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Tag: SonyLiv

  • Sony Six rakes in ad rev from BBL despite slow start

    Sony Six rakes in ad rev from BBL despite slow start

    MUMBAI: The second most popular domestic T20 cricket tournament in the world after Indian Premier League (IPL) is Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL). The Cricket Australia rights, which were with Star India from 2011-12 to 2016-17, have now been acquired by Sony Pictures Network (SPN) India for the next six years till 2022-23.

    After losing the media rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to rival Star India, SPN has gone ahead and acquired the exclusive media rights of Cricket Australia–men’s international matches for the next six years, beginning with the Magellan Ashes series in November 2017. The network has also acquired the media rights for women’s international cricket played in Australia, the BBL and the Women’s BBL.

    According to All India BARC data, for the first 11 matches of the league on Star Sports 2, including the HD and the SD feeds, in the 2016-17 season, the channel got 6.4 million impressions. SPN India, however, garnered just 4.3 million impressions for the same number of matches, which were being telecast on Sony Six SD and HD.

    Collocation of channels plays an important role in attracting viewers. On most direct-to-home (DTH) platforms, the sports cluster begins with the Star Sports bouquet.

    Both networks in their first 11 matches had eight advertisers on board each but Star Sports (2016) had 2764 ad insertions compared to 3469 insertions on Sony (2017), an increase of 26 per cent according to BARC data.

    Though Cricket Australia considers Star India a favourite, it is learnt that after winning the IPL rights, the broadcaster was not very keen on paying a hefty sum for the Australia rights. SPN’s payout for the deal could not be ascertained till the filing of this report.

    Cricket Australia has been targeting $200 million per year from all the broadcasting deals. In Australia, Channel Ten paid $100 million for a five-year deal which expires at the end of the current season.

    Apart from Cricket Australia, SPN has five international cricket boards—South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe. The ongoing cricket series is the India tour of South Africa.

    Interestingly, fans seem to prefer Sony’s over-the-top (OTT) platform SonyLiv for sporting events despite the choice of entertainment shows it offers. At present, more than a third of SonyLiv’s traffic is garnered by its sporting properties.

    Also read:

    The BCCI India rights conundrum

    Star and BCCI pull out all stops to make the VIVO IPL 2018 Retention event – an unprecedented success

     

  • GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    GST fails to spoil Food Food’s party

    MUMBAI:  When largely all television channels were struggling in the aftermath of the goods and services tax (GST) implementation, Food Food channel remained insulated from all the brouhaha. Celebrity chef and promoter Sanjeev Kapoor, speaking to Indiantelevision.com, said that the channel he co-founded saw no adverse impact of the tax that has been the bane of existence of many media companies.

    The food content channel is run by Turmeric Vision Private Ltd, a joint venture between Kapoor, Astro Overseas Ltd and Mogae Consultants.

    “Bigger channels might have been impacted but not us,” he said. Food content is always on people’s minds even as male viewership has been increasing as the taboo of men entering the kitchen is fading away. “The primary viewership today isn’t always female. There is great interest from the male audience, too, which wasn’t the case earlier.”

    Unlike other content such as automobiles or sports, food is a universally loved topic. Everyone relates to it and food lovers will especially gobble it up. He said that India had three types of entertainment preferences–Bollywood, cricket and food, which wasn’t very hot until recently.

    According to media reports in 2016, the network saw an investment of around $30 million (around Rs 180 crore) and had incurred operating loss, which kept reducing year-on-year. The company achieved break even in financial year 2016-17. “We are confident that 2018 will be far better than 2017,” he said.

    Kapoor dismisses the idea of constantly thinking of improving a channel’s ratings and repackaging shows in order to ramp up viewership. Instead of calculating the impact via ratings, the channel focuses on reaching relevant homes. “If we want to be in the top of ratings chart, we will have to create the next Naagin of food and we don’t want to do that. We want to stay focussed on our content, which is more trust centred. So, the ratings are relatable for general entertainment channels (GECs) but our relevance is towards more advertisers.”

    Digitally, Food Food looks at recipe-based content while TV is all about storytelling. Although Kapoor admits that over-the-top (OTT) platforms are important, the channel doesn’t have any app-specific content yet. Instead, the channel’s social media is very active. Moreover, Food Food has associated with SonyLiv and Jio for providing live shows to the platforms; in three months, Kapoor said, the company will analyse the results and decide the future roadmap. Partnerships with two more undisclosed OTT platforms are on the anvil.

    Food Food was the first channel to go high definition (HD) in India. The channel is aware that standard definition (SD) is still more prevalent in the country and, therefore, also distributes its content in SD.

    Food primetime is 1 pm to 5 pm and 8 pm to 11 pm. Kapoor believes that in the food genre, it is not the celebrity chefs behind the channel’s success but is the channel that makes the chef a star.

    Food Food already has presence in the US (Dish Network), Canada, the UAE and Qatar and owns the IP rights to over 2600 hours of programming. It has also syndicated around 1000 hours of programming internationally to the likes of airlines, news channels in South India and to Colors in the US.

    Also Read: Chef Kapoor-promoted Food Food bolsters ops with Amagi Cloudport

    Food content dominates viewership on lifestyle channels

  • 2017: The year OTTs went regional in India

    2017: The year OTTs went regional in India

    MUMBAI: Over-the-top (OTT) services were undoubtedly the centre of attraction in 2017. The boom in India’s internet users, mainly aided by the growth of Reliance Jio, ensured that OTT players got the right reception and target audience. Not just  mainstream TV broadcasters but even smaller players exponentially increased their consumer engagement on digital.

