ITV

Tag: Netflix

  • Netflix originals may get mobile-specific cuts

    MUMBAI: Video streaming service Netflix plans to explore streaming mobile-specific cuts of its original movies and TV shows. With this plan, the platform’s chief product officer Neil Hunt wants to satisfy the growing audience of mobile Netflix watchers.

    “It’s not inconceivable that you could take a master [version] and make a different cut for mobile. To date, Netflix hasn’t been delivering different cuts for different viewing platforms, but it’s something we will explore over the next few years,” said Hunt.

    With small screens getting even smaller, the idea is to create versions that offer alternate shots, scenes and framing in order to make the most of the device the content is being streamed on.

    Hunt made the remarks as part of a two-day event at Dolby Laboratories and Netflix’s own headquarters, as the two companies gear up for the launch of Iron Fist, which launches this weekend.

    Netflix is now available globally, with the exception of a few markets, including China, and since then it has seen mobile usage soar. In established markets like the US and Canada, most Netflix watching still happens on TVs. Hunt added that Netflix’s expansion to over 190 countries across the globe now means that mobile screens are the majority consumption device.

  • iFLix hires Netflix’s Sean Carey as CCO

    MUMBAI: Malaysian video streaming service iflix has appointed former Netflix executive Sean Carey as its new chief content officer. Carey served Netflix as the vice-president of global television.

    iFLix’s chief content officer James Bridges will move to a new role as global acquisitions director, leading the service’s content acquisition strategy.

    Two-year old iflix claims to have 4.5 million customers and hopes to be what Netflix is in the United States to viewers in emerging markets.

    The streaming video provider, which has deals with more than 170 studios and distributors such as Viacom Inc’s Paramount and MGM, is currently in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines and is planning to enter the Middle East and Africa over the next few months.

    Liberty Global, the international telecommunications company controlled by American tycoon John Malone, and Zain, a Kuwait-based telecommunications operator, are investing in iflix, the companies announced last week.

    Liberty and Zain, along with existing shareholders Sky PLC, venture capital firm Catcha Group and Los Angeles-based merchant bank Evolution Media Capital, invested $90 million in iflix, the companies said.

  • Netflix is home to ‘Godzilla’ & s2 of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’

    MUMBAI: Animated movie Godzilla is heading to Netflix. The movie from Japanese anime studio Polygon Pictures will debut on Netflix worldwide later this year following a Toho theatrical release in Japan.

    The anime promises to offer an epic re-imagining of the Godzilla world of the future.

    Kobun Shizuno (Knights of Sidonia) and Hiroyuki Seshita (AJIN: Demi-Human) are directing the movie from a screenplay by acclaimed anime writer Gen Urobuchi (Psycho-Pass). Some of the film’s voice cast includes Yuki Kaji (Attack on Titan), Tomokazu Sugita (Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker), and Kana Hanazawa (Psycho-Pass).

    Netflix is also bringing the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

    The maiden season covered the first four novels in Daniel Handler’s 13-part YA series. Netflix confirmed this with an announcement trailer playing off of the coded messages used by the secret organisation VFD in the show.

  • Netflix & Amazon investing in high-resolution tech, TV drama budgets comparable to films

    MUMBAI: Amazon and Netflix are not only acquiring documentaries and films, but are also heavily involved in producing their own content using UHD technologies, according to a white paper released by IHS Markit , a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, ahead of Cable Congress 2017.

    Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services have among the lowest revenue per hour of content viewed and of paid content services, making premium content a greater investment. While films comprise the largest number of UHD titles, TV series offer a better return on hours of content viewed per dollar invested, the IHS Markit white paper said.

    In the UK, Netflix offers 63 UHD titles. Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant have 28 and Sky has 26. “Online video producers generally offer a broader range of UHD genres than traditional pay TV platforms,” said IHS Markit senior home entertainment analyst Jonathan Broughton.

    “To compete, the budgets have grown dramatically to fulfill their ‘blockbuster’ needs. We are now seeing TV drama budgets around the same levels as major theatrical releases. This means that more expensive production methods involved in UHD make up a smaller proportion of the total budget.”

    IHS Markit delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. It has over 50,000 key business and government customers, including 85 per cent of the Fortune Global 500 and the world’s leading financial institutions.

    AlsO Read :

    Netflix’s Reed Hastings’ compliment pleases Hotstar

    Is VoD biz making money or it’s still investing?

