Tag: Mumbai

  • Sony Pix brings Spectre to Pix Premiere Nights

    Sony Pix brings Spectre to Pix Premiere Nights

    MUMBAI: Sony Pix is all geared up to offer its fans the biggest amazement of the year by partnering for Spectre, the latest James Bond movie, a day before its theatrical release in India exclusively for Pix Premiere Nights. The exclusive screening of the film for Pix Premiere Nights is scheduled on 19 November 2015.

     

    Get set to watch the latest Bond thriller  across the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Chennai. Pix Premiere Nights, the largest integrated on ground brand property in the English movie category is a unique proposition for the viewers to exclusively watch the premiere of the latest Hollywood movies one day before its theatrical release in India. Spectre will be screened in 11 screens across 8 cities.   

      

    Sony Pix has previously hosted Pix Premiere Nights for Robocop (2014), The Hobbit: The battle of the five armies (2014), Amazing Spider Man 2 (2014) and Fantastic Four (2015) among others.

  • ComicCon & Woodland ride on the Halloween bandwagon

    ComicCon & Woodland ride on the Halloween bandwagon

    NEW DELHI: Advertisers and event managers are taking full advantage of Halloween to promote themselves and their products.

     

    Leather outdoor gear manufacturer Woodland launched #Woodoo on Twitter and a video on Facebook to connect with viewers.

     

    It started with the rolling out of a spooky image with the message ‘Do Not ReTweet.’ This evoked the curiosity within its users and people did exactly what they were told not to do and expectedly they re-tweeted. They took it one step further by taking the profile picture of the person who had re-tweeted the message and customised it in a template. This template was re-tweeted too. It created a thrill and excitement in people to see these horrifying images of themselves, which they proudly flaunted on their Twitter handles.

     

    Woodoo was ideated with an objective to engage the young internet audience between the ages of 16 – 25 through the festival of Halloween.

     

    The video can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/woodlandadventure/?fref=nf

     

    The brand through this activity is reinforcing its international identity and getting its Indian audience to identify and relate with the same and in turn participate and create their own moments.

     

    The campaign is witnessing a high level of interaction and engagement because of its uniqueness. It has already trended on the social platform as it is a novel concept and has seen remarkable engagement.

     

    In Mumbai, ComicCon India marked Halloween with party-loving fans donning horns smeared with zombie make-up and wearing Dracula capes at their “creepiest-best” at the Goosebumps Halloween Party at Sante Bar.

     

    The fans were seen enjoying in the latest costumes inspired by movie and comic characters. The food menu was specially designed to suit this occasion. Drinks like Praying Mantis, Werewolf were the special highlight of the party.

     

    A special screening of the unseen footage from the movie Goosebumps which released on Friday on the occasion of Halloween was organised for fans at the party. The ones in the best scary costumes got two free drinks. DJs played some popular dance numbers.

     

    The aim of the party was to announce the Mumbai Film and Comic Con 2015 at Bombay Exhibition Centre on 19 and 20 December.

  • TRAI won’t withdraw call drops penalty, to carry another audit in Dec

    TRAI won’t withdraw call drops penalty, to carry another audit in Dec

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reiterated that the newly-introduced penalty for call drops slated to come into effect from January will not be withdrawn.

     

    In a meeting with the chief executive officers of Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to apprise them about the findings of the drive tests conducted recently in Delhi and Mumbai, TRAI said an audit of networks in Mumbai and Delhi had shown showed unsatisfactory network quality.

     

    TRAI, which had carried out special independent drive tests for Cellular Mobile Telephone Services in the Mumbai and Delhi in June and July and then in September this year, will carry out fresh audits in December to review the situation. There were no significant improvement in the performance of the TSPs.

     

    The findings of these tests along with a consolidated analysis of the reports were uploaded on TRAI website.

     

    The service providers had stated in their meeting with TRAI that they had taken and continue to take a number of steps to improve the quality of network in these areas and that the quality of service had improved.

     

    In the meeting, the findings of the test drive were discussed and the service providers were requested to take action for further improvement of the network conditions.

     

    TRAI officials agreed to share with service providers and other stakeholders the independent drive tests carried In other major cities – Surat, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Ahmedabad.

     

    The service providers had stated that there are a number of other issues affecting quality of service of the network resulting in call drops. The Authority assured it would extend whatever help possible to the telecom service providers.