    Viewership increased as data cost decreased. Consumers were entertained and content makers got a boost to create fresh stories. The online content library was flooded with genres like comedy, thriller, drama, romance, rom-com, suspense, action, humour, reality, etc.

    Regional India was the focal point for 2017 and will continue to be in 2018. It also enabled new companies to take a risk in the OTT space. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati languages have been pampered the most by the creators.

    Comedy emerged as the ultimate king in 2017 along with the rise of stand-up comedy. Ideas increased and so did production cost due to competition. Movies jumped over TV to directly go for digital movie premieres. However, this turned out to be a costly affair for OTT players but a good bargain for producers.

    Another trend was of creators holding IP rights for content instead of the platform.

    There’s no shortage of OTT platforms now, just like the rising number of TV channels. Let’s take a look at how some of the main players performed last year.

    Amazon Prime

    Amazon Prime, which recently completed one year in India, hiked its annual subscription fee to Rs 999 from the initial annual subscription of Rs 499 in India. In its first month, Amazon had 5.82 million active users, according to data from app tracker App Annie. That number almost doubled by May to 9.57 million. Total engagement time tripled from 622 million minutes to 1,815 million minutes in the same period. In the month of August, Amazon India had a big fall when its director and country head, Nitesh Kripalani resigned, but then Vijay Subramaniam, who has been in the entertainment industry for 25 years, joined Amazon for the interim as content head in June 2017.

    It launched the first original series Inside Edge in collaboration with Excel Media & Entertainment in July 2017, which is now available on Apple TV, Sony PlayStation and Vodafone along with the library of Amazon Prime. The OTT platform is expected to come up with four Indian originals series, i.e., Breathe, The Remix, Comicstaan and Mirzapur in 2018.

    Amazon realised that kids content will play an important role. It tied up with Green Gold Animation for Chhota Bheem and its new series Kalari Kids. It also commissioned an animated version of mega-blockbuster Baahubali.

    Amazon Prime Video has bet big on Indian movies by releasing them on the platform before they leave theatres. It has signed a digital rights deal for five movies of Bollywood actor Salman Khan before it goes on to television for $10 million. Tubelight was the first and Salman’s next four movies, including Tiger Zinda Hai, will come to Prime first, television next. It has also bagged the streaming rights for the movies like Lipstick Under My Burkha, 2.0, Arjun Reddy and much more along with the streaming rights for the year’s most controversial movie – Padmavat.

    Comedy is a big market in India, so Amazon went after it by associating with OML for 14 exclusive stand-up comedy specials and six new series created by stand-up comedians like Anuvab Pal, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Kenny Sebastian, Zakir Khan, Sumukhi Suresh and Varun Thakur. 

    Viu

    Viu, the OTT video service by PCCW, focused on regional content in the year 2k17 and extended the library with over 3000 hours of compelling original content in Asia. As of October 2017, the global number of downloads was 26 million to which India contributes 9.5 million. Viu rolled out its first ad campaign titled ‘Kaaf feels Bro’ from 28 August. The company has appointed Times Network’s Shantanu Gangane as the head of marketing of Viu in January. It has also enrolled Eros International Media’s Sameer Gogate as distribution and monetisation head of Vuclip for converting certain costs in revenues through non-ad revenues.

    In the beginning of the year, the platform promised to create long and short form regional original shows and started with Telugu as a region with shows such as Cinema Pichollu, Pelli Gola and PillA as well as Gehraiyaan, Spotlight, No. 1 Yaari, Munching with Mahathalli and Social. It also experimented with cricket comedy chat shows like What the Duck and Virender Sehwag’s micro-original Viru ke Funde. Viu also partnered with Nicotex for an adventure journey series I Can You Can. Apart from Indian languages, it has a big original content library of Korean language shows, which is now available for Indian audience. It inked a licensing deal with content house Shemaroo Entertainment to access a handpicked catalogue of Hindi movies.

    Viu created a new trend of bilingual content in Telugu and Hindi like Social, which is the first such show. There will be more bilingual shows next year.

    As a part of the global strategy, Viu has formed strong partnerships with Samsung, Micromax, Vikram Bhatt’s Loneranger Productions and Annapurna Studios for creating refreshing original localised content that keeps the viewers glued.

    Amazon’s Fire TV streaming stick, which launched last month in India, has added Vuclip’s streaming service Viu as an app on its platform.

    Hotstar

    As an early entrant in the OTT space, Hotstar has been building a differentiated proposition for its free and premium users comprising local and international TV shows, movies and live sports, helping it cross 175 million downloads and 60 million users in January 2017. Hotstar continues to have the largest number of active users about 69 million in May, according to AppAnnie. Based on the November report, Hotstar topples the chart across all platforms with 15 billion minutes total time spent in the month.

    Hotstar has appointed Punitha Arumugam as platform evangelist, with the mandate to showcase the power of the platform to India’s leading brands. 

    This year, Hotstar launched an original series in Tamil, in association with celebrated film director, Balaji Mohan, titled As I’m Suffering from Kadhal on 6 June. Apart from Tamil, the series was dubbed in Telugu,with English subtitles available for both languages. Hotstar brings back comedy show Sarabhai vs Sarabhai this year. It streamed Kabaddi World Cup in Ahmedabad in stereoscopic 3D virtual reality. News platforms like Republic TV and ABP News were added to its live feed.

