indian languages. We will push to reach underserved audiences like women and young consumers.”

    The launch is part of the BBC World Service expansion, which has seen 12 new language services launched around the world over the last 12 months. New language services launched with websites and TV programmes in India include Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu in addition to Hindi and Tamil.

    On the regional expansion, Angus stated, “We are very proud to be broadcasting in eight Indian languages in total which gives us a unique understanding of Indian news universe. We have been broadcasting for many decades in languages like Hindi, Bengali and others. We have added four new languages in which we see potential for growth and we think this is completely distinct for an international broadcaster.” The biggest audience comes from Telugu market apart from Hindi, according to him.

    BBC News Marathi head Ashish Dikshit said, “Young people in Maharashtra prefer to watch the news on digital mobile platforms and we are excited to offer the first digital bulletin in Marathi. The globalised youth will now get to watch top stories across the world and the best features produced by the BBC.”

    “We run a commercial news business. It turns over $100 million in revenue every year globally. Our English platforms like online and world news channels are quite heavily commercialised. Digital contributes to the majority of advertising revenue. TV advertising is structurally declined relative to digital advertising,” Angus added. 

    The BBC is the only international broadcaster on the Jio TV app offering a 24/7 mobile video stream in a regional Indian language. This will be a first for BBC World Service and will feature a mix of trending topics, politics, youth, sport, entertainment, business, health and education updated on a regular basis.

    Reliance Industries head of IT Jyotindra Thacker said, “We have always believed in disrupting the way content is consumed in today’s world. The next big growth in digital content consumption will be driven by giving access to the vernacular content to the masses. BBC Vishwa on JioTV is our yet another digital endeavour aimed at empowering India’s youth with high quality digital news at their fingertips. There is nothing better than serving millions of Marathi speaking Jio users with news in a language they associate with the most.”

    This forms part of a significant BBC investment in India, including an expanded news bureau in Delhi with two new TV studios. The Delhi bureau is the BBC’s second largest outside the UK and is the TV and digital content production hub for the whole of South Asia. 

    Angus’ mission is to reach to 500 million audiences globally every week by 2022 which is currently 379 million.

    BBC takes fake news seriously. Angus said, “We think fake news is a global priority this year and we have commissioned a significant piece of academic research looking at behaviours around sharing fake news or motivating the audience to consume it. We are also working on outreach programmes in schools. So we are developing a training project around digital media literacy which we want to roll-out in India with a partner. We will be holding a series of public events in November to hash out some more solutions for the problem.” 

  • Jio and Roy Kapur Films sign multi-year original content deal

    Jio and Roy Kapur Films sign multi-year original content deal

    MUMBAI: Unique collaborations between content companies and OTT and MVOD platforms are marking a milestone in the confluence of rapidly-evolving entertainment, technology and telecom sectors in India.

    Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) and Roy Kapur Films (RKF) have entered into a content partnership.

    RKF, a leading film and media production company founded by Siddharth Roy Kapur, will curate, develop, commission and creatively produce original digital video content for Jio.

    This will include finite and continuing series, long form and short form content across genres, and over time, ‘First on Jio’ feature films.

    RKF will tap into the vibrant content production ecosystem in India and together with Jio’s cutting-edge technologies, power the Jio platform with a robust content pipeline of Jio Originals. This exclusive content will be available to more than 128 million Jio subscribers across India.

    Jio’s Jyotindra Thacker said, “Jio carries over 55 million hours of video daily on its network, already making it one of the largest mobile video networks globally. This association with Roy Kapur Films will help us to power forward towards our goal of delivering the highest quality video entertainment content to our mobile subscribers.”

    Kapur said, “Content that can be watched all over India, across all demographics and best of all completely at one’s convenience, across all screens mobile, tablet, laptop and TV. Never before has so much entertainment been so accessible to so many. Our goal is to provide Jio subscribers with a wide variety of content that caters to their diverse tastes and sensibilities.”

