ITV

Tag: Star India

  • Star India beefs up mobile audio service ‘Voice’

    Star India beefs up mobile audio service ‘Voice’

    MUMBAI: Pushing the ‘digital’ envelope further, Star India has announced the full-fledged launch of its mobile audio entertainment service Voice. The service now offers audio capsules of some of the leading programmes in the Star Network.

    The programmes now available on Voice include prime time soaps Kyunki Saas Bhi…, Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Kasauti Zindagi Ke, Viraasat, the afternoon serials Bhabhi and Kumkum. Also in the pipeline is, content based on the upcoming Star One celeb talent hunt show Nach Baliye 2.

    States Star Interactive senior vice president Viren Popli, “There is a ready demand for popular TV content and interactivity on the go. STAR 7827 Voice is a platform for the non-SMS, non English-speaking viewers of our channels to enable them to keep up, and interact with our channels and with their favourite shows.”

    As already reported by indiantelevision.com, Star India debuted Voice on with an audio-episode of Plus’ new prime-time show Karam Apnaa Apnaa 23 August. Now the entry of more shows on the platform has made Voice a full-fledged service, according to Popli.

    “We tested waters with Karam Apnaa Apnaa and got a very encouraging respose. This has inspired us to launch more content on Voice. STAR 7827 Voice will be fully integrated into Star channels, thereby increasing the channels’ interactivity. We are also looking to enter the Tamil Nadu market through Vijay TV,” says Popli.

    The service will be available to BSNL subscribers and Hutch, Spice (Karnataka & Punjab) will follow thereafter. To explore STAR 7827 Voice, mobile subscribers can dial in 127827 from their BSNL and 5057827 from their Hutch mobile phones for the latest in mobile content.

    The BSNL service costs RS 3.50 per minute, while the Hutch/Spice service is charged Rs 6 per minute.

  • Star India unveils interactive audio service ‘Voice’

    Star India unveils interactive audio service ‘Voice’

    MUMBAI: Star Entertainment has launched what it claims as the organisation’s biggest endeavor in the mobile entertainment space Star 7827 Voice. The interactive audio- service is kicking off with an audio-episode of Star Plus’s new prime-time show Karam Apnaa Apnaa.

    The audio episode will launch on 23 August, ahead of the soap’s premiere, which is scheduled for 29 August.

    To explore Star 7827 Voice, mobile subscribers can dial in 127827 from their BSNL mobile phones and say ‘STAR’ to get a sneak preview of what the new show Karam Apnaa Apnaa, is all about. This service will also be extended to other telecom subscribers in the due course, informs an official release.

    This May, Star India had announced a slew of initiatives to enhance & expand its services from television-focused interactivity to entertainment specially created and aggregated for the mobile screen through Star 7827.

    Says Star India Interactive senior VP Viren Popli on the new initiative, “Star 7827 is one of the key focus areas of our business and by creating such special content, we have put together an offering that synergizes our programming strength with global learnings of entertainment ‘on the go’. We will continue to make such efforts and refresh our content to offer compelling entertainment for our mobile & television consumers.”

    Adds Star India marketing’s Satya Raghavan, “Star Plus’ new prime time show Karam Apnaa Apnaa is one of the biggest launches of the year for us, therefore we wanted to extend the service of Star 7827 Voice, first with this show. Going forward we would integrate this interactive service with other ongoing programs of the channel, as well. This platform is really our endeavor to reach the consumer further, and deliver him content at his convenience and time, so he can catch up with his favorite programs, which will help him to be abreast of all that is happening on television, even when he is on the move.”

  • Trai meets broadcasters on CAS, firm on channel MRPs

    Trai meets broadcasters on CAS, firm on channel MRPs

    NEW DELHI: Broadcast regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Thursday held discussions with industry stakeholders, but was firm that a la carte pricing of channels is inevitability.

    Still, the regulator seemed sympathetic to a revenue share formula in favour of MSOs and broadcasters over and above a certain price.

    Thursday’s meeting that Trai held with some broadcasters was more of a formality as the regulator made it clear to broadcasters present that maximum retail price (MRP) of TV channels under CAS regime is coming whether some like it or not.

    According to information available with Indiantelevision.com, most participants were against a la carte pricing of channels and pitched for wholesale prices, which would give the cable operators a chance to fix some margins for themselves.

    However, Trai was categorical that as per a government mandate MRP of a TV channel under a CAS regime has to be decided and would be finalised by 31 August 2006; industry feedback notwithstanding.

    Those who attended Thursday’s meeting included representatives from Star India, Sony Discovery One Alliance, Global Broadcast Network, Zee Network and Indian Broadcasting Foundation.

    Trai has been mandated by the government to fix the norms, including pricing of individual channels, under a CAS regime, which is slated to be rolled out in the south zones of Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai from 1 January 2007.

