MUMBAI, 21 SEPTEMBER 2018 – Netflix Inc., the world’s leading internet entertainment service, has announced the much awaited second season of the critically acclaimed original series, Sacred Games. Based on author Vikram Chandra’s best-selling novel, season 1 of the series received viewer appreciation and critical acclaim worldwide for its gritty plot and power-packed performances. Season 2 will be back with a new trail of betrayal, crime, passion, and a thrilling chase through Mumbai’s underbelly. The games are about to get deadlier!
The second season picks up from Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) pursuing his relentless battle of saving the city and Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) facing bigger challenges to retain his position as the legendary kingpin of Mumbai. The intriguing Guruji (Pankaj Tripathi), introduced in season one as Gaitonde’s ‘third father,’ plays a pivotal role in unfolding a chain of events that shape the next season – which is scheduled to film in India and locations overseas this fall.
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap will continue directing Ganesh Gaitonde’s track, while Neeraj Ghaywan (of Masaan fame) will take over Sartaj Singh’s plot. Vikramaditya Motwane and Varun Grover will continue their roles of being the showrunner and the lead writer respectively. The highly-anticipated season will see a mix of old favorites and fresh new characters to drive the storyline to its intrepid twists and turns.
Erik Barmack, Vice President, International Originals at Netflix, said, “We’ve been thrilled by the response to Sacred Games from fans worldwide, and especially in India, to this high quality production. It’s incredibly exciting for us to take the story of Sacred Games forward and open a new chapter in the series with its second season.”
Tag: Netflix
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Netflix renews Sacred Games for its second season
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Eros Now to launch original regional web series by early 2019
MUMBAI: Eros Now, the digital arm of Eros International announced its foray into the original content space with its first series Side Hero, with all episodes available for binge-viewing from 24 September 2018. Directed by Rohan Sippy and produced by Ramesh Sippy entertainment productions, Side Hero stars Kunaal Roy Kapur as a fictionalised version of himself, trying to become a lead hero and prove that acting is not just a hobby.
The web series consists of eight episodes with duration of 25-30 minutes. According to Eros Group chief content officer Ridhima Lulla, all the shows Eros Now intends to create are multi-seasonal. The OTT platform plans to roll out one to two originals a month. “We don’t want to restrict ourselves in the genres we want to create. This one is comedy, you will also see in drama, thriller, mythology or fantasy,” she added.
The show’s quirky tagline ‘IskoKaunDekhega’ takes a dig at Kunaal Roy Kapur’s character showcasing Side Hero’s self-deprecating humour.
Eros Digital chief operating officer Ali Hussein said, “The platform is planning to launch regional content in early 2019. All our short form content is free and long form content is behind the pay-wall. Currently, we are trying to figure out how to work with the advertisers not just in the short form but also in the long form space. We won’t be like a traditional AVOD brand. We are in conversation with top 10 brands in the country like Cadbury, Fevicol, Nivia, Myntra, Diageo and they have all reached out to us.”
Lulla mentioned that there will be regional focus too as Eros doesn’t want to only look at Hindi content. “First few months we will focus on Hindi but in the next couple of months we will be kicking off a lot of regional content as well,” she said.
The digital entertainment platform plans to strategically encompass marketing elements such as on-air promotions, creating social media buzz, on-ground association, outdoor campaigns, radio spots and various PR tools, making it an impactful campaign. Side Hero will be extensively promoted on major broadcast channels through a 15-day long campaign alongside aggressive promotions on leading radio stations in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Eros Now will also tactically use outdoor medium for promotions at 100+ sites in Mumbai.
“We have got our partners like Google, Apple and many more doing something interesting for us. I think the surrounding noise of it is bigger than what Netflix and Amazon can potentially do because we are not necessarily dependent on a third party medium. Media value of our budget will be bigger than Amazon and Netflix because of our partnerships,” Hussein added.
As of August 2018, Eros Now enjoys viewership from 100+ countries and is further strengthening its global presence. Eros Now will leverage its partnerships with leading international brands like Xiaomi Mi TV, Dialog Axiata and more to present its original content across Asia and beyond.
“We are launching in at least 4-5 new countries in terms of specific alliance and partnerships in the next 3-4 months. We are already present to localise partners in key NRI markets around the world,” he concluded.