    Disney acquired 21st Century Fox in December but before the acquisition could take place, Hotstar inked a multi-year SVOD deal with Disney India to showcase the studio’s hits exclusively on its premium offering in India which includes movies like Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney’s The Jungle Book and Moana, Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange, Disney.Pixar’s Finding Dory amongst others.

    The highly anticipated premiere of Game of Thrones Season 7 launched on the platform on 17 July, with the first episode available for viewing within minutes of its American telecast.

    A new storytelling format, CinePlay, was launched under its originals banner that showcased classics and contemporary stories from the theatre world presented in a cinematic fashion. In April, Hotstar became the first ‘Made in India platform’ to cross 100 million downloads on Google Play Store and crossed more than 200 million downloads across Play Store, App store and other Android app stores.

    Jio TV

    The game changer of telecom and digital industry, Jio TV, has recently launched a web version of JioTV app which allows Jio users to access over 500 TV channels. This service was previously exclusive to mobile users via the app. Now with the support for web platform, users will be able to access TV channels through their web browser as well.

    Reliance Jio offers a suite of apps which includes JioTV, JioCinema, JioMusic, and more. Jio’s suite of apps is free along with the Jio Prime membership and users can enjoy all the content on these apps for free. On the other hand, JioTV, an online version of cable TV, that’s free as of now, has partnerships with almost all national and regional channels, and allows users to stream content up to seven days old. It also has JioCinema, which is a free movie streaming service.

    Jio had 42 million users in May and gained momentum in a short while with free data and free content service. Based on the November report by App Annie, Jio TV grabs the second position leaving behind all the OTT players with 8.8 billion minutes total time spent on the platform in the month.

    Netflix

    Netflix’s focus this year was entirely content, partnerships and technology to build a great experience in India. IT has announced six original productions in the country, namely Sacred Games, Selection Day, Again, Bard of Blood in association with Red Chillies Entertainment, our first kids original series from India, Mighty Little Bheem and Love Per Square Foot, the first mainstream film from India to be exclusively available on Netflix. Over 2017, Netflix tied up with Airtel Digital TV, Videocon and Vodafone to make it easier for Indian consumers to watch Netflix, whether on a set-top box or on a mobile.

    Simran Sethi joined Netflix International Originals Production Group in August after leaving the position of SVP of scripted development at Disney’s Freeform to lead the creative Indian content. Netflix executive Nick Nelson moved to Ownzones Media Network as the new head of product innovation.

    According to a Netflix survey, Indians are the second-highest public bingers in the world (88 per cent), just behind Mexico (89 per cent).

    SonyLiv

    SonyLiv played safe this year. It launched the first regional original series, in the Marathi language titled YOLO – You Only Live Once, conceptualised and developed by Indian Magic Eye. Later, it launched the first ever Gujarati rom-com web series titled Kacho Papad Pako Papad in May. SonyLIV and Jossbox have co-produced a web-series called House Proud. In the month of October, the platform came up with the second season of the home-grown originalLoveBytes 2 focussed primarily on youth issues. In association with Beyond Originals, SonyLiv served the last original of 2017 titled Black Coffee. Along with that, to see India fit-n-fine, in the beginning of the year, it launched health and wellness segment LIV Fit.

    SonyLiv partnered with Web Talkies, Pocket Aces (for Filter Copy and Gobble) and Fanform Mediaworks for originals content. It bet long on short films from the catalogue of Pocket Films by including 50 award-winning shorts in its bouquet. It joined hands with super chef Sanjeev Kapoor and food YouTubers like Rajshri Foods, Varun Inamdar and Ruchi Bharani to expand its unique food content library. 

    SonyLiv has appointed Times Internet’s regional head Maruti Indoria as national sales head for its sports division in February.

    To expand the reach, it has signed deals with Videocon d2h, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV to enable customers to access a seamless broad selection of content available on SonyLIV app.

    Voot

    Viacom18’s digital venture Voot was a complete package of fun without pay. However, they unlike others, it planned a significant regional line-up for the next year. It launched several web series back to back this year which includes Time Out, Yo Ke Hua Bro, Stupid Man Smart Phone and Untag.

    Voot has also put the spotlight on the kids section and rolled out a hi-decibel TVC campaign to promote it Voot Kids in Hindi, Kannada and Marathi. It has included various internationally acclaimed characters in its kitty and aims to expand their kids library with 30 plus shows in the year 2018. In association with HDFC, Voot has launched digital talent hunt show for kids in the mid of the year.

    In its partnership with Google, Voot has turned its mobile website into a Progressive Web App (PWA) and won the coveted International Broadcasting Convention 2017 (IBC2017) Innovation Award for Content Distribution for its Progressive Web App (PWA) product – Voot Lite, in Amsterdam on 17 September. Next year, it is experimenting with making video available offline on its PWA.

    The key strategy of streaming Bigg Boss has awarded the platform with 550 million views till date and 60 minutes average time spent per viewer per day. However, shows like Splitsvilla, which is watched 52 per cent by males, has also added 150 million views.

    In 2017, Voot has gained 32 million monthly active users, six million plus daily active users and 50 minutes time spent per viewer per day. Their daily time spent has taken it to the second position after Netflix, according to App Annie November report. Also, it has secured third position with 7.5 billion minutes total time spent on the platform across all OTT platforms, followed by Hotstar and Jio TV, reported by App Annie.