  • 17th Mumbai Film Festival 2015 to premiere ‘Mor Mann Ke Bharam’

    17th Mumbai Film Festival 2015 to premiere ‘Mor Mann Ke Bharam’

    MUMBAI: A Chhattisgarhi feature film Mor Mann Ke Bharam, directed by Karma Takapa, Heer Ganjwala and Abhishek Varma has been selected for competition in the India Gold section of the 17th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival, organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI). The festival, which is currently underway, will end on 5 November 2015.

     

    The film is produced by HumanTrail Pictures and Viren Jain in association with IPTA Raigarh. The film is shot in Raigarh town of the Chhattisgarh state in collaboration with the cast from the local theatre group, IPTA Raigarh and other members and the crew from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.

     

    Usha Athaley, Ajay Athaley, Karma P Takapa, Mona Ganjwala, Vinit Ganjwala, Abhishek Varma and Renu Agrawal have jointly co-produced the film. The feature is a story of an author’s struggle between what he wants to write and what others might want to read culminates into a surrealist novel.

     

    The film features four different folk songs of Chhattisgarh, in their original form and uses local motifs embedded in Chhattisgarhi culture that have not found space on the big screen till date.

     

    The main cast includes Ramesh Pani, Aparnaa, Yuvraj Singh Azad and Tinku Devangan. The supporting cast includes Netram Yadav, Vinod Bohidar, Ajay Athaley, Bharat Nishad, Kuldeep Das, Surendra Bareth, Vivekanand Pradhan, Shyam Devkar, Alok Beriya, Tony Chawda, Komal Thakkar, Kathil Painkra, Prem Shankar, Prem Shankar Mishra, Yash Gehlot and Poyam Singh.

     

    Chandradeep Kuldeep has composed the background score, while Rajkumari Kuldeep and Sugita Padihari Das have sung the songs for the film.

  • Q2-2016: HT Media revenue up 7.3%, PAT down; radio revenue up 20.5%

    Q2-2016: HT Media revenue up 7.3%, PAT down; radio revenue up 20.5%

    BENGALURU: HT Media Limited (HT Media) reported 7.3 per cent growth in total income from operations (TIO) for the quarter ended 30 September, 2015 (Q2-2015, current quarter) at Rs 601.55 crore as compared to the Rs 560.88 crore in Q2-2015. The current quarter’s TIO was 2.4 per cent more than the Rs 587.18 crore in Q1-2016.

     

    HT Media’s radio segment (Fever 104 FM) reported a 20.5 per cent increase in operating revenue to Rs 29.34 crore (4.9 per cent of TIO) as compared to the Rs 24.34 crore (4.3 per cent of TIO) in Q2-2015 and 19.7 per cent more than the Rs 24.52 crore (4.2 per cent of TIO) in Q1-2016.

     

    Note: (1) 100,00,000 = 100 Lakhs = 10 million = 1 crore

    (2) The figures mentioned in this report are consolidated figures unless stated otherwise.

     

    The company’s profit after tax (PAT) in Q2-2016 fell 17 per cent to Rs 36.42 crore (6.1 per cent margin) from Rs 43.89 crore (7.8 per cent margin) in the corresponding year ago quarter but was 46 per cent more than the Rs 24.95 crore (4.2 per cent of TIO) in Q1-2016.

     

    Advertising and Circulation revenue

     

    HT Media’s advertising revenue grew by 6.7 per cent in Q2-2016 to Rs 475.2 crore (78.8 per cent of TIO) from Rs 444.4 crore (79.2 per cent of IO) in Q2-2015 and grew 1.4 per cent from Rs 467.5 crore (79.6 per cent of TIO) in Q1-2016.

     

    Circulation revenue in the current quarter at Rs 75.4 crore (12.5 per cent of TIO) grew 5.2 per cent as compared to Rs 71.7 crore (16.1 per cent of TIO) in Q2-2015 and increased 3.3 per cent from Rs 72.9 crore (12.4 per cent of TIO) in the immediate trailing quarter.

     

    Segment-wise performance

     

    Three segments contribute to HT Media’s numbers – (1) Printing and publishing of newspapers and periodicals (Publishing) (2) Radio and (3) Digital.