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Flipkart likely to buy stake in Hotstar: Report
MUMBAI: Flipkart is taking a leaf out of Amazon’s book. Like its US rival, Flipkart is looking at buying a stake in India’s leading OTT platform, Star India-owned Hotstar, according to a report in Mint.
The OTT scenario in India is booming with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video betting millions on the Indian market as well as several domestic ones providing content. Amazon’s US strategy is to get people hooked to shopping through its video content. Flipkart is likely adopting the same method and using content to increase its shoppers.
Hotstar was launched in India in 2015 – about a year ahead of streaming giant Netflix and nearly two years ahead of Amazon Prime Video’s debut in the country. The OTT platform remains well ahead of both in terms of its popularity with domestic users.
A Hotstar representative denied any such talks with Flipkart, but said it was open to partnerships that can help grow the internet ecosystem in India and beyond, according to the report.
Flipkart has already tied up with Hotstar to launch a video advertising platform in July. Hotstar is also one of the internet partners for Flipkart Plus, its customer loyalty programme competing with Amazon Prime.
Hotstar has been offering premium content like HBO’s Game of Thrones and live-streaming of popular Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket for an annual subscription of Rs 999 ($13.90).
Walmart acquired about 77 per cent of Flipkart for nearly $16 billion in what was the US retail giant’s largest-ever deal and a move to take on arch-rival Amazon in a key growth market.
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Essel’s Subhash Chandra on Zee, OTT giants & the Jio juggernaut
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee) has withheld challenges from international broadcasters to acquire a place as one of the top media companies in India. While several players with deep pockets are investing a high amount in content, Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra, with 26 years of experience, says only money cannot buy the best content.
Speaking to The Hindu, the media veteran said telecom, voice, data, and video all are merging into one single pipe. Moreover, Reliance Jio’s low pricing has made the delivery pipe cheap and affordable forcing other telecom players to do the same. This change will help content companies.
“Even the Amazons, Googles and YouTubes of the world now call themselves media companies instead of tech companies. So, thanks to Jio, this process, which could have taken 5-10 years, has accelerated in India,” he added.
However, he also pointed out Jio’s different nature of the business. The company tends more towards monopoly rather than being a part of the industry. This trend could catalyse the merger of content players with pipe and data, as it happened in America and Europe.
Hailing content as the prime factor, he also said creativity comes above money. A big budget show cannot assure good ratings always. Despite expensive deals, he is sceptical of Jio’s ability to scale.
“We have competed with all media companies. Today, NewsCorp is in India through Star. Time Warner was here, Viacom came, Sony is here, Discovery is here. So, of the top eight global media firms, five are here and we have competed with all. In 2007, a management consulting firm said India would be left with just three players and Zee is the weakest link that will either close or get sold. That didn’t happen,” he said.
Amazon Prime and Netflix are also trying to acquire a stronger foothold in the Indian market given the high potential of the digital content business. Chandra said that Amazon being largely an e-commerce player tries to lure customers for shopping through content. Zee also shares content with the company. But as Netflix is a pure content play, it won’t share content with the streaming giant. The OTT platform’s situation is also different in the country due to its high pricing.
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BSNL sees speed spike in latest Netflix ISP ranking
MUMBAI: The streaming giant Netflix has released its monthly ISP Speed index data where India’s BSNL saw a noteworthy speed jump. The state-owned telco company’s average speed rose to 2 Mbps, up from 1.66 Mbps in July. Along with the speed spike, it also rose one spot according to the ranking. Other than BSNL, rankings of Hathway and D-Vois have also improved but the speed spike is not much notable. In overall country rankings, India fell one spot to 54th place. The Netflix ISP Speed Index is a measure of primetime Netflix performance on a particular ISP.
According to ISP index, 7 Star Digital, Spectranet, Airtel have acquired top three positions. Another government owned entity MTNL fell one spot due to the spike in BSNL’s average speed.
Globally, largest speed gain on the index was experienced by Flow in Jamaica. Speeds at the Jamaican operator increased by 0.74 Mbps, bringing its average monthly speed to 2.37 Mbps. Indosat-Fibre in Indonesia also saw notable spike reaching a 4.14 Mbps average for August up from 3.76 Mbps in July.
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In the losses category, KBro in Taiwan and SK Broadband’s speed in South Korea decreased notably. KBro experienced speeds decline to a monthly average of 2.80 Mbps from 3.06 Mbps last month and SK Broadband’s speeds slowed to 2.71 Mbps on average down from 2.97 Mbps last month. As per country rankings, Jamaica dropped five spots to 51st and Singapore dropped four spots to 12th.
The country reckoned to have the overall top speed is Switzerland at 4.19 Mbps, followed by Netherland’s 4.07 Mbps and Romania’s 4.01 Mbps. Netflix’s home country, the US, stood at eighth position with average 3.98 Mbps speed.
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Netflix could lose subscribers if it starts running ads
MUMBAI: Netflix users enjoy watching ad-free seamless content. The subscription-based video on demand service recently confirmed that it tested the idea of inserting promos for its shows and movies between episodes of existing programmes. A recent study found that if Netflix content includes ad, it could cost it the overall number of subscribers.
Hub Entertainment Research in its recent study The Future of Monetization examined consumer reaction to several alternatives of Netflix pay model. It surveyed 1,612 TV consumers from ages 16 to 74 who watch at least an hour of TV per week and have broadband at home.
If Netflix increases its subscription by $5, 23 per cent of the respondents said they may cancel the subscription. If it’s being raised to $10 more per month, 28 per cent would consider cancelling it. If the platform were to raise its monthly fee by $2, only 8 per cent said they would cancel.
More importantly, almost one-fourth of the respondents said they would drop the streaming service if it began running ads during Netflix content. Its ad-free consistency is one of the topmost features which attract subscribers.
“I think there are ways that they could arrange it so they retain as many customers as possible, but I think if they add ads at all, even at price reduction, there will be some people who leave,” Hub principal Jon Giegengack said.
Principal at Hub and co-author of the study Peter Fondulas said Netflix’s low price, no ads, vast amount of programming and original shows help it to stand out in the crowded US market.
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Netflix’s ’13 Reasons Why’ shows massive popularity across markets
MUMBAI: Netflix’s celebrated series 13 Reasons Why which returned for its second season in May has unbeaten popularity across several countries. Data science company Parrot analytics has come up with Global Television Demand Report for the quarter April-June where it examined ten markets. Among those ten markets, the Netflix original topped the chart for most in-demand original series in eight markets.
The ten markets on which the report is based are the US, the UK, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Malaysia, Portugal, New Zealand and Poland.
Stranger Things, Black Mirror and Orange Is The New Black have also been placed among top ten in-demand originals in most of the markets. The newly launched YouTube Premium original Cobra Kai has also attracted many viewers in some of the markets. Amazon Prime original The Grand Tour has also managed to maintain its appeal this quarter while its last episode was released in February. Hulu’s second season of The Handmaid’s Tale appeared within the top 20 across all evaluated markets.
With the sweeping change in technology, viewers across the world are consuming TV content through various devices. Smart TV, a new obsession of viewers, has highest reported usage in the US (21 per cent). The UK is another market with high Smart TV usage (19 per cent).
Interestingly, the audience in Malaysia is more likely to watch television on a mobile (24 per cent) or tablet device (22 per cent) than through a regular television set. In New Zealand, viewers that engage with TV content are very likely to do so through a laptop or desktop. On the other hand, people in Colombia and Germany are more likely to engage with TV content through traditional TV devices.
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Cosmos-Maya’s strategy for global animation
MUMBAI: Producing animation series isn’t a low-hanging fruit. Considering that a huge amount of money is spent on the production of animated shows than general entertainment channels (GECs) in the Indian television segment, it takes a big heart to risk Rs 20-60 lakh for an animated show’s 11-22 minute episode as against investing Rs 7-8 lakh to produce a daily soap. But one man decided to don the hat of a filmmaker and launched an animation studio named Cosmos-Maya, realising the need to create more home-grown content rather than depending on overseas programmes on TV.
Cosmos-Maya, founded by Ketan Mehta, commenced its journey 20 years ago when he faced certain issues during 1993 in infusing some visual effects for a scene in his movie Maya Memsaab.
Ketan said, “There was a shot required in the climax where we had to use special effects. Maya drinks a magic potion and disappears in the flame of light. I tried to shoot it in 10 different ways and it was still not satisfied because the technology was just not available in India at that point in time.” In search of the right equipment and expertise, he travelled to Hong Kong but to no avail.