    ALTBalaji

    ALTBalaji, the ad-free subscription-based platform that launched this year on 16 April with seven originals, today has 12+ original shows available on the platform apart from original regional stand-up comedy in languages like Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati and content for kids. ALTBalaji recently launched the first Bengali original show Dhimaner Dinkaal and also has a Tamil original Maya Thirrai on the app and the website. It launched a big bunch of Hindi web series including Romil & Jugal, Bewafaa sii Wafaa, Boygiri, Class of 2017, CyberSquad, Pammi Aunty, Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat Season 1, Dev DD, Ragini MMS Returns and BOSE: Dead/Alive.

    ALT’s kid’s kitty is full with twelve shows including Get Crafty With Rob, Ding Dong Bell L-O-L, Moe Doe, Happy Lucky ki Katti Batti, Mademoiselle Zazie, Ratz, Nursery Rhymes and many more.

    Last year, Nachiket Pantvaidya was promoted to Group COO of Balaji Telefilms. In his current role as the Group COO and CEO ALTBalaji, Nachiket has additional responsibilities at Balaji Telefilms across the television and movie business.

    Within six months of its launch, ALTBalaji has been ranked amongst the top three revenue-grossing video streaming apps in the country, as per ‘State of Video Streaming Apps in India’ report compiled by App Annie Intelligence.

    ALT will begin 2018 with its Urdu language original series title Haq Se along with three Hindi originals The Test Case, Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat Season 2 and Mangalyaan.

    ZEE5, Ozee & Ditto TV

    The year was quite low key for Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited’s (Zeel) already existing digital platforms Ozee and DittoTV. In the mid of the year, Zeel announced the launch of its new digital entertainment platform ZEE5. Existing platforms Ozee and DittoTV will be defunct and merge into the new platform Zee5, and the subscribers of both the existing platforms will be auto-upgraded. On Zeel’s 25th anniversary celebration, it launched the new logo of ZEE5.

    Yupp TV

    YuppTV, this year, added a new category of original series to its bouquet of offerings. It partnered various directors and production houses to provide original video content. Mid-year, it launched its first series, Endukila, written and directed by Laxman Karya. Later in November, YuppTV along with prominent producer Swapna Dutt, Vijayanthi Movies has launched another new web original Mana Mugguri Love story.

    YuppTV partners with leading production house, Yash Raj Films, to offer premium Hindi cinema to its subscribers on YuppFlix. Vodafone has also joined hands with YuppTV to expand its Vodafone Play service. It collaborated with cab aggregator Ola for its connected car platform for ridesharing, Ola Play.

    YuppTV, recently received funding from Emerald Media, a Pan-Asian platform established by leading global investment firm KKR for investing in the media and entertainment sector, wherein Emerald Media acquired a significant minority stake in the company for US$50mn.  YuppTV had earlier raised its Series A round of funding from Poarch Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama.

    Sun NXT

    Sun TV Network launched its digital content app compatible with every screen format, ranging from smartphones to living room TV called Sun NXT. The platform has a movie library of over 4000 titles, over 40 channels streaming live and catch-up TV programmes in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. The company claimed that the app had already crossed more than 1.1 million downloads, within four days from its launch.

    Hoichoi

    Shree Venkatesh Films (SVF), a media and entertainment company of West Bengal, launched the first ever Bengali digital platform Hoichoi in September. In the last few months, the platform has released ten originals – Hello, Cartoon, Holy Faak, Dupur Thakurpo, Byomkesh, Bouma Detective, Paranoia Series, Bhootoorey and Stand Up across multiple genres like drama, detective, adult comedy, rom-com, thriller and non-fiction. The platform is aiming to expand the reach by launching on Amazon Fire TV, Roku TV and Apple TV in January 2018.

  • SonyLIV shows the love for football

    SonyLIV shows the love for football

    MUMBAI: Every football fan in India understands the hurdles that fans of the sport must put up with. Taking a cue from this, SonyLIV, the OTT platform of Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has designed and created a new TVC that addresses the challenges of India’s ardent football fans.

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    Conceptualised by Publicis Ambience, the film speaks about the fans and how their love for the game scores over their attachment to individual leagues, clubs or players.

    SonyLIV is the biggest platform for all major football championships like UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and the upcoming FIFA world cup Russia 2018 and much more. With over 3000+ live matches and 4000+ hours of football sporting action, SonyLIV is the biggest virtual arena for all viewing football. 

    SPN EVP and head of digital business Uday Sodhi says, “With the growing football following in the country, we at SonyLIV believe that it’s about time that fans are informed about a legitimate and versatile online platform that will enable viewership access to their favourite games.  This consumer insight is what led us to create a first of its kind unique campaign which is a dedication to the fans. We are certain our consumers will see merit in it.”

    Publicis Ambience chief operating officer Paritosh Srivastava adds, “In India, football is considered as the minority sport as it is dominated by cricket. Through this TVC, SonyLIV engages with the fans and celebrates their undying passion for the sport.”

  • Regional content on ALTBalaji to constitute 15% of show hours

    Regional content on ALTBalaji to constitute 15% of show hours

    MUMBAI: The year 2017 has witnessed the phenomenal growth of regional languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali, over Hindi and English. OTT players like ALTBalaji, Viu, Amazon, SonyLIV, Voot, Hotstar, Netflix, and YuppTV have taken a deep dive into offering regional content this year.

    ALTBalaji CMO Manav Sethi observes that though English is a niche audience in India, most competitors aren’t focusing on originals beyond Hindi. “We realised that consumption from non-HSM has been growing where people watched these shows with subtitles. We have also noticed traffic coming from states and cities where these languages are predominant. Then we started to integrate the ‘potential’ universe from a marketing point of view to the ‘consumption’ universe and that is when interesting patterns and trends started to emerge. At that point, we started to invest in creating these stories in languages apart from Hindi as there is latent willingness to consume and pay for it, too.”