    Lionsgate properties in film and TV on Amazon Prime Video India

    Indian entertainment channel in US for Amazon’s Prime subs

     

  • Netflix’s Reed Hastings’ compliment pleases Hotstar

    MUMBAI: When the world’s most successful video on demand player Netflix acknowledges you as a rival to watch out for, you obviously are going to be fairly kicked about it. That’s the case at Star India-owned Hotstar.

    Sources reveal that the team – led by Ajit Mohan – inside the domestically originating service is pretty happy about the comment that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made last week in an interaction with the media.

    Said he: “Here in India, consumers are fortunate because there’s a great battle with Hotstar, Amazon, YouTube and Netflix, and maybe others, all competing for consumer’s time. When you use your mobile phone, laptop, smart TV, there are many services to go to. You can do many things. We’re one of the choices. What’s unique about Netflix is that we have got these international originals, combined with local talent.”

    Hotstar India claims to have around 60 million subscribers in India and is gung-ho about going global. The plan is to target Indians globally and possible other international viewers too: the number is anywhere between 25-50 million worldwide.

    The other two players – Amazon and YouTube – are backed by global super heavyweights, while Hotstar is backed by Star India, which is part of Twenty First Century Corp. The latter is a midget compared to both and Google and Amazon in terms of valuation and market capitalisation.

    Says a media commentator: “Hotstar is targeting a billion minutes a day of watch time. Netflix does multiples of that in a day worldwide. Hence, to be named as a competitor to be watched out for is a stripe on the Hotstar team’s shoulders. As compared to Netflix, Hotstar has a smorgasbord of content offerings which are very local – right from soaps to series to films, primarily in house content created for its television channels. Or there’s the movies and the international shows from good libraries. Of course, in recent times, it has been curating original Indian content. And then, there is the IPL which drives the nation crazy. It’s interesting to see how team Netflix will actually do battle with it in the marketplace as it seeks to scale up the numbers in India.”

  • Videocon d2h partners Netflix for HD Smart Connect

    MUMBAI: Videocon d2h has signed a deal with the internet television network Netflix. With this partnership, Videocon d2h connected box customers will now be able to access seamlessly the extensive library of Netflix TV and movie titles.

    Videocon d2h consumers will be able to enjoy Netflix on a large screen by simply clicking a dedicated Netflix button on the remote control of HD Smart Connect Set Top Box (STB).

    Videocon d2h executive director Saurabh Dhoot said, “Our partnership will strengthen our DNA of innovation by providing TV screen experience for Netflix users in a seamless manner. This partnership in India with Netflix gives the customers the simple click of a button to easily select between our DTH and world class apps like Netflix services on the HD Smart Connect Set top box.”

    Netflix will be available on an exclusive app available on connected Set top box, HD SMART STB (Connected STB) which converts any existing TV into a smart TV besides showing you more than 600 channels and services in high definition and standard definition. The HD smart connect set top box allows consumers to watch their favourite channels in SD and HD, using the satellite feed like any other Videocon d2h set top box. The set top box can be connected to the internet through any Wifi or ethernet connection in the home for accessing a curated set of applications available through the internet. The minimum internet speed needed is 2 Mbps. These apps, both free and paid cover a range of content genres and utility apps.

    Videocon d2h CEO Anil Khera added, “With Netflix on board, Videocon d2h is enhancing its position as the customer’s first choice of entertainment. Integrating premium entertainment services like Netflix into our services offered via HD Smart Connect Set Top Box will make us even more attractive for our consumers. We will continue to deliver exceptional entertainment and give consumer the power to view content and enhance our leadership in homes with wifi/broadband.”

    Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings said, “While there are millions of consumers all over the world using Netflix, enjoying the ability to watch anywhere, anytime and the incredible variety of programming we offer, we are really only at the beginning of our journey here in India. This partnership with Videocon d2h is important for us in the way we reach to the diversity of the Indian market and will make it much easier for Indian consumers to watch Netflix.

  • Tug of war between AVoD & SVoD, who will win?

    MUMBAI: Content is the king and distribution is the queen. The year 2016 saw this phrase being used several times by the Over-the-top (OTT) players. But, does the struggle end there? Not really.

    While content remains to be crucial, changing consumption patterns is inevitable. Having the right content mix is still a challenge for the players in the digital eco-system.