“I felt that it was a shame that India, which claims to be the largest film industry in the world, didn’t have the basic technology that a filmmaker wants. But fortunately, around the same time, visual technology was taking off, so we decided to take a leap of faith and start a studio,” he added.
The journey was tough. Cosmos-Maya CEO Anish Mehta said that scaling up from 40 to 1200 employees was a major challenge. “It was a challenge in the beginning and it is a challenge now that it has been achieved. There have been a lot of ongoing hurdles. Ensuring that there is no repetition and bringing out this mirrored range of variety from a creative standpoint is also an ongoing challenge that is dealt with on a fairly regular basis.”
Now, the company is filled with 1000 techno artists, 20 full-time writers and many other freelance writers and the plan is to double the employee count.
Albeit coming from a filmmaking background, his strong belief in launching a studio and training the employees in animation production resulted in a seamless production pipeline. “We produce 30 episodes per month and no other production house is able to produce the number of episodes that we make per month,” said Ketan. Filmmaking experience helped him create his own IPs.
Bullish about India’s animation scenario today, like every other player in the market, Ketan also feels that it is growing rapidly. According to him, the industry will grow at least 17-20 per cent y-o-y. He believes that so far the growth in the industry has been television driven, but gradually feature films will also come into play.
A major industry challenge was to evolve the IP rights system. Anish said, “The creation of successful IPs through partnerships is the way forward now because retention of IP has been a major focus area across all the key partners in the value chain. So we need to align with the partners who have a similar vision and share our philosophy. There has to be a complimenting set of goals that both teams are working towards and hence IP partnerships can work out.”
The animation industry also sees digital being a major future area. According to Ketan, in the next 5-10 years, TV and digital segments will be complementing each other.
To take Cosmos-Maya global, the company is already working on developing a global idea. With the Emerald investment, co-production with European and Latin American companies has already commenced. “Now the growth strategy is, how to grow beyond the Indian domestic market,” Ketan added.
Over the past five years, the company has produced a record 1,400+ half-hours of animated content for major TV and digital platforms, including Viacom18, Disney, Turner, Sony Pictures, Discovery, Netflix, and ALT Balaji. In addition to its hit series Motu Patlu, Cosmos Maya has an impressive twelve titles on TV now, including Shiva, Eena Meena Deeka, Kisna, Vir – The Robot Boy, Guru Aur Bhole, Chacha Bhatija, Tik Tak Tail and Selfie with Bajrangi.
Pakistan is another major territory for Cosmos-Maya, as the Urdu version of the show Motu Patlu works well with the audience. The show is also dubbed for countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Mauritius.
Ketan feels that the Indian share in the global market still remains at 1 per cent. He said, “It has phenomenal scope to grow as we have skilled manpower and there’s no reason that we can’t do better in the animation sector.”
With a bright future, Cosmos Maya is venturing into an unknown but hopeful future.
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Clean sweep for Netflix’s sacred games at News18’s ireel awards 2018
MUMBAI: News18.com’s iReel Awards, a platform that celebrates outstanding work in the web series space, recognised and awarded outstanding performers in the presence of renowned artists, film-makers and producers at the JW Marriot in Juhu, Mumbai on 6th September, 2018. Celebrities like Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Nikhil Advani, Hansal Mehta, Harsh Chhaya, Surveen Chawla, Kubra Sait, Rajshree Deshpande, Ameesha Patel, Tanushree Dutta, Tisca Chopra, Rasika Duggal, Vikas Gupta, Karan Wahi and Ronit Roy amplified the glamour quotient at the star-studded event.
It was Bollywood stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Nimrat Kaur who won the Best Actor (Drama) and Best Actress (Drama) awards for their commendable performances in Sacred Games by Netflix and The Test Case by ALTBalaji, respectively. With great critical acclaim and a massive mass appeal for playing the role of Ganesh Gaitonde, it was Nawazuddin who stole the show. Nimrat was also applauded for her strong performance as an army woman and was at her glamourous best as she claimed her award.