    ALTBalaji has released its first Tamil show Maya Thirrai with 16 episodes. Not only did it get audiences from Tamil Nadu but even Tamil-speaking population from Singapore and Malaysia. Even the Bengali original Dhimaner Dinkaal’s trailer garnered traction from Dhaka. “In the next four to six quarters, we will launch originals in more languages. 15 per cent of our total show hours will be regional content and we are heavily investing in it,” adds Sethi.

    ALTBalaji has already launched its comedy show Standup in various regional languages like Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi. Now, it has announced dubbing of some of the most popular original shows like Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat, Dev DD, Bewafaa Sii Wafaa, Romil and Jugal and The Test Case in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil languages for the regional audience.

    OTT giants believe South Indian languages have the biggest growth possibility and revenue potential. Sethi ascribes the highest revenue potential to the Tamil market because it has a higher payment curve, affluent audiences who are also educated and the mobile uptake is more.

    Viu is focusing on the Telugu-speaking regions with shows such as Cinema Pichollu, Pelli Gola and Pilla. Voot hasn’t tapped any new language yet but is working on three regional series. Amazon Prime has a line-up of many new Hindi originals that will be dub in multiple languages like Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. It has already released some of the regional language blockbusters like Arjun Reddy, VIP2, Nene Raju Nene Mantri, Dhananjoy, Bhikariand others soon after their theatrical release. SonyLiv is also looking for an expansion in Marathi and Gujarati languages and it has started looking at south Indian and Bengali language now.

  • SonyLIV shows how hate converts to love in ‘Black Coffee’

    SonyLIV shows how hate converts to love in ‘Black Coffee’

    MUMBAI: Can you fall in love with someone you have always detested? They say, don’t get too personal at work, but what happens when business leads you to your true love?

    Addressing the complexities of love and taking on the concept of attraction, SonyLIV, brings to the small screen Black Coffee; a seven-episode web series by Beyond Originals.

    The series is about love changing perceptions and breaking boundaries. The series is centred around a bestselling novelist, Dhruv Narang (Param Singh) and Hemal Shah (Harshita Gaur), two individuals who are leading their lives with fixed notions about love. The story underlines the bittersweet romance of the lead couple, their constant clashes and their journey from hate to love.

    SonyLIV, EVP and head – digital business Uday Sodhi, said, “At SonyLIV, it is our constant endeavour to deliver content that not just entertains but also evokes emotions. We are happy to associate with Beyond Originals to bring entertaining yet relatable stories to the small screen. Keeping our brand ethos ‘We LIV to entertain’ in mind, we will continue to curate content that enhances viewer experience and establishes a connect with them.”

    Beyond Originals Founder Yash Patnaik said, “Black Coffee is the first of Beyond Originals’ offering of digital content. Our previous series with Sony Kuchh Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi was well-received and appreciated by the viewers. I am hoping that Black Coffee continues to spread love and be appreciated.”

  • SonyLIV to live stream Riot Games’ ‘League of Legends’

    SonyLIV to live stream Riot Games’ ‘League of Legends’

    MUMBAI: Sports has become one of the key content being watched online. The concept of esports is evolving slowly. For the digital sports lovers, SonyLIV will now live stream the year’s biggest esports event that is ‘Riot Games’ League of Legends World Championship. The championship is taking place at the Beijing National Stadium also known as ‘The Birds Nest.’

    Through SonyLIV’s association with Riot Games, viewers get access to the live stream of League of Legends’ World Championship finals – an annual event with a massive global audience.

    SonyLIV will stream the championship live on 4 November 2017 at 12:30 pm. With this association, SonyLIV users get access to watch the two teams Samsung Galaxy and SK Telecom T1 fight their battle to win the Summoner’s Cup.

    SonyLIV  EVP and head-digital business Uday Sodhi said, “SonyLIV is all about going beyond regular content and giving our audience a never seen before experience. Keeping this in mind and bringing our brand ethos ‘We LIV to entertain’ alive, we are glad to associate with Riot games to bring esports for the first time to Indian audience on the OTT platform.”

    Riot Games country manager – India Anurag Khurana said, “We are excited to partner with SonyLIV to bring the global finals of our premier esports event to an Indian audience. Riot is committed to bring the highest levels of player focused gaming entertainment to our Indian fans, who we are confident will enjoy the finals.”

    Riot Games is one of the world’s premier game developers known for their unrelenting focus on putting players first. Their initial title, League of Legends is a fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of an RTS with RPG elements and helped define the popular ‘MOBA’ (multiplayer online battle arena) genre.

    Also Read:

    SonyLIV brings English non-fiction content on unique homes

    SonyLiv plans to take unique food content to 8k hrs by Sept ’18

    SonyLiv starts streaming KBC with 7 sponsors

  • SonyLiv plans to take unique food content to 8k hrs by Sept ’18

    SonyLiv plans to take unique food content to 8k hrs by Sept ’18

    MUMBAI: Who is the first mover in the OTT space to introduce food as a genre? SonyLiv has — on World Food Day (16 October) — introduced the food genre to its existing line-up of diversified content.

    Not only that, SonyLiv is committed to bringing the best of world cuisine to its viewers and will double its exclusive food content from the existing 4000 hours, in the next 12 months.

    Giving its viewers a new level of experience of engaging with food, SonyLiv has joined hands with Padma Shri awardee, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, Rajshri Food, a popular YouTube channel featuring renowned chefs like Varun Inamdar and Ruchi Bharani, to satiate the taste-buds of food lovers and enthusiasts alike and take them on a gastronomic delight.