    The government on 31 July issued a notification setting 31 December, 2006 as the deadline for the three metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata to be fully “CAS delivered” as a Delhi court had desired.

  • Dish, Star DTH cases: SC declines interim order

    Dish, Star DTH cases: SC declines interim order

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to pass any interim order on petitions filed by Dish TV and Star India relating to a disputes tribunal directive on channel pricing for the DTH platform.

    The apex court admitted both the petitions, but is yet to decide on the next date of hearing.

    Dish TV, the country’s first pay DTH platform, had petitioned to get Star channels at a cheaper rate than what had been directed by TDSAT (Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal). On the other hand, Star’s contention was that the disputes tribunal had no jurisdiction over pricing issues and had accordingly sought a stay on TDSAT’s order.

    An executive of Dish TV said, “We’d have to wait for the court directive. But in the meantime, a deal with Star can be concluded at the prescribed rate of Rs 27 per subscriber.”

    Earlier, TDSAT had said that Star should make available its channels to Dish TV at half the rate at which they are available to cable ops presently. This worked out to RS 27 per subscriber.

    It was only yesterday that Star delivered to Dish TV the integrated receiver decoder boxes that would enable the DTH operator to access its channels for redistribution purposes.

  • Channel [V] launches animated Simpoo on wireless platform

    Channel [V] launches animated Simpoo on wireless platform

    MUMBAI: Star India’s music arm Channel [V] has launched its eccentric animated character Simpoo, the math professor on the mobile platform.

    The launch of the new Simpoo Zone on the WAP site www.wap.star7827.com, the users can download the animated character on their mobile phones as wallpapers, animations, themes and soon to come video downloads.

    Star 7827 has also created a game called Super Simpoo which could be previewed on the website www.star7827.com. The Simpoo game is a Star 7827 exclusively available to BSNL, BPL, Hutch, DWL, and Spice telecom subscribers, informs an official release.

    Channel [V}’s eccentric Simpoo, India’s most popular animated character has evolved over the years from a passive Math teacher to an activist for animals, renouncing all things non-vegetarian in support of PETA. Now he enters yet another phase in his eventful life as he sets forth on a new mission of saving the school kids from giggling Gabbar, on th5e first of its kind Super Simpoo mobile game.

    Visibly excited about this new phase in Simpoo’s life, Amar K Deb, Head Honcho Channel [V} says ‘We spoke to Simpoo Sir about his foray into the wireless world and in true Simpoo style he jumped at it with the small concern that his students should not spend their Math classes playing Super Simpoo instead’.

    Commenting on the launch of the Simpoo Zone, Star India St VP Viren Popli said, “In line with our promise to offer a variety of quality and exclusive content to our consumers we are very excited about the first character from Star’s TV network that is being extended to the mobile screen as a mobile game. We have created a mobile content package on our wapsite; the Simpoo zone and we hope to bring other such popular Star TV characters onto the mobile screen in the future. With the charm of your regular eccentric college math professor, Simpoo has a very good connect with young mobile subscribers. And whatever is popular on the mobile device today, it’s out here on Star 7827.”

  • Star India to weave advertiser funded shows

    NEW DELHI: Having dominated the Indian satellite airwaves for over six years, Star India is rolling out more big ticket initiatives on the programming, marketing and new business fronts.

    And, like the legendary archer Arjuna, the company is only looking at the target: further domination of viewing space and upping its annual revenue, which has already seen a substantial jump (some say in the region of 20-30 per cent) in FY06 ended 30 June, beating industry growth rate.In FY07, with an eye on monetizing on-air popular properties, Star India has hit upon a plan, which it describes as advertiser funded shows.

    This would involve big advertisers getting a chance to have their products woven into the script and thus advertised by characters with whom millions of Indians identify — a bigger and refined version of in-film and in-serial placements of ads.

    This initiative will be kicked off from middle to end August beginning with Star Plus shows.
    “We are looking at long and strategic engagement with our clients as we don’t want to confine it to small incentives,” Star India president, ad sales and distribution, Paritosh Joshi pointed out, while explaining the rationale behind the advertiser funded shows.

    Though Joshi and marketing head Satya Raghavan were not ready to divulge further details on this, they admitted companies from various segments like automobiles, fast-moving consumer goods and telecommunication had evinced interest.

    This particular plan is most likely to be seen in channels like Star Plus, Channel [V], Star One and Star Vijay where the company has control over content creation.

    “In due course of time, our producers of shows will be informed of this move so that content can be intelligently scripted to have place for products,” Joshi said.

    As part of the gameplan for FY06, the Hindi blockbuster movies will be back on Star Plus with the charge being led by Aamir Khan-starrer neo-angst flick Rang De Basanti to coincide with India’s Independence Day on 15 August.