     

    HT Media’s publishing segment reported 5.4 per cent growth in revenue to Rs 538.08 crore (89.4 per cent of TIO) from Rs 510.75 crore (91.1 per cent of TIO) in the corresponding year ago quarter and grew 1.1 per cent from Rs 532.44 crore (90.7 per cent of TIO) in Q1-2016.

     

    The publishing segment reported operating profit of Rs 65.36 crore, which was 2.5 per cent lower than the Rs 67.04 crore in Q2-2015 and 17.6 per cent lower than the Rs 79.29 crore in Q1-2016.

     

    HT Media has four FM radio stations – Fever 104 in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. Radio segment revenue numbers have been mentioned above. HT Media’s radio segment reported operating profit of Rs 3.84 crore, which was 42.2 per cent lower than the Rs 6.64 crore in Q2-2015 and 42.5 per cent lower than the Rs 6.68 crore in Q1-2016.

     

    The company’s digital segment reported 36 per cent growth in revenue to Rs 33.91 crore (11 per cent of TIO), which was 36 per cent more than the Rs 24.93 crore (4.4 per cent of TIO) in the corresponding year ago quarter and 11 per cent more than the Rs 30.56 crore (5.2 per cent of TIO) in Q1-2016.

     

    Digital segment reported higher loss of Rs 18.35 crore in Q2-2016 as compared to the Rs 14.70 crore in Q2-2015, but lower than the loss of Rs 23.88 crore in Q1-2016.

     

    The company reported unallocated losses of Rs 15.40 crore in Q2-2016; loss of Rs 11.90 crore in Q2-2016 and loss of Rs 20.01 crore in Q1-2016.

     

    Company Speak

     

    HT Media chairperson and editorial director Shobana Bhartia said, “Our performance this quarter has been satisfactory despite subdued economic activity and tepid markets. Our English publications saw a growth in revenue even after factoring in a base effect, and this was driven by growth in both HT Mumbai and MintHindustan continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience and saw high growth rates. We successfully acquired the stations of our choice in the Phase-III FM auctions. The digital business grew in terms of revenue and saw a fall in losses. We are excited by the opportunities on offer, the prospects of our various businesses and are confident of executing on our plans in the coming months.”

  • Orchard Advertising names Sharmine Panthaky as VP & head of Mumbai ops

    Orchard Advertising names Sharmine Panthaky as VP & head of Mumbai ops

    MUMBAI: Orchard Advertising has appointed Sharmine Panthaky as vice president and branch head based in the Mumbai office.

     

    She joins from Interspace Solutions, where she worked as national head – retail and customer engagement.

     

    At Orchard, Panthaky will lead the relationship with key clients and work towards the agency’s growth.

     

    Speaking on their move to strengthen its leadership team with this new hire, Orchard Advertising COO Kaizad Pardiwalla said, “Sharmine joins us having had rich experience in business development and leading many national and multinational client relations. In her we found the unique ability to define the purpose for brands and devise business solutions that could unlock their true potential in the market. She will work with a multi-disciplinary team across The Leo Group India’s specialised offerings in digital, retail, activation, etc., thus helping to drive an integrated communication initiative on the brands we partner. I wish her the very best in taking Orchard to new heights.”

     

    Panthaky added, “Orchard has a legacy of great work on brands anyone would be proud to have on their roster. The leadership team has inspiring and exciting plans for the future. The opportunity to be part of this great journey was a no brainer. Since I’m joining mainstream advertising with Orchard after having spent many years in Out of Home, BTL and other disciplines, it gives me great joy and a feeling of being back home. I’m excited to partner clients and contribute hugely in getting great work out, thus helping to grow the agency’s business.”

     

    Panthaky is a marketing and communications professional with over 13 years of media and advertising agency experience across mainline advertising, out of home, engagement, news distribution and BTL.

  • 9XM innovates with on-ground standup comedy show Laughter Shots

    9XM innovates with on-ground standup comedy show Laughter Shots

    MUMBAI: Venturing into a new area of content creation, music channel 9XM has launched a new on-ground standup comedy show called Laughter Shots. The first show with the comedian group ‘Improv Comedy,’ was held on 4 October, 2015 at The Little Door, Mumbai at 8 pm.

     

    This is the first time that 9XM experimented with an on-ground comedy event, where standup comedians got people high on laughter whilst getting drunk themselves on shots.

     

    What’s more, the channel also has plans to hold six more shows across Mumbai till January, 2016. Plans are also afoot to take the property to other cities like Pune, Bangalore and Delhi.