    SonyLiv will feature Rajshri’s episodes spanning a duration of 5-7 minutes each.

    FoodFood, an Indian food and lifestyle TV channel since 2011, will continue its run on SonyLiv by bringing the best from the culinary world to your devices, as well as engaging discussions between Kapoor and other celebrated Indian chefs like Harpal Singh Sokhi, Amrita Raichand, Anupa Das, Ajay Chopra, Shailendra Kekade, Saransh Goila, Shilarna Vaze, Vicky Ratnani, Rakesh Sethi, Shantanu Gupte and Pranav Joshi.

    Sony Pictures Networks India EVP and head – digital business Uday Sodhi: “With the introduction of the food genre, SonyLIV is committed to engaging its viewers with the best of world cuisine curated by top celebrity chefs. We have displayed our pioneering edge by being the first OTT platform in India to introduce the category of food. It is going to be a major genre on SonyLiv, going forward, in addition to entertainment and sports.”

    Kapoor says: “Via this association with SonyLiv, I hope to repeat the same success in the digital world. Experimentation and innovation are the key pillars for any chef, and we will display the best that world cuisine has to offer.”

    Rajshri Foundation trustee Neha Barjatya says: “Rajshri YouTube channel has over 800 pure vegetarian recipes. This association will add to the richness of content available on SonyLiv.”

  • LoveBytes 2: SonyLiv’s Sodhi says prime focus is youth issues; international Aus matches after Diwali

    LoveBytes 2: SonyLiv’s Sodhi says prime focus is youth issues; international Aus matches after Diwali

    MUMBAI: What happens when love revisits your door and you decide whether to let it in or not. This is today’s basic situation which youth is facing, according to SonyLiv team.

    Addressing this confusing state of mind that most of us go through, SonyLiv takes on the concept of love, break-ups, unrequited love and the repercussions of the ‘second chances’ with the second season of its signature web series LoveBytes, with LuvIt.

    The new season got under way on 11 October 2017.

    SonyLiv EVP and digital business head Uday Sodhi said, “Season first was a great success in terms of gaining audience. We wanted to create a new audience for OTT. And now, we have audience who would come to us to watch our originals. LoveBytes season 2 is an expensive series with six television actors in it, and the production cost per episode is more than the cost of a television episode. The shooting of LoveBytes season 2 has been done on locations in Mumbai, Lonavala and Madh Island.”

    LoveBytes season 2 came after two years of season 1, which released in September 2015. Sodhi said, “In the last two years, we have experimented with 40 originals on our platform. Besides our sports, movies and shows offerings, originals became a new category for us which brings in a lot of digital natives who live and breathe digitally. Hence, it has created a bigger buzz for us. Therefore, we are creating more shows based on issues related to urban audience, related to youth and issues which common people face in their day to day life.”

    SonyLiv team says, “LoveBytes Season 1 beautifully encapsulates the nitty-gritties of relationships and sheds light on the things that are necessary for an urban relationship to sustain itself. The first season took us through the clicks and clashes between Ananya (Sukhmani Sadana) and Abhishek (Kushal Punjabi), a new-age couple.”

    “The first season ended on a bitter note with the lead couple Ananya and Abhishek ending their relationship. After the success of season 1, the second season takes on from there and revolves around how the two of them are dealing with their lives after choosing their individual paths. This season also introduces characters like Gunjan (Shweta Gulati), Varun (Manish Goel), Soniya (Manasi Scott) and Vikram (Ayaz Khan) who impact the relationship of Ananya and Abhishek in their own ways. The series underlines the journey of these characters, all while discovering the true meaning of love.”

    About BARC India entry into digital measurement, Sodhi said, “When there is an industry standard on the point of measurement, it helps industry to grow. We are excited about it. OTT measurement will become easier and transparent, so we are participating in the process and giving all information to BARC.”

    After Diwali, Sodhi said, SonyLiv will be streaming all men’s international matches played in Australia, beginning with the Ashes Series in November 2017 played between England and Australia.

  • Alternative sports has big demand in India & consumers willing to pay for premium content: Veqta

    Alternative sports has big demand in India & consumers willing to pay for premium content: Veqta

    Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And three sports enthusiasts live up to this adage beautifully. Building a company from ground zero to a level where it’s considered a leading digital media company is no mean achievement. The company: Veqta. The persons involved: co-founders Varun Mathur, Vikram Tanwar and Gaurav Gill.

    So, what does Veqta do? It is a leading (some say the first) Indian OTT subscription service dedicated exclusively to sports. It brings a unique selection of sports action across football, basketball, motorsports, tennis, MMA, Baseball, Fight Sports, badminton, etc. from authentic sources all over the world and the best analysis/opinions from world-class experts.

    Mathur is a former management consultant having worked with companies like TCS, Accenture, Nimbus, IMG and PGTI in leadership positions. Tanwar, apart from being a member of the founding team of Veqta, was previously the founder, CEO and MD of ITW Consulting. Similarly, Gill is also the founding partner and director at Chatsworth Management & Advisors. The company, now gets viewers for sports content, which is not available on other broadcasting and OTT platforms.       