    The other big films include this year’s present biggest grosser Krrish, Bluffmaster, Taxi No. 9211, Amitabh bachchan-starrer Family, Chup Chup Ke and Prakash Jha’s take on the Bihar cottage industry called abduction-of-people-for-ransom Apaharan.

    After premiering on Star Plus, these movies will air on Star Gold, which, according to Raghavan, has established itself. Star Movies will bond with the best of thrills and frills via the entire series of Bond flicks.

    New shows on flagship channels Star Plus and Star One will include the epic Ramayan set in the future in Antariksh, Balaji’s Karam Apna Apna, Ektaa Kapoor-Smriti Irani joint production Thodi Si Zameen Thoda Sa Aasmaan, the adventures of an Indian Indiana Jones in Lucky, Balaji’s Kis Rishte Se and Sanjog.

    The approach for Star Plus for the coming year is simple: bring more stories with identifiable plots and characters that will hook the entire family and not any particular segment of the audience only.

    Then, of course, Star will roll out initiatives on the gaming and Internet front too to take interactivity a notch higher than what is presently seen on Star channels, says Raghavan.

  • Ajay Vidyasagar to head Star’s internet, merchandising thrust

    Ajay Vidyasagar to head Star’s internet, merchandising thrust

    NEW DELHI: Star India, the revenue-generating arm of News Corp in Asia, is picking up the global threads being woven by its parent in the Internet and merchandising space and reorganizing its workforce accordingly.

    An indication to this effect is the new responsibilities given to Star India executive vice-president Ajay Vidyasagar who had thus far been looking after the network’s marketing and communication.

    As part of the changes being effected at Star India with an eye to tap new revenue generation sources, Vidyasagar will now be also responsible for the company’s soon-to-be-unveiled new thrusts in the internet and merchandising space.

    In his new role, Vidyasagar will be spearheading Star’s initiatives on the Net, part of which will entail “giving an Indian skin” to global activities being undertaken by News Corp.

    Meanwhile, Satya Ragahvan has moved in as head of marketing of Star India. Vidyasagar, will however continue holding the portfolios of marketing and communication.

    Star sources said that activities on the Net and merchandising fronts will hot up in India in fiscal 2007 when some other major initiatives on the programming, marketing and ad sales side too will be rolled out.

    Globally, Star’s parent News Corp has been prowling the Net space aggressively, prompting the likes of advertising wiz Martin Sorrell to question this haste.

    News Corp’s biggest buy in the space was of course last year’s $580 million acquisition of youth networking website MySpace.com.

  • Lifeline KBC2: Star holds on with re-runs

    Lifeline KBC2: Star holds on with re-runs

    MUMBAI: It is official now. Star Plus is not discontinuing Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 (KBC2) even though it has exhausted its fresh bank of episodes. Instead, the channel will telecast re-runs of KBC2, starting 20 February on Fridays and Saturdays.

    “We are not winding up KBC2. We are expecting the show to make a come back with fresh episodes by March. To fill the void, we will air re-edited versions of some of the interesting KBC2 episodes for the next four weeks,” Star India EVP marketing Ajay Vidyasagar told indiantelevision.com.

    However, Vidyasagar refused to give any timeframe on Bachchan’s re-appearance to shoot for KBC2.

    “You gotta wait for me”
    As reported earlier, Star Plus aired the 61st episode of KBC2, the last fresh episode in its hold, on 13 January. Anchor Amitabh Bachchan, originally committed to shoot 85 episodes, was unable to continue shooting after his recent illness. Reportedly, Bachchan is expected to resume shooting for the remaining 24 episodes next month.

    Vidyasagar feels that, such a break (of fresh episodes) will be good for the show’s popularity. “It will create a lot of expectations across the nation. Hence, when KBC2 makes a comeback, we expect it to deliver better ratings. That would be good for advertisers as well,” he says.

    Star India had earlier re-scheduled its popular game show following Bachchan’s illness to twice a week (Friday & Saturday) instead of the original thrice a week run with effect from 2 December. In between, the channel also re-ran celebrity episodes. The channel has filled the Sunday slot left vacant by KBC2 with the serial Sai Baba.

  • B’cast, telecom industry divided on IPTV norms

    B’cast, telecom industry divided on IPTV norms

    NEW DELHI: A majority of broadcast industry stakeholders are against IPTV separated from cable service and have said this is likely to create more problems in an already vexed industry.

    A consultation paper issued by the broadcast regulator on IPTV and amendment in the Cable TV Act has drawn varied comments from stakeholders, including that IPTV should not be separated from cable TV and laws regulating it.

    “IPTV is similar to cable services in terms of content and mode of delivery. It would be appropriate to categorize it as a cable service rather than a telecom service under (the) Telegraph Act,” DTH licence holder ASC Enterprises has said.

    Agreeing with ASC is MSO Alliance, an apex body of multi-system operators in the country, which has sated that IPTV should not be dubbed a different service from cable TV.

    “Given the nature of IPTV services, which is akin to cable services, the effort on the part of regulator should be to propose amendments which would serve the purpose of keeping IPTV within cable services domain, rather than to suggest the ones which would take them away from the Cable Network Regulation Act,” MSO Alliance has said in reply to a consultation paper issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

    On the other hand, Star has said that treating IPTV differently from cable services, as had been suggested by Trai in its consultation paper, would give undue advantage to telecom companies that have been proposing to start IPTV services.

    “In the absence of parity in FDI norms, telecom operators would continue to enjoy better access to the capital required for digital broadband services. This would be to the detriment of other service providers like cable and DTH,” Star has informed Trai.

    Presently in India, foreign investment in cable TV is capped at 49 per cent, while the government has okayed a proposal to raise the limit in telecom services to 74 per cent.

    Trai had invited comments from industry stakeholders on proposed amendments in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and existing telecom licenses for facilitation of growth of IPTV services.

    The basic intention behind the proposed amendments in the Cable Television (Regulation) Act, 1995 was to keep the IPTV service outside the definition of `cable services’.

    This means that IPTV service providers would not be covered in the definition of `cable operator’ and the Unified Access Service network used for provision of IPTV services will not get covered by the definition of `cable television network’ under the Cable Act.

    The 13 stakeholders that had got back to Trai with their comments on the issue include the following: NDS, ASC Enterprises Ltd, MSO Alliance, Cable Operators Federation of India, Hathway Cable & Datacom Private Limited, Reliance Infocomm Ltd, Ortel Communications Ltd, Zee Network, Star India, Tata Teleservices Ltd and the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India

  • Vijay TV plots new gameplan for prime time

    Vijay TV plots new gameplan for prime time

    MUMBAI: Star India’s Tamil channel Vijay TV has a new prime time strategy on the anvil. The channel is presently revamping its 9 to 10 pm band and will be initiating a change in the 10 to 11 pm band as well, post July.

    Vijay TV is also in process of re-planting its morning kids band to the evening slot with an expanded time period. “We are launching a reverse quiz show, Grand Master, in the 9:30 pm weekday slot. Our existing game show Vasool Rani moves to the 9 pm slot, making the 9 to 10 pm band a total gameshow slot. The 5:30 pm to 7 pm band will be converted to a kids band in July. All the soaps placed in the 7 to 9 pm band will come to a logical ending, paving way to a new set. Later this year, we will attempt a revamp in the 10 to 11 pm time band also,” says Vijay TV GM Ravi Menon.

    Grand Master is inspired by the successful Kairali TV gameshow Ashwamedham, conceptualised by the popular Malayalam television host G S Pradeep. (Ashwamedham had been the channel driver for Kairali TV in its early years.) Pradeep himself will be anchoring Grand Master in Vijay. The show, launching on 12 June, will be promoted through movie theatres in a novel publicity drive, according to Menon.

    “We will be running the Grand Master promos in about 80 theatres in Tamil Nadu. This is a different kind of marketing strategy we have initiated to grab the eyeballs of the attentive audience,” he says.

    Meanwhile, the six-month old show Vasool Rani, which pursues the female TG as the name suggests, is being re-packaged. The studio-based show will now move to the outdoors. “In an attempt to provide variety and kill any kind of fatigue factor, we have conceptualised a Mobile Vasool Rani. Vasool Rani vans will travel across the state, making it much easier for the mass to participate in the show,” says Menon.

    After launching a chat show You and Me on Sundays, Vijay TV is now looking at beefing up the weekend programming with a youth-oriented show. Titled EQ (Entertainment Quotient), the show will be a state-wide competition to find out the college with the best ‘entertainment quotient’. Vijay TV has instituted an ever-rolling trophy for the winner of this talent hunt, making it an annual affair.

    “We are confident about the programme delivering decent returns since it has a sponsorship friendly format. It has already created a curiosity among advertisers,” says Menon.

    Speaking on the 10 to 11 pm revamp, Menon said the timeframe for this initiative would depend on how the 9 to 10 pm revamp delivers. “Presently we have the crime show Kuttram and Kathu Karuppu running in this band. This is a time band, which gets the attention of the entire family. Hence, we are looking at slightly more expanded viewership and the plan is to bring in shows which will appeal to the whole family,” says Menon.

    The show, which presently garners the best ad rates for Vijay TV is The Great Indian Laughter series. The Great Indian Laughter Challenge was followed by the Champions and now the channel is gearing up to launch the second version of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge.

    “We haven’t revised our ad rates as such, but the channel has arrived at a benchmark ad rate with the success of TGILC. The channel has now three to four shows delivering very well compared to the earlier case of having one or two good shows. Advertisers on board are surely going to benefit because they have more popular shows to invest in now,” points out Menon.