     

    Laughter Shots featured the city’s comic talent trying to find the audience’s funny side, one shot at a time. It indeed was a radical step that changed the way comedy is delivered.

     

    While the channel has until now focused on Bollywood music interspersed with animated characters like Bheegi Billi, Badshah Bhai etc, with this new on-ground initiative, 9XM is forging towards comedy.

     

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, 9XM vice president marketing Kapil Sharma says, “It was our first initiative towards such an event and thus we expect engagement of more people by promoting it via social media and to 100 – 200 people through the on-ground show.”

     

    Sharma says that the first event witnessed a packed house with over 120 – 150 people turning up for the event at The Little Door in Mumbai.

     

    Since it was a premature experimentation, the show was not broadcast on the channel. Instead the venture tasted success by targeting people through digital media. Word of mouth was also a key element for the endeavour.

     

    Sharma informs, “Building audience, connecting with viewers and creating high quality content being the prime focus of 9XM, selective moments from the on-ground show will be captured and uploaded on 9XM’s digital and social media accounts on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin amongst others.”

     

    9XM has a community of eight million people across various social media platforms and will be pushing Laughter Shots to their entire fan base online.

  • Cinépolis to host 6th Jagran Film Festival in Mumbai

    Cinépolis to host 6th Jagran Film Festival in Mumbai

    MUMBAI: Cinépolis India will be hosting the Mumbai chapter of the 6th Jagran Film Festival at its Fun Cinemas property in Andheri from 28 September – 4 October.

     

    Presenting films from across genres, countries, languages and eras, the festival brings forward diverse and extreme cinematic talent on one single platform. 

     

    Cinépolis business head – strategy Devang Sampat said, “The Jagran Film Festival has been entertaining and educating the masses by spreading a culture of cinema appreciation. Cinepolis this year participated in the festival in Lucknow, Patna, Ludhiana, Ranchi and going forward we shall be strategising to host more such festivals and ensure Cinepolis loyalist get to watch movies from all over the world. On the other hand, we as exhibitors also become a platform to bring together – filmmakers, distributors, audience through medium of Cinema and connect life, culture, art & emotions that surfaced during the film.”

     

    Both Indian and foreign language films will be screened at the festival in 13 categories. A special non-competitive section called ‘Happiness Spirit’ will see a cluster of 10-15 select films that will weave in ‘happiness of the human spirit’ as a common theme. 

    The competitive sections include Indian Showcase, Debut Directors, Jagran Shorts, Top Shorts, World Panorama and Cinema of the Sellers category.

    The best films in these categories will be decided upon by the jury comprising Hariharan, who leads the panel along with Pooja Bhatt, Mahesh Aney, Udit Narayan and A Sreekar. The awards will be conferred across numerous categories like Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Short Film, Best Debut Director and many more.

     

    “It gives us immense pride to host an event of this stature. An important aspect of the festival is to generate a discussion on the various aspects of cinema and its impact on society. This will be aided by the presence of the cast and crew of a select few films being screened to drive insightful discussions between the artistes & filmmakers and the audience,” Sampat added.

     

  • Mumbai to pay highest fees of Rs 36.7 crore for migration to FM Phase III

    Mumbai to pay highest fees of Rs 36.7 crore for migration to FM Phase III

    MUMBAI: FM operators in Mumbai will have to shell out the highest migration fees of Rs 36.69 crore, payable to the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry for migration from FM Phase II to Phase III.

     

    The I&B Ministry has released the city wise non-refundable one time migration fee (NOTMF) for migration from FM Phase II to Phase III for existing private FM broadcasters.

     

    According to the ministry, after Mumbai, Delhi FM operators follow with the second highest migration fee of Rs 33.33 crore, whereas Bengaluru is third in line with migration fee of Rs 21.60 crore.

     

    Apart from the top three, existing FM operators in 13 cities will have to pay migration fees of above Rs 10 crore. They are: Chandigarh (Rs 19.04 crore), Hyderabad (Rs 18 crore), Patna (Rs 17.89 crore), Coimbatore (Rs 16.87 crore), Cochin (Rs 15.04 crore), Nasik (Rs 14.66 crore), Lucknow (Rs 14 crore), Pune (Rs 14 crore), Ahmedabad (Rs 13.17 crore), Indore (Rs 13.06 crore), Chennai (Rs 12.27 crore), Visakhapatanam (Rs 11.68 crore) and Vadodara (Rs 11.30 crore).