    The business whiz-cum-sports-enthusiasts talk about their journey of a year and a half at Veqta in a free-wheeling conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Kirti Chauhan. Edited excerpts from the interview follows:

    Q. How was Veqta conceptualized and what are the changes today from the time the platform was launched?

    Gaurav Gill (GG): To design Veqta’s offerings, we were looking at the biggest catchment areas in the Indian context outside the cricket and then we started handpicking our choice of sports properties to serve the needs and demands of the Indian market. Undoubtedly, we have a sound and solid offering in fight sports like wrestling, martial art and boxing, which is the biggest category in the country after cricket. We have a strong offering for basketball lovers because the game has a high demand in urban India. South India has a fan following for motorsports. As tennis is heavily demanded but underserved sports property in India, we have kept a wide offering in the tennis category.

    Varun Mathur (VM): Life certainly has changed from the time we started this OTT platform in many ways. Most notably, when we started, it was us who chased various sports league and federations for content, but today many global sports leagues, federations and sports companies get in touch with us to have their content on Veqta.

    Q. As you have chosen a niche area of sports streaming, how much traction and viewership you are netting? What is the average time spending on Veqta?

    Vikram Tanwar (VT): We monitor user engagement on a day to day basis and have observed that users are spending fairly large time on our platform. 1.2 minute per page is the average time spent by a user and statistics say that we have an average of 11 unique page views for every user. We have crossed 150,000 downloads within a month post the subscription service launch. We have catered 1.8 million page views on Veqta’s website within the first two weeks of the subscription launch. Our digital campaign has got 1.4 billion impressions across various mediums and the campaign video has crossed five million views.

    Q. Recently, you broadcast the boxing bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. How was the response in India?

    VT: Boxing bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor was our first live property after the launch of subscription package on Veqta. Our strategy was to make the battle available only on Veqta not even on television. The boxing battle and the digital campaign was a huge success, gathering around 1.4 billion digital impressions across various mediums. Within a month of activation of a subscription package, we have crossed over 150,000 downloads. This made it clear to us that in India there is a big demand for alternative sports, apart from mainline sports like cricket, and there are people willing to pay for premium sports content.

    Q. What is the strategy behind keeping subscription low, compared to other OTT platforms’ rates?

    VT: India was an unexplored market for sports outside cricket and that’s one of the main reasons for Veqta to come alive. As sports fans, our aim was to make Veqta available to as many people and give them the comfort and flexibility to watch sports whenever and wherever on the go.

    GG: Initially, we have kept the pricing very low to make people aware of the product. If the person is genuinely interested in sports, the pricing context should not be a deterrent factor. We have an introductory offer of Rs 99 (actual cost Rs 399) to attract viewers, but it is for a limited time period. We surely want to have a sound subscription revenue based model, but at the same time, we don’t want the journey of watching sports to be difficult in India.

    Q. What is your revenue model?

    VM: Veqta is primarily a subscription-based service and so a bigger share of revenue will come from subscription. According to us, India is completely ready for a very large subscription service. For certain events, Veqta will look at sponsorship and advertising revenue, but that would be the secondary focus. In India, currently, advertisement rate is low for non-cricket sports. Being a sports-oriented service, we don’t want too much of clutter with lots of advertising on our page currently. In future, we might have sponsors’ logo along with sports content.

    Q. Do you presently have advertisers on board?

    VT: Although we do not have any advertiser on board currently, we would look forward getting them. At this juncture, we want our consumers to experience the uninterrupted live sport. Every sport is designed differently. Some sports allow us to showcase ads during a game, while some don’t. While we can fill airtime during a cricket match with ads, sports like basketball, football or tennis do not allow us to showcase uninterrupted feed along with advertising spots as in-between breaks in such games are absent.

    Q. What is your marketing strategy?

    VT: We have a focused marketing strategy, which is to acquire exclusive content rights without sharing it with any other broadcaster. We have adopted this marketing strategy from the time we have launched our subscription service and it is working efficiently. The big fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor exemplified our marketing strategy of streaming exclusive content. Also, we are using a targeted digital marketing approach through which our marketing campaign focuses on identifying the sports fan segment specifically in the country. We then interact with them over various digital platforms to engage them with Veqta.

    GG: We are currently focusing on the digital-driven campaign. Our user acquisition cost is currently exciting vis-a-vis industry norms. But in future, we would look forward at above the line (ATL) campaigns. Considering the user demographics, digital is a more efficient and effective medium compared to television in the entire spectrum of various age groups. Based on the matrix, a majority of our users currently are under 15-28 age group, which is active on digital mediums. With the help of our analytics, it is easy to track and grab more subscribers.

    Q. How is the customer acquisition done?

    VT: Our customer acquisition strategy is centered on unique content offering across sports that have a very strong offering via exclusive rights to top sports leagues, events and tournaments for the Indian territory. We use targeted digital marketing to amplify our content package with our target customers.

    Q. Do you think there is a space for a service such as Veqta when domestic players such as SonyLiv, Hotstar, Jio and international ones like Amazon and Perform Group are getting into the business of sports streaming in India?

    VM: Based on Veqta’s offerings, we don’t have direct competitors at this juncture. As compared to us, other OTT platforms like SonyLiv and Hotstar, which offer sports, talk to a different audience with different content offerings. The competitive market of OTT platforms is extremely large and diverse, which has space for multiple service providers. The OTT market space of China has got 11 sports platforms, which are running successfully. Currently, in India, we are the only dedicated sports platform. And, we believe to have a great growth opportunity having crossed the benchmark of a million users within a year. Veqta is turning out to be a great piece of a compact show for which Indian consumers are willing to pay for high-quality content.

    Q. Do you think is there any opportunity for Veqta in cricket?

    VT: We are not targeting cricket at present. At this stage, our bouquet is full of other sports like fight sports, football, basketball, table tennis and much more. We are aware of the fact that India can’t be a single sports country.

    GG: The reason cricket fans are receiving a good experience is the quality and quantity of coverage by various broadcasters and OTT platforms. At the same time, fans of other sports do not receive the same quality experience generally. Looking at this scenario, our prime focus is to address the need of non-cricket sports fans.

    Q. Are you looking at adding any new sport in Veqta’s kitty?

    VM: Veqta would be adding Cue Sports, squash, American sports, eSports, indoor sports and games and much more very soon. Apart from this, we would look to add more properties of basketball and football and more of racquet sports like tennis, badminton and squash in our kitty.

    Q. It would be really helpful if you can enumerate the sports being showcased on Veqta presently.

    VM: VEQTA is currently covering a broad spectrum of sports including boxing, MMA, wrestling, baseball, basketball, tennis, table tennis, and rugby. In tennis, we are exclusive rights holder of WTA (Women’s Tennis Association). We have the rights to broadcast International Table Tennis games. In rugby, we own the rights to stream HSBC Sevens World Series. In the rally category, we own rights to broadcast World Rally Championship. 

    Q. Would you explore adding talk shows-type content on Veqta?

    GG: We are progressively into acquiring content rights to create Veqta as the biggest sports library. We are not targeting producing content ourselves, but we have explored sports reviews, sports analysis, and pre-news shows. in the near future, we would be looking at adding sports reviews, comments, analysis, and pre-match shows. We will be focusing towards reality instead of fiction. Our immediate priority is to make sure that live sports offerings keep growing.

    Q. What type of distribution alliances would be useful for Veqta?

    VT: OTT adoption and consumption is constantly evolving and we believe that distribution alliances will help realise the true potential of any OTT offering. We are already in advanced discussions with two large telecom service providers and with one of the largest OEM handset manufacturers for distribution alliances. We are also having discussions with hardware providers to offer Veqta for the home screen and large screen viewing. These alliances might be done by pre-embedding the Veqta flagship platform in hardware and on handsets or by offering limited Veqta content through a specialist Veqta Sports offering as a part of an OTT listing/marketplace offering by the respective service providers.

    Q. As sports rights are expensive propositions how such acquisitions are funded — internal accruals or are you looking at raising funds?

    VM: We are in active discussions with companies to raise more capital. However, we have spoken about our seed funding once in media, which was Rs. 33.5 million.

    Q.  Since Veqta was a late entrant in the Indian OTT space, what were the challenges faced and benefits reaped?

    GG: OTT as a concept in India is in an evolutionary stage, so we do not consider ourselves a late entrant. As far as dedicated sports platform is concerned, we are one of the early players. Earlier entrants into space successfully introduced the term OTT to the masses, which was not only welcomed but also got a great push from the likes of Reliance Jio. After studying the market and scenario, we decided to be in the SVoD category through which we are netting good subscriber numbers. We feel the subscription-based model is the correct approach to generate good revenue.

    Q: Would you be offering sports content in Indian regional languages and from when?

    VM: We firmly believe that sports still need to touch its potential reach in India. The basic problem we face is the offering of sports in India is limited to a few languages. For example, a sport like a football has a big fan following in pockets like Kerala, West Bengal and North-East, but if the nuances are not understood by a consumer other than his/her mother tongue or in the language spoken in the region, the viewing experience could diminish. We are aiming to go forward and give more customized experience to our viewers, but not immediately. In near future, we would be able to choose some sports properties and offer commentaries and related information in various regional languages.

    Q. Is there a possibility that in future Veqta transforms into a television broadcaster?

    VT: We strongly believe in the long run OTT consumption and viewership globally across general entertainment genres will replace (traditional) television. But, our key business strategy is “never say never” as we keep striving for improvements.

    Q. What technology are you using and who has designed your backend technology?

    VT: Veqta uses the services of multiple third-party technology companies like MultiTv, Switch, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Limelight and a few more. Earlier, people were putting a lot of money in developing in-house technology. As it is difficult for niche digital broadcasters to put a huge amount of money in developing in-house technology, we prefer to use various third-party operators, including those for satellite downlink. Unlike other OTT platforms like Hotstar, Amazon Prime, SonyLiv and Voot, we play 6,000 hours of live content, which has to be accurate and efficient in terms of streaming. Ours is a tougher job as we receive IP feeds from many of our partners who are pushing content from various corners of the globe. This content bounces of several servers and IPs, so we have deployed servers closer to source to receive LIVE match feed and process it there itself, before pushing it on to the CDN. For certain other partners, we receive the LIVE matches through satellite and process the feeds here in India after downlinking them.

     

    Q. What is your glass-to-glass latency?

    VM: The signals we receive are delivered on CDN (content delivery networks), which are the high-speed global servers that cache and deliver web content instantly. With the help of good internet connectivity, our glass-to-glass latency level maintains less than one second, which is around 300 milli-seconds, much less than television and other sports OTT platforms. It is one of the reasons that we are getting more subscribers as they are willing to pay less and get quick sports updates instead of investing time and money on subscribing television channels.

    Q. Where do you see Veqta over the next five years?

    GG: Five years down the line, Veqta will be one of the dominant forces in the sports streaming and OTT ecosystems. It will evolve into a world-class sports network in terms of number of a sports broadcast, number of customers and in the number of geographies we operate in. Most probably, Veqta will be a global player in the coming five years. Also, we want every sports fan to have a fabulous world-class experience while watching best of sports from all over the world at any point of time.

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