ITV

Tag: Star

  • Disney to launch international d2c OTT offering under Star brand in 2021

    Disney to launch international d2c OTT offering under Star brand in 2021

    KOLKATA: The Walt Disney Company (Disney) is going more aggressive on streaming. It will launch an international direct-to-consumer general entertainment OTT offering under the Star brand in India in the year 2021.

    The offering will be rooted in the content from the production engines and libraries of ABC Studios, Fox Television, FX, Freeform, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight. While in many markets the offering will be fully integrated into Disney+ platform from both a marketing and a technology perspective, it will be distributed under the Star brand in India.

    “In terms of the general entertainment offering internationally, we want to mirror successful Disney+ strategy by using our Disney+ technical platform, rooting it in content that we already own and distributing it under a successful international brand that we also already own which is, of course, Star and then bringing it to market in a very close association to Disney,” The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek said in the earnings call after Q3 results. 

    “In terms of the premier access idea, as you probably know, Disney tentpole blockbuster theatrical films can be fairly expensive to make and produce in order to get the quality that consumers expect from us and frankly to get the quality that we expect from us. Rather than simply rolling it into a free offering, we thought we would give again because we can test almost anything when you have your own platform. We thought we would give it a try to establish a new window – a premier access window to try to recapture some of that investment that we've got. All I'll say about our research is that it shows that such an offering under a premier access offering not only gets us revenue from the original transaction from the PVOD but also acts as a fairly large stimulus to sign up for Disney+,” he added.

  • Need to use Covid2019 situation to create 21st century content delivery biz: Uday Shankar

    Need to use Covid2019 situation to create 21st century content delivery biz: Uday Shankar

    MUMBAI: “We are in for a long, dark and scary winter,” says Uday Shankar, president, The Walt Disney Company, APAC and chairman, Star & Disney India, regarding the current situation, in an interview with ET Now. He dwelt at length on the Covid2019 crisis, its impact on the media, especially the TV business, and the road ahead.

    Regarding advertising revenue, he said, April and May are the months when advertising climaxes. “This is the time of IPL. In the seven weeks of the IPL matches, it generates six to seven thousand crores of economic value just around the IPL. And all of that has become zero this year. A larger number of advertisers wait for IPL to launch special campaigns and products. All of them have stopped."

    Regarding post-covid2019 world, he feels that life has changed a lot. “But the basics are remaining the same. We are still alive and still looking positively about priorities. We are running our businesses. We have to run our businesses very differently. We can't travel or go to the office. My portfolio stretches across the Asia Pacific region. So the level of my challenges is even higher. But one I think I realize is that people are extremely adaptable and they are trying to make it work."

    According to him, the new ways of working and adaptability to them are pretty exciting, he states. The biggest challenge, he says, is that the economy has taken a massive hit, especially in India which is going through a lockdown.

    Regarding the impact on advertising revenue, he said: "Leave aside sports, even entertainment too has come down: from the normal to down to 20-25 per cent. That's the aggregate level. The news business is holding up there."

    Programming has stopped due to lockdown, but even when they restart it will be difficult.   

    According to him, all broadcasters will have to aggressively revisit their programming costs. So those who are doing ten shows will start with four. The financial pressure will pose even bigger challenges. And there is only going to be so much advertising available.

    “We make our money in this country disproportionately from advertising; the distribution income is still small. People advertise only because they realize that there is a market for their goods to be bought and sold. If nobody is going to buy a car, why would a car manufacturer advertise? So we are in it for a long and dreaded winter. Newspapers are going to face even bigger problems. And everybody thinks that it is a great time for digital, but I don’t think so. Digital advertising has taken a hit and it will continue to be like that for a while.”

    Regarding sporting activity for which his company has invested heavily, he said: “Sports has taken a hit globally. There is nothing you can do. People’s health and safety come before everything else. It would be naturally selfish or immature on our part to even think that regardless of everything, sports should happen.”

    He feels that once the situation is back to normal, live sports events will happen with massive restrictions on spectators’ presence. You can’t have a plan-B for live sports, he said.

    Regarding cost-cutting across the media sector, he said that his organisation has also taken some measures. “We urged our senior executives to take a voluntary reduction in salaries. People have responded very positively to that.”

    But some organisations, he said, have been forced to take measures as a last resort. Job losses will happen, he said.

    According to him, the way the media works in this country is “very antiquated.”  Do you need so many people to shoot a show? Does everybody have to sit in one place? If supply chains are distributed globally, why is the entire media chain different?”

    On what he is trying at this moment of crisis, he said: “I am trying three things. First of all, we don’t treat this as new normal. I believe this is a passage into a new world. Within the discipline of my company I won’t really put pressure on people to come to work every day even if everything becomes normal. Star has already taken some lead in that direction. We don’t have mandatory attendance. We don’t ask people to sign in at a time. Or we don’t have fixed leave. I think we were pretty liberal. We should actively encourage people to work from wherever they are. We should look at lighter ways of creating content, which is less resource-intensive, less human power-intensive, but very heavy on creativity and technology.”

    “And I think we should revisit the whole concept of gigantic headquarters where everybody sits together. For our business television has always been under pressure, partly because of the shift that has been happening in the environment and also because of the fact that television in this country is unfortunate to have a regulator who has no understanding of the business and who is out to destroy the business. So the television business has been under pressure. And its odds for regaining its health are much less than I would like to think.”