    Discussing the importance of content and what can work well at the CASBAA OTT Roundtable Summit 2017 were Zee Entertainment Z5 India Business head of digital Archana Anand and Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi, moderated by TriLegal partner Nikhil Narendran, the session kick-started with the two leading players discussing their evolution.

    While Anand spoke about the ‘BeesKaTV’ app in detail, Gandhi mentioned how the year 2016 saw OTT players burning cash to acquire consumers while it was a fabulous year for them.

    “There is a a lot of demand for content consumption on mobile devices. As an advertising-led video-on-demand (VOD) service, we want to play on our strengths. Acquiring users comes with a heavy cost. There is a streaming cost, technology cost, content cost, etc. A platform has to bare the cost of a stream per user. Voot rides on four pillars – fandom around our reality and drama content available on our TV channel, Kids, Original play, and various languages content. We have built ourselves around content, and are still learning. The market can have 5-6 players with different strategies and we are enjoying a nice slice of the market,” said Gandhi.

    Today, OTT is not just limited to mobile, and the fact that linear TV is not going away yet cannot be denied. How do the consumers consume content is important for which discovery is essential. “Content is crucial and discovery continues to be important. It is beneficial to throw recommendations around one type of content. Curation of original content requires humongous marketing strategy. In the recent Oscars, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video grabbed several awards. What better way to applaud the OTT industry than this,” added Anand.

    It is given that, more than discovery or being a device-agnostic platform, there is a mindset shift required. Making people pay for content remains to be one of the many challenges for the SVOD players. With the data prices coming down, more and more people are going to consume digital video. Though, there is a segment of people who are not part of the data bandwagon, but they have consumed content. So, does it lead to the exit of linear TV in India? Perhaps, not.

    “The next 24 months are going to be crucial for the digital space. TV is here to stay for a long time. There are some segments that will grow faster than the rest. Ad-supported OTT platform complements TV perfectly. We create fandom around our popular TV shows on Voot which gets us more eyeballs and, at the same time, boosts our TV business. There is a lot of headroom for television,” said Gandhi.

    Anand resonated with Gandhi’s point of view on whether digital can replace TV framework.

    But, who will determine the right pricing for each of these platforms? Are the advertisers ready to buy slots? For advertisers to hop on board, the platform first needs to monetise its content, grab maximum number of eyeballs, and then measure it. “The choice is with the players whether they want to play by volume or margin. Indians are ready to pay for transactions than subscriptions. The transactional business will get its value, but the subscription business will take its time. Newer and better models will emerge in the market. The volumes are growing large, but the challenge is — pricing. The advertisers require volume for which more watch-time is a given,” added Gandhi.

    Contradicting that, Anand said, “The real challenge is: value for money. Even the advertisers are invisible in videos. Selling inventories to other broadcasters or platforms becomes difficult.”

    It remains to be seen who’s content will work in the long run, and which model proves to be successful for the players in the digital space.

  • Amazon & Netflix bag maiden Academy Awards

    MUMBAI: From wrongly naming the winner for the best film to presenters handling wrong cue cards, this year’s 89 Academy Awards did make news but, for several odds. Not only was La La Land named as the winner of for the best film instead of Moonlight but, reportedly presenters were given the wrong cue cards and though the mistake was corrected by the Academy. Video-on-demand streaming service Amazon won its first-ever Academy Awards on Sunday night, taking home three Oscar statues.

    The service won awards for Manchester by the Sea taking home best original screenplay and best picture honors and Iran’s The Salesman. The wins for Amazon drew the praise of company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who was in attendance at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood and tweeting his congratulations to the winners.

    Its rival platform, Netflix also won an Oscar for best documentary short, which went to The White Helmets, which the streaming service produced and distributed.

    Amazon Studios released its first awards-hopeful movie at the end of 2015 with Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq and over the past year has spent aggressively to become a serious player in the indie film world.

  • Spectranet enters next phase of broadband expansion in south India

    MUMBAI: Spectranet has announced its next phase of expansion in south India by launching in Bengaluru.

    One of the first 100 per cent optical fibre broadband service provider , Spectranet company offers truly unlimited usage with symmetric speed of 100 mbps which means that the users will get both 100mbps upload and download speeds. The company offers next generation fiber broadband services with a capability of offering 1 Gbps speeds for residential and 10 Gbps for business customers.

    Spectranet claims to be India’s only end to end pure optical fiber network enabled Internet service provider, capable of delivering speeds of 1 Gbps and more for both home & business segment. With headquarters in Gurgaon, its fiber network presence is currently spread across eight major cities.

    Spectranet’s unique 100mbps unlimited offering will enable consumers to do so much more such as enjoy services like Netflix, use smart TV features, connect more devices. This will be an enabler for the masses as they now will be able to utilize products and services which they were unable to use because of non-availability of good quality broadband.

    The company has invested heavily in its customer support team and have very robust mechanisms to service customer requests. By purchasing the initial launch phase offer, customers will be secured of any changes in launch offer plan for the next 24 months which is only available for the 30 days and after that it would be moved to the regular plan.

    Spectranet managing director & CEO Udit Mehrotra said “Bengaluru being the IT hub of the country was our natural choice to begin our foray into the southern markets. With tech-savvy residents who have a preference for quality services, we are very excited to unleash the third age of connectivity from here. Fibre being the most advanced technology enables broadband to work years on years without the customers needing to upgrade their cables. This enables us to potentially provide speeds 100 times beyond what the customers are experiencing now and enhance their experience. In US, minimum broadband speed is 25 mbps, we want to bring our customers at par with the global broadband users.”

    The company has started off by providing broadband connectivity to the prominent addresses in the city like Bannerghatta, Electronic City, Kundalhalli, Bellandur and will be adding more areas in a phased out fashion.

    Also Read

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/cable-tv/multi-system-operators/msos-among-top-5-fastest-net-providers-telco-airtel-leads-the-pack-170217

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/cable-tv/people/den-networks-appoints-sanjay-jain-as-group-cto-150519

  • Netflix: 46% of streaming couples cheat & watch ahead of partners

    MUMBAI: No relationship is safe. According to a new study (also covering India) released on 13 February by Netflix, nearly half (46%) of streaming couples around the world have “cheated” on their significant other, but it’s not what you think.

    Defined as watching a TV show ahead of your significant other, Netflix cheating was first uncovered in a study in the U.S. in 2013. Four years later, cheating has increased three times[1] and has become a common behavior around the world. This behavior only continues to grow with 60% of consumers saying they’d cheat more if they knew they’d get away with it. And once you cheat, you can’t stop: 81% of cheaters are repeat offenders and 44% have cheated 3+ times.

    In a binge-watching world where it’s easy to say ‘just one more,’ Netflix cheating has quickly become the new normal…

    Where is cheating happening? (Everywhere)

    Cheating happens all over the world….though it varies a bit by country. The most cheaters are in Brazil and Mexico where 57%-58% of streaming couples have cheated, respectively. The most loyal viewers are in Netherlands (73% have not cheated), Germany (65%) and Poland (60%).

    What shows are we cheating on? (All of them)

    While no show is off limits, top cheating temptations are The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, American Horror Story, House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, Narcos, and Stranger Things.

    Why do we cheat? (We just can’t help it)

    Most don’t plan to cheat…it just happens: 80% of cheating is unplanned. The trigger for the growing trend in cheating? Two-thirds (66%) of cheaters said that “the shows are just so good we can’t stop bingeing.”

    How do we cheat? (Any way that we can)

    Sleep with one eye open: 25% of cheating happens when one partner falls asleep. But whether this is even cheating is hotly debated. Half say “sleep cheating” doesn’t count (53%), but the morality of “sleep cheating” varies across the globe. Chileans think it’s no big deal, Japan sees it as unforgivable. Many are still cheating in secret: 45% never admit to their indiscretions.

    Is cheating so bad? (Depends on where you live)

    If you stray, don’t beat yourself up about it. Cheating has become more socially acceptable, with 46% saying it’s “not bad at all.” Unless of course you live in Hong Kong, where 40% think watching ahead of your partner is worse than having an actual affair.

    Is my partner a cheat? (Spoiler alert: Most likely)

    Cheating comes in many forms. Netflix has created a series of assets to help explain the phenomenon. Cheating Profiles highlight the most common types of offenders lurking in households around the world. This infographic illustrates cheating motivations and behaviors, and reaction GIFs help couples work through their indiscretions so they can protect their relationship…or keep on cheating.

    Methodology

    *The survey was conducted by SurveyMonkey from December 20-31, 2016 and based on 30,267 responses. The sample was balanced by age and gender and representative of an adult online population who watch TV shows via streaming services as a couple in The United States, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, India, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, UAE, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, and Denmark.