  • Jio, Samsung win ‘Best Innovation” award

    MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm and Samsung Electronics have announced that they have won the “Best obile Innovation for Emerging Markets” from Global Mobile Awards 2017 at Mobile World Congress 2017 for the digital movement that Jio, with support from Samsung, is bringing to India.

    Jio and Samsung’s ongoing effort in transforming India into a digitally empowered society by
    overcoming the country’s digital divide has been recognized on the global stage with this prestigious award. The two organizations have focused on reaching the power of communication
    and information with free voice and world’s lowest data rates across towns and rural areas through the deployment of the world’s largest greenfield LTE network in India.

    “We are pleased to have won this prestigious award in joint effort with Samsung Electronics, who have been a reliable partner in our pursuit to creating a truly Digital India,” said Jio president Jyotindra Thacker. “By continuing to introduce consumer-centric options in our services and much easier access, we hope to bring down India’s digital divide and enable every Indian to benefit from digital life,” he added.

    “Today’s achievement signified more than just an award, it is an indicator of the transformation we have brought to India and its people,” said Samsung Electronics president and head of network business Youngky Kim. “Samsung, as Jio’s strategic partner for the realization of Digital India, is pleased to be able to support the process of India taking steps towards becoming a pioneer in the global telecommunications industry.”

  • Digital India: Jio & Samsung shift LTE mobile landscape

    MUMBAI: Samsung has announced its innovative “I&G (Infill & Growth) Project” for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in India. This joint project was established to upgrade current LTE mobile communication services across India by expanding both the current network capacity as well as network coverage.

    Jio has built a world-class all-IP data strong future proof network with latest 4G LTE technology. It is the only network conceived and born as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up and supporting Voice over LTE technology. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies.

    The new project sets a high benchmark for LTE services in India through wider coverage, inbuilding penetration and the highest speeds, regardless of the user’s location. Utilizing spectrum in the 850, 1800 and 2300MHz bands, it will enable seamless indoor and outdoor coverage in dense urban areas. The project will also extend Jio’s superiority in rural areas by expanding its reach to over 90 per cent of the population.

    Previously, Samsung provided the LTE core, base stations and solutions required for VoLTE services, as well as massive deployment services for establishing a nationwide network for Jio. The two companies have successfully established the world’s largest greenfield LTE network.

    Reliance Jio Infocomm president Jyotindra Thacker said, “Samsung and Jio successfully achieved 100 million subscribers in 170 days, making us the fastest-growing company in the world, and the numbers continue to rapidly grow. It was possible because we introduced a truly effective LTE service, Pan-India. We are committed to bringing game-changing digital experiences to India with superior ecosystems,mobile content, all-IP networks and ongoing process innovations.”

    “As Jio’s end-to-end LTE solutions partner, it is a great pleasure for Samsung to contribute to Jio’s tremendous success,” said Samsung Electronics president and head of networks business Youngky Kim. “The massive deployment of over a million cells across India is especially remarkable. We will strive to create new paradigms for LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G by closely cooperating with Jio as a unified workforce.”

    Jio stands as an innovator which transformed the telecommunications sector in India last year. The company has already established itself as the leading data service provider in the country within a few months of commencing operations. It was also India’s first operator to introduce free-of-charge High Definition calls (VoLTE). This is especially notable, as this
    approach is now becoming a new market rule in India.

    Samsung, as Jio’s strategic partner, has established a foundation for Indians to enjoy exclusive services, including voice calls, with data as their engine. It has also gone a step further, enabling Jio to offer a superior service to its users by providing professional solutions such as Samsung VoLTE, Quality Monitoring and Analysis (VoMA) and Cognitive Traffic
    Monitoring and Optimizer for a superior user experience. Further, it was through Samsung’s VoMA that the steady management of high traffic in data-dense environments was enabled.

    The tools monitor and optimize mobile data services, and have successfully contributed to enabling Jio to provide its subscribers with a stable and improved user experience. The relationship between Jio and Samsung goes back to 2012, when the two companies signed a turn-key agreement covering the entire scope of network, ranging from equipment to establishment and maintenance services.