Speaking on her win, Nimrat Kaur commented, “The Test Case will always be close to my heart since I belong to an army background. As an actor, the digital medium that all of us have been witnessing has genuinely been the most exciting I been part of. Whether it’s the process or experiencing how many people get to see your work online. It’s not Friday bound nor does it come with a time limit.”
Further accolades followed for Sacred Games, directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, with the show bagging the award for Best Drama. With crisp writing, the web series -collected the Best Writing (Drama) award as well. The cast soon followed with Jitendra Joshi winning the Best Supporting Actor award for his marvellous portrayal as constable Katekar. Backed with a powerful supporting cast likes of Kubra Sait, Rajshri Deshpande, Neeraj Kabi, Sukhmani Sadana, these actors were rewarded with the Best Ensemble Cast award at the awards night.
Commenting on the win, Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap said, “There are so many good shows out there and such good content. This is truly the time for writers. We want to thank Netflix and the audience for making the show what it is today.”
Stand up-comic Sumukhi Suresh was one amongst the winners as she was awarded the Best Actress (Comedy) award for Amazon Prime’s Pushpavalli, which also went on to win the Best Comedy award. Bhupesh Singh won the Best Actor (Comedy) award for his role in Shaitaan Haveli while the Best Writing (Comedy) award went to Mr and Mrs by new-age platform Girliyapa. Ahana Kumra, for her role in Inside Edge, claimed the Best Supporting Actress award.
The esteemed jury for the awards comprised directors Nikhil Advani, Sudhir Mishra and Vice President, Content & Strategy, Book My Show – Monisha Singh Katial, who were enthralled by the content and creativity in the web series segment, and admitted it was difficult to pick one winner across categories.
Speaking about the need to instate these awards, Manish Maheshwari, CEO Network18 Digital said, “Digital content is all consuming and present everywhere today. There is a visible shift from television to digital with more people embracing the latter. The reason for this is that it allows us to make and tell different stories and present it the way we want to. The important thing for most film makers is to be able to have a voice. I think that interesting directors wanting to do interesting stories get caught in the hullaballoo of mainstream cinema. In the web space, they have the opportunity to voice out their creativity.” Adding that iReel is a great initiative to motivate creators in the digital segment he said, “A lot of thought has gone into the various categories at iReel Awards. I’m very happy that there’s an ensemble cast category that does not exist in any of the award shows, anywhere.”
It was an evening graced by the who’s who of the Indian web-series space that brought a host of Bollywood celebrities, directors all under one roof. It was a night to remember for the new-age artists who received their well-deserved awards.
Co-powered by Madame, the iReel Awards have Xoxoday as the Associate Partner. Radio City is on-board as Radio Partner, UFO Digital Cinema is the Cinema Partner, Jio Digital Life is the Digital Partner and News18 India is the News Partner.
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YouTube to release first Indian original content soon
MUMBAI: Streamers in India are about to get new delight. YouTube is bringing its first Indian original in the coming weeks called ARRived under an ad-supported model. The streaming giant has joined hands with music maestro AR Rahman for the show. Earlier also, YouTube global head original programming Susanne Daniels said that it is planning scripted series and original programming for international markets including India.
“Affordable data costs are driving video consumption in India, data usage is about 8 GB a month per subscriber. This has pushed online video consumption as well, which is now about 75 per cent of all mobile traffic as per industry reports,” YouTube India entertainment head Satya Raghavan said.
While in many countries YouTube offers its originals under the subscription model, in India it doesn’t have any premium model currently. According to some media reports, it will eventually come up with the premium service in India. YouTube’s international rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime have already released original shows in the country, some of which has been critically acclaimed too along with getting high popularity. The local OTT players are also eyeing the same pie in the growing video market. Players like ZEE5, Voot, ALTBalaji, Viu, Eros Now also have a pipeline of original shows to woo the audience. On the other hand, Hotstar has taken the top position among OTT players according to several reports.
“Our DNA is built around partnerships, so a lot of competitors are our partners we work closely with, some of them are large advertisers of ours, some of them are large content partners. So for us, it is about growing the video pie not just for our own creators but for the entire online video industry for sure,” Raghavan commented.
The company said it had run two sponsored shows as pilots, working closely with advertisers to test the market. It also claimed to have received a good response. Globally, YouTube Originals has released over 60 projects to date and plans to release more than 50 new shows next year.