    So how can we make it lighter, nimbler, direct to consumer and use this Covid2019 situation to make a 21st century content delivery business in this country is the question.

    According to him, regulation means that there should be an even-playing field and transparency. If businesses are not able to succeed, then nobody is going to invest, he says. “That’s the real risk of the TV sector in India. Advertising income was strong and the regulatory fees pressure that was value-destructive in the distribution side was sort of mitigated to some extent. Now it is a twin shock on the advertising and distribution fronts. It is going to be really tough for the television business. And it is very challenging for fresh investments. I don’t think people will come and pour money,” he explained.

    As to why his company wants to invest in India, he said: “Star India is the number one media company in India. Everyone knows in the power of India. When I took over Star India the entire television business was much smaller, but today it is one of the biggest media and entertainment markets in the world despite all the challenges. We remain optimistic about the power of 1.3 billion people, the big market, and the creativity in this country. So those who have already invested, they will continue to be committed. But new people who have to start from scratch many of them will rethink before investing.”

    Regarding the kind of content consumers will consume in the times to come, he said: “We give too much credit to ourselves and too less to consumer. Consumers may not be able to articulate it, but they are usually far ahead of the business. Our innovation usually catches up with where the consumers’ mind is. When we started Hotstar, people said I was being delusional and that we were going to lose money. And with the data revolution that happened we have seen the explosive change. In the next three year or so there will be 700-750 million people who will watch content on their mobile devices. And 250 million on TV. That’s where Covid crisis has taken us to. People are home, working but also catching up entertainment.” 

    Follow Tellychakkar for the consumer facing news & entertainment

  • Netflix and its India story

    Netflix and its India story

    MUMBAI: Netflix has been making  a good catch wherever it has been spreading its net over the past three years. But viewers in Indian waters do not get snared easily by the bait of snazzy and edgy content like in other parts of the world and that is something the streamer learned the hard way. It made a scratchy debut with just a handful of original shows and a thin catalogue of local content in 2016. Net result: only the top sliver (in the hundred thousand or so) of India’s 1.3 billion populace bit and it was left wondering why the service was not getting traction like it was elsewhere.

    The answer lay in localisation: India’s masses care very little about Stranger Things or Black Mirror – Bandersnatch – two series that fired viewers’ imaginations in several countries. Indians would rather watch a Naagin or a Nazar. And just having a Sacred Games and a couple of local movies and shows were not enough to make Indians flash out their check books or credit cards to pay the stiff Rs 700- plus monthly fee in a market where cable TV offered a smorgasbord of 700 channels at less than half that price. And CEO Reed Hastings' promise to shareholders that India would bring in the next 100 million subs seemed like an empty one.

    Cut to 2020: the SVOD platform seems to be getting its act right and has rolled out a slate of local originals –both films and series – like Yeh Ballet, Sacred Games, Jamtara , Leila, Delhi Crime – and many more are in pre-prod stage or on the shooting floor.

    According to media reports, its financials too are getting better. Netflix’s India business grew more than 700 per cent during financial year 2019 recording revenues of Rs 466.7 crore and a net profit of Rs 5.1 crore. Hastings continues to have lots of faith in India’s entertainment-hungry viewers: he has kept a stash of Rs 3000 crore to invest in original content over the next two years.

    India needs that kind of investment; maybe more. There are more than 150 free-to-air channels offering TV shows (fiction and drama), movies and a lot more. Premium cable and satellite pay TV general entertainment channels at Rs 12 to Rs 19 also don’t cost that much. And they offer entertainment which suits the milieu that they are living in and even meets their aspiration needs. The main Indian broadcasters Zee TV, Sony, Star and Viacom18 have strong streaming services, ZEE5, SonyLIV, Hotstar and VOOT, which not only serve the linear feeds of the GECs but also offer the shows and movies on demand, apart from offering premium digital-only originals. Then there are independent streamers like AltBalaji, MX Player, hoichoi and ShemarooMe, which too have interesting programmes for their viewers.

    What bodes well for Netflix is that it has invested in local hires like Monika Shergill, Srishti Behl Arya, Aashish Singh with lots of experience in the local media and the entertainment industry. Earlier, for the first two years, Netflix executives in Los Angeles had oversight over the India office and the content that was being acquired and churned out. The perks of a team familiar with local content is already reflecting in the recent content slate.

    Since the end of 2018, the dramatic change in the overall approach has become noticeable. The platform has joined hands with big names of B-Town like Karan Johar, Shah Rukh Khan, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Vikramaditya Motwane. Kashyap’s Sacred Games was the first Indian original series to give the platform prominence in the cluttered market. While Red Chillies Entertainment’s Bard of Blood was critically acclaimed, Dharmatic Production’s Drive received negative feedback. At Indiantelevision.com’s The Content Hub 2020, Netflix’s Aashish Singh said that a number of people watched the film adding that the service does want to create content for every mood of the member and every segment.

    The diversity of Indian audience may sound a cliched and over-stated fact but no one can deny the truth. Film-buff Indians can now watch erstwhile star Manisha Koirala in its upcoming original film Maska. The platform has also slated a comedy special original Ladies Up. Mighