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Tag: Sony SIX

  • Abhishek Bachchan to attend ‘NBA All Star’ as goodwill ambassador

    Abhishek Bachchan to attend ‘NBA All Star’ as goodwill ambassador

    MUMBAI: Bachchan junior has been announced as a goodwill ambassador to National Basketball Association (NBA) league.

     

    NBA India managing director Yannick Colaco while addressing a press conference in Mumbai stated, “Abhishek has been most active in promoting NBA in India and hence we are proud to have him as a goodwill ambassador. He will be attending the ‘NBA All Star 2015’ and meeting NBA legends throughout the weekend.”

     

    Bachchan’s journey can be followed on official NBA India’s social media platform. Colaco also announced that AB junior will be the first Indian to play ‘NBA All Star’ celebrity game on 14 February 2015.

     

    Ecstatic Abhishek said, “I am excited and honoured to be attending the league as the first ever All Star ambassador. I know my trip will show fans in India the excitement, energy and athletic ability of the NBA game and its players. Basketball is my first love, and I look forward to supporting basketball’s continued growth in India.”

     

    Recollecting his first encounter with NBA, Bachchan junior said, “It was my father in the early 80’s who took me for a NBA match and that’s where it started. The interest for the game gradually increased and I became a Los Angeles Lakers fan. In 2011 my wife surprised me by taking me for an ‘All Star’ match and it was a great experience. But, I never imagined of playing in a game. It feels great to be the first ever Indian to play in the ‘All Star Celebrity’ game.”

     

    India’s official NBA broadcaster Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said, “We will make a documentary focusing Abhishek’s trip and create a programme on it for fans in India. We have been doing a lot of promotional activities to popularize the sport in India. We reached 16 cities last year and we aspire to grow bigger, the viewership is increasing in millions which is an immensely positive aspect.”

     

    While speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Krishnan said, “It’s not just a role of a brand ambassador that he has to play and so if you choose someone who doesn’t know how to play the game then you are in trouble. Abhishek is aware of the sport, he follows it and that’s the reason why he has been chosen. Moreover by associating a celebrity if the game gains popularity in the grassroots level it’s a worthy attempt. Our promotional activity will not be restricted to metros, we will reach villages and smaller towns too.”

     

    The broadcast schedule of Sony Six is

     

    NBA All – Star Celebrity Game February 14 at 5.30 am IST

     

    All Star Saturday Night: February 15 6.30 am IST

     

    64th NBA All Star Game: February 16 6.30 am IST

  • Sony Six to showcase Super Bowl live

    Sony Six to showcase Super Bowl live

    MUMBAI: Multi Screen Media’s sports broadcaster Sony Six has signed a four year deal to broadcast Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). 

     

    For the first time the flagship event will be telecast in India on 2 February 2015 when New England Patriots takes on defending champions Seattle Seahawks. 

     

    Speaking about the acquisition, Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said, “It is the greatest one day event in the world, and I am intriguingly surprised that it has never been telecast in India. It is a diverse country with versatile interest and it was important to bring it for Indians.”

     

    The game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues’ champion teams would play in the AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970.

     

    But the matter of concern is the timing as the match will start at 4.30 am IST. When questioned about the odd timings, Krishnan said, “We will have prime time repeats and moreover, over last one and half years we developed a habit on breakfast viewership with NBA and other captivating sport. During Super Bowl an ad slot costs more than four and half million dollars and huge stars perform in the intervals. Superstars like Michael Jakson, Maddona performed in previous editions and this year we will see youth sensation Katy Perry performing during the intervals. Hence odd timings cannot be a reason to not go for a event of such magnitude.”  

     

    The day on which the Super Bowl is played, now considered by some an unofficial American national holiday, is called “Super Bowl Sunday”. It is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day. In addition, the Super Bowl has frequently been the most watched American television broadcast of the year; the four most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history is Super Bowls.

     

    In 2014, Super Bowl became the most-watched American television programme in history with an average audience of 111.5 million viewers the fourth time in five years the game had set a record, starting with the 2010 Super Bowl, which itself had taken over the number-one spot held for 27 years by the final episode of M*A*S*H. The Super Bowl is also among the most-watched sporting events in the world, almost all audiences being North American, and is third to soccer’s UEFA Champions League final and El Clasico in Spain, as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide.

     

    “40 per cent of America’s population watched the game last year and this year the viewership is expected to increase by a huge margin. The one day event is a festival of commercials we see special ads made by brands to broadcast during the flagship event, also Hollywood uses Super Bowl as platform to launch trailers or teasers of big budget movies” said Krishnan. 

     

    When queried about the commercial interest and expectations of Sony Six while broadcasting this event, he said, “This year we are not concentrating at the commercial aspect, we may make it ad free broadcasting or we will restrict to very limited commercials our main motto this year is to popularize the sport.”

     

    Because of the high viewership, commercial airtime is most expensive during the Super Bowl broadcast and giant companies regularly develop their most expensive advertisements for this broadcast. As a result, watching and discussing the broadcast’s commercials has become a significant aspect of the event.

     

    Sony Six started the year by acquiring rights of Australian Open tennis and Africa Cup of Nations football, and now they roped it Super Bowl.  

     

    Talking about Sony’s plan for the year Krishnan said, “Sony Six is clear with its stand, we want to get in the pinnacle of all sports in our channel. We have football world cup the biggest tournament of the sport, most expensive cricket league in IPL, grand slam tennis, and now the Super Bowl. And moreover though we have Pepsi IPL we are the least dependent in cricket if compared to other sport channels and we still have the highest viewership. So people are accepting the strategy of versatility.”

     

    “We have quality content in our schedule for next three years, but whenever we get opportunity to add any sport of international importance we will try to catch on,” he added.

  • Sony Six and Pal bags telecast rights of Syed Modi International Grand Prix

    Sony Six and Pal bags telecast rights of Syed Modi International Grand Prix

    MUMBAI: Sony Six and Sony Pal will be broadcasting the semi-finals and final matches of the Syed Modi International Grand Prix 2015.

     

    Sony Pal will telecast the live event with Hindi feed between 2 – 7 pm on 24 and 25 January. To further strengthen the viewership of the tournament, the deferred telecast of the semi-finals and finals will be on Sony Six in the prime time evening slot (7 pm onwards). Taking under consideration the growing popularity of badminton in the country, Sony Six has undertaken the route of deferred feed in prime-time to ensure greater audience reach.

     

    Badminton Association of India (BAI) president Akhilesh Das Gupta said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Sony Six in bringing the final culminating stages of the tournament live to our audience. With the dual language feeds, prime-time telecast, high-quality content and sheer sporting action, we are optimistic in our mission to further advance the popularity of badminton across markets in India.”

     

    BAI vice president, administration T.P.S. Puri added, “It gives us great pleasure to award the broadcast rights of the semis and finals of the tournament to Sony Six. With this viewers will be able to witness some of the best of international and domestic badminton talent take the court.”

     

    Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said, “The tournament is an exciting addition to our line-up of some of the best in domestic sports content and we are thrilled to be associated with such a grand event that hosts few of India’s brightest sporting talents. This year with the introduction of the Hindi feed and prime time telecast, we aim to tap into the rising popularity of badminton in India and cut across varied audience profile.”

     

    Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal will be seen looking at kick-starting her title defence against the likes of third seed P V Sindhu and the reigning world champion Carolina Marin of Spain. This year, the tourney will also host the best of domestic badminton talents including P C Tulashi, K Srikanth, Ajay Jayaram, H S Prannoy, RMV Gurusaidutt, Shreyansh Jaiswal and K Ajay Kumar amongst many more, battling it out for the title.

  • Sony Six’s Prasana Krishnan upbeat about African Cup Of Nations broadcast

    Sony Six’s Prasana Krishnan upbeat about African Cup Of Nations broadcast

    MUMBAI: After generating considerable revenue and viewership with the FIFA World Cup and EURO, Sony Six continues to extend its catalogue of international football and this time it has invaded a new territory.

     

    The channel has added to its kitty the African Cup of Nations, which started in 1957 and comprises 16 nations from the African continent. This will be the first time that the tournament will be aired on Indian television. Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said that he was “quite surprised” that an event filled with numerous stars has never been broadcast in India until now.

     
    The tournament kicks off on 17 January, 2015 with a match between the host Nation Equatorial Guinea and Congo. The tournament clashes with all the major club leagues across the globe and certainly raises a question mark if Indian football lovers will miss their favorite club action in order to catch up with the African Cup.

     

    When asked about this, Krishnan said, “We will always have multiple action going on at the same time but it is up to the viewers to decide what they want to follow. International football is always respected and people love to see their stars playing in country colours for their respective nations.”
     
    Many big club managers have started to blame the African Cup of Nations due to their recent failures as the core of many teams took a blow when strong performers were not available for selection. All other major international football events are played during the June – July calendar gap and there is a long term debate going on if AFCON should also be conducted during such a gap. Krishnan explains, “As a broadcaster, I would have certainly loved a gap but I see this scenario in a very positive way. The viewers are already in a football-watching mood as all the action is on and hence we don’t need to put some special efforts to engage their attention. Moreover, managers were well aware that the players will leave during this period to serve their nations and hence they should have no reasons to be upset. The long going debate about calendar gap is FIFA’s prerogative to solve.”

     

    While traditionally, broadcasters acquire sporting events’ rights for the long-term, in this case Sony Six has picked up the rights only for 2015. This is an experiment for both the hosting organization and the broadcaster. The viewership numbers and popularity of the aired matches will, in turn, determine whether the association will grow further.
     
    With this acquisition Sony Six aims at establishing itself as a home for international football. Krishnan sees this increased football coverage as a positive move towards improvising the sport in basic level. “The final goal is to see India playing in tournaments with international importance and as we broadcast more of the sport in India, we will see kids following them and someday we may have a strong football team. As far as Sony Six is concerned, we will not only restrict ourselves to international football. Whenever we see an opportunity to acquire club action, we will catch on to it.”

     

    No media or marketing campaign to promote the tournament to viewers is on the cards as of now. “We didn’t have too much time to promote the tournament so we are not looking at a specific marketing campaign.”

     

    Though the tournament is filled with established stars, one will have to wait and watch how AFCON establishes itself in the midst of action packed Club football.

     

  • Sony Six earns highest viewership in 2014

    Sony Six earns highest viewership in 2014

    MUMBAI: Sony Six amassed over 181 million viewers all over India in 2014. The channel saw 40 per cent of its viewership (74.1 million) coming from the youth segment (15-35 years age group), whereas 45 per cent of the total viewers (82 million) were female viewers. Both figures are the highest for any sports channel in calendar year 2014 (Source: TAM, CS 4+, All India).

     

    Sony was the second most viewed network in terms of total sports viewership, GVMs (gross viewers in millions) by any network. The Sony Network contributed 5,635 GVMs, across all the sports offering in 2014. The figures are cumulative GVMs accumulated by the coverage of all sporting events by the channels within the respective network.

     

    Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said, “It is a proud moment for us, as 2014 has been a defining year for the channel. We have established ourselves as one of the leading sports broadcasters in the country just within two years of our launch. With an exciting line-up for 2015 we hope to carry forward the momentum and serve a diverse brand of sports programming, which has hitherto not been seen on Indian television.”

     

    The channel began the year by airing the Indian cricket team’s tour of New Zealand, which gave an immediate thrust to its viewership. This was soon followed by the telecast of two of the biggest sporting events of the calendar year in Pepsi IPL and the FIFA World Cup 2014. In terms of other marque properties, NBA witnessed a significant rise in its viewership during the playoffs and the finals of its last season, which concluded earlier this year.

     

    Besides that they also managed to earn broadcasting rights of events like Australian Open Tennis and African Club of Nations football.

     

  • World Kabaddi League features in top sporting properties in inaugural year

    World Kabaddi League features in top sporting properties in inaugural year

    MUMBAI: After its initial season, the Wave World Kabaddi League (WKL) attracted an aggregate reach of just over 101 million individuals as per TAM India in its very first edition placing it among the top five sporting properties in India, claim the organisers.

     

    This is both in terms of viewers as well as visibility to sponsoring brands. The league, which was telecast live on Sony Six, also garnered 1.5 million views on YouTube with 60 per cent of the views coming in from the diaspora in United States, Canada, UK and as far as Italy. Additionally an estimated 50 million reach was acquired through international feed in Pakistan, Middle East, Europe, US and Canada.

     

    WKL CEO Raman Raheja said, “We are overjoyed with the response to the WKL in its very first year. The idea of keeping the latter and final parts of the WKL in India, where the sport is extremely popular, also paid rich dividends in terms of TV exposure for the sponsors. We are now looking to a bigger event in the second edition.”

     

    Repucom, a research company that measures ROI for all sports across the world, gave an interesting comparison of WKL’s sponsored property exposure on TV as compared to other sports. Repucom India analyzed that the 86 matches played during the first season garnered as many as 143 hours of screen exposure, which translated into an hour and 40 minutes of exposure per match.

     

    The event as a whole received media value worth Rs 301,02,60,323 for 86 matches with an average worth of Rs 3,50,03,027 per match.  Wave Infratech’s media value was put at Rs 135,90,62,603 for all the matches at an average Rs 1,58,03,054 per match.

     

    Title sponsors, Wave Infratech, earned maximum visibility and ROI with 45 per cent of share compared to all the other sponsors exhibited during the event. Among other main properties, the static board earned 37 hours on screen exposure (18 per cent share compared to other sponsors) and the  Jersey front was the second leading property with 22 hours on screen exposure (19 per cent share compared to other sponsors).

     

    Repucom South Asia/India director and senior vice president- Joseph Eapen said, “We recommend that teams acquire more sponsors on the team apparels like jersey front, jersey back, jersey side, chest logo and trousers to cash the exposures and value from apparels.”

     

  • Sony Six to telecast Australian Open live from 19 January

    Sony Six to telecast Australian Open live from 19 January

    MUMBAI: Sony Six is set to telecast the Grand Slam of Asia Pacific region, the Australian Open, in India for duration of five years. The channel will exclusively telecast all the matches of the tournament live from 2015 till 2019.  Having shown ATP tournaments earlier, this will be Six’s first entry into broadcasting a Grand Slam event.

     

    Commenting on the development, MSM CEO NP Singh said, “Over the years, the Australian Open has established itself as one of the most watched tennis grand slams across the world. Going by the strong equity that the sport enjoys, we are committed to expand the distribution of the tournament further and thereby strengthen our position in the market.”

     

    Six EVP and business head Prasana Krishnan commented, “The tournament is seen as a season opener which sets the context for all tennis competitions that follow during the rest of the calendar year. Needless to say, we are proud to have this prestigious event as part of our bouquet of international sports content.”

     

    The Open is held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne Australia. First held in 1905, the tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year. The tournament features men’s and women’s singles; men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles and junior’s championships; as well as wheelchair, legends and exhibition events. Since 1988, the tournament has been played on hard courts at Melbourne Park.

     

    Tennis Australia CEO and Australian Open Tournament director Craig Tiley said, “I’m delighted that we are partnering with MSM in India for the Australian Open. MSM presented a compelling proposition and demonstrated a commitment to promote the event and the sport of tennis in India cementing our position as the Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific.”

  • Sony Six acquires rights for Africa Cup of Nations

    Sony Six acquires rights for Africa Cup of Nations

    MUMBAI: Sony Six has bagged the rights to air the Africa Cup of Nations 2015 live in South Asia. The tournament is the international football championship of Africa held every two years and organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).The upcoming edition of the tournament will be played in Equatorial Guinea from 17 January to 8 February 2015.

     

    This year’s edition will be the first ever to be shown live in India and will feature line-ups of teams such as Ghana, Ivory Coast and South Africa. Some of the stars headlining the Africa Cup of Nations this year include Christian Atsu, Papiss Cisse, Asamoah Gyan (Ghana),Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure, Cheick Tiote, Wilfried Bony (Ivory Coast) and Diafra Sakho (Senegal).

     

    Commenting on the acquisition, Sony Six business head Prasana Krishnan said, “The rights for the Africa Cup of Nations are a great addition to our bouquet of live sports programming. This reinforces our position as the home for the top international football tournaments. Furthermore, most of the matches from the tournament are going to be telecast here at prime time, which will boost its viewership in our region.”

     

    This year’s Africa Cup of Nations will guarantee a new champion, as Nigeria, the winners of the last championship did not qualify for the tournament. The opening match will be played between the hosts Equatorial Guinea and Congo at Estadio de Bata and shown live on Six SD and HD on 17 January, 2015 at 9:30pm.
            

     

  • The year of improved sports marketing and production

    The year of improved sports marketing and production

    The year 2014 may have seen a few new leagues coming up but cricket very clearly rules the roost both from an on ground and on air perspective.  While gap between cricket and other sports have shortened, it’s still quite significant.  Indian Super League (ISL) has begun well with aggressive marketing and managed to garner eyeballs for Indian football. ISL has also garnered encouraging response from advertisers. For the first time a non-cricket sports has more than six central on ground sponsors.  Though lot of work need to be done in the grass root development of football, it’s been a great beginning considering its first season.

    Moving onto FIFA, the market in India for the sport is growing every four years as can be seen from the last three editions.  We have beaten the benchmarks of 2010 in 2014. It also generated lot of hype that helped garner newer audiences and fan base. Overall football, as a sport is growing and FIFA being the biggest football tournament has managed to score on all counts. The cumulative efforts over the last five to eight years, by  FIFA, European Soccer Leagues and the broadcast community backed by audience desire to see a more local flavor of football has helped in the formation of the ISL. 

    The surprise package of 2014 was the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), a pleasant surprise I must say. It was a league which was very well marketed and packaged with fantastic production value. While everyone thought of Kabaddi as rural sports, it’s quite interesting to see viewership numbers ticking from metros.  Looking forward to season 2 of PKL with a hope that it continues to attract audience and build stickiness.

    Indian Badminton League (IBL) launched in 2013 with top international talent and lot of fan following, missed the show in 2014. Hope to see IBL back with bigger and better show in 2015. The Hockey India League (HIL) also showcased fabulous production quality and packaging. HIL has also managed to grab reasonable response from advertisers till now. Currently with the fabulous winning performance of team India, in 2015 we would like to see a better marketing of HIL to attract and hold audience attention.

    The Champions Tennis League (CTL) and the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) both failed to generate buzz because of lack of marketing efforts. CTL has been a bit disappointing with respect to the production value, while IPTL’s production was world class. Expectations from IPTL were quite high considering the participation of big current stars and legends like Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Pete Sampras, Serena Williams etc…. Aspirational and emotional connect with IPTL was very high for the fans who have been following tennis for more than two decades. It was like a dream coming true to see the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Pete Sampras, Serena Williams or even Sania Mirza playing in India. There was high interest in fans to go and see their heroes play live and get to meet them or get a closer glimpse of them.  But would that translate into TV viewership is something we will have to wait and watch. Therefore while CTL’s structure is towards building affinity for tennis as a sport with a hope that more Indian start playing the game. IPTL is clearly going after the experience of getting up and close with the big international stars and ride on their popularity to garner eyeballs. However considering the structure of both leagues, the overall objective of both leagues is little unclear.

    Marketing and production values of these sports have been a key highlight this year.  Sport marketing in India has been ahead of the curve in terms of marketing and production value. Great production values along with a greater thrust on marketing has led to a stronger audience and advertising interaction.

    ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 is the biggest sporting event in 2015 and will continue to attract audience in large numbers. The advertising pie will grow and be bigger than 2011 as other sports are still catching up and are in the development phase.

     

    (These are purely personal views of GroupM ESP national director entertainment sports and live events Vinit Karnik and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views)

  • Sony Six’s on-ground activities push NBA’s viewership

    Sony Six’s on-ground activities push NBA’s viewership

    MUMBAI: If numbers are to be believed then basketball has started getting its due in the cricket-crazy country.

     The National Basketball Association (NBA) is seeing its popularity levels scale upwards on television thanks to a wide on-ground marketing push. Sony Six, which broadcasts the NBA action, has seen a 70 per cent increase in its viewership this season, claims the channel. When asked about the reasons behind the same, the channel’s business head Prasana Krishnan says, “One, the overall penetration and popularity of the game is increasing in India.  Two, our on-ground marketing initiatives in 16 cities, which propelled this growth. We have been marketing the brand and product intensively.”

    NBA India and Multi Screen Media (MSM) had signed a three year television agreement beginning 2012.

    NBA India, this year, launched its on ground activity, the NBA JAM in 16 cities. The event which took place from 22 September to 6 December featured a 3 on 3 tournament format, which had more than 3,000 teams participating. The tournament also saw more than 600 colleges participating. The 16 cities included Chennai, Guwahati, Kochi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Nagpur, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Indore, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai. In Mumbai, celebrity Neetu Chandra was roped along with the Sacramento Kings dance team, who were flown in from the US to entertain fans during the event.

    Krishnan says that one of the key learning’s for the channel from this season was that it witnessed a growth in southern markets. “Last year, we visited only Bangalore and Hyderabad. This year, besides these two, we also visited Kochi and Chennai where these markets have improved. So have also interior markets, like Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Chandigarh etc.” Krishnan informs.  It was also the core marketing proposition of the channel during the launch this year.

    The business head opines that the potential for continued growth in non-cricket sports properties is very high and the challenge ahead for the channel would be to continue the momentum. He feels that the biggest challenge ahead can be transformed into the biggest opportunity which is to make the sport better entrenched and bigger in the country.

    Speaking on this success of the new found sport, Group M ESP national director- entertainment sports and live events Vinit Karnik says, “After football, if there is a low hanging fruit, it is basketball. This is because most schools in India have had a basket, if not a proper court.  It is one of the most sampled sports at the school level but since for a long time nothing concrete was organised for players in the country, the game never got its dues. But with NBA and its 3 by 3 format, these schools and colleges will bring the sport back in lime light and the potential is set to grow.”