     

    Additionally, FM operators in 47 cities will have to pay migration fees between Rs 10 – Rs 1 crore. They are as follows: Vijayawada (Rs 9.97 crore), Kolhapur (Rs 9.44 crore), Trivandrum (Rs 8.09 crore), Kanpur (Rs 8 crore), Jaipur (Rs 7.74 crore), Bhopal (Rs 7.49 crore), Kolkata (Rs 7.06 crore), Kozhikode (Rs 7.02 crore), Madurai (Rs 6.49 crore), Puducherry (Rs 6.49 crore), Aurangabad (Rs 6.23 crore), Tiruchi (Rs 6.11 crore), Rajkot (Rs 6.08 crore), Amritsar (Rs 6.03 crore), Trichur (Rs 5.65 crore), Varanasi (Rs 5.26 crore), Nagpur (Rs 5.10 crore), Mysore (Rs 4.66 crore), Tirupathi (Rs 4.50 crore), Mangalore (Rs 4.45 crore), Jalandhar (Rs 4.22 crore), Allahabad (Rs 4.08 crore), Kannur (Rs 4.05 crore), Jabalpur (Rs 3.80 crore), Surat (Rs 3.60 crore), Raipur (Rs 3.43 crore), Panaji (Rs 3.18 crore), Agra (Rs 2.56 crore), Shimla (Rs 2.34 crore), Jodhpur (Rs 2.05 crore), Asansol (Rs 2.02 crore), Patiala (Rs 1.64 crore), Rajahmundry (Rs 1.58 crore), Tirunelveli (Rs 1.57 crore), Gulbarga (Rs 1.50 crore), Tuticorin (Rs 1.50 crore), Gwalior (Rs 1.40 crore), Bhubaneshwar (Rs 1.27 crore), Jamshedpur (Rs 1.26 crore), Warangal (Rs 1.25 crore), Siliguri (Rs 1.05 crore), Udaipur (Rs 1.05 crore), Karnal (Rs 1.04 crore), Ranchi (Rs 1.03 crore), Rourkela (Rs 1.02 crore), Jammu (Rs 1.01 crore) and Kota (Rs 1 crore).

     

    The operators who exercised the option to migrate to FM radio Phase III will have an option to withdraw to migrate within five calendar days of intimation of the NOTMF. The option exercised by the operator who do not wish to migrate to FM radio Phase III shall be final and binding on the operators.

  • Sanjoy Nag casts Revathy & Rituparna Sengupta in ‘Good Morning Sunshine’

    Sanjoy Nag casts Revathy & Rituparna Sengupta in ‘Good Morning Sunshine’

    MUMBAI: National Award winning director Sanjoy Nag (Memories of March) has pulled a coup of sorts by casting two National Award winning actresses Revathy and Rituparna Sengupta in his next directorial venture titled Good Morning Sunshine.

     

    The film also features Tejaswani Kolhapuri and Shweta Tripathi (Masaan). The film will be shot in Mumbai, Benaras, Lucknow and Mirzapur.  The unit recently completed a two days schedule in Mumbai. 

     

    The film revolves around Rai (Rituparna Sengupta), an aspiring director, pulls off a casting coup of sorts when yesteryear diva Radha (Revathy) finally gives her consent to play the lead in her debut feature film. Rai in her earlier avatar as a film critic of a TV channel, had trashed Radha’s latest at the box office, resulting in an unpleasant manifestation of Radha’s ego, creating a vitiated atmosphere not to mention the frayed tempers. 

     

    Lack of access to hygienic sanitation and toilet facilities, especially for women in India, cutting across the socio-economic strata forms the thread, which ties the story of ‘Sunshine’, the film being conceived. The film delves into the lives of diverse and interesting characters such as Leelavati (Shweta Tripathi), a young runaway bride; Jamini (Tejaswini Kolhapure) battling amnesia post her alleged rape; Anjali losing her only daughter Sonali while defecating in the open, and others around them who form a silent majority in India. 

     

    Thereafter, the film is an exploration of how Radha’s life intertwines with that of Rai, Leelavati, Jamini and Anjali as they set about completing their film, till an accident throws the film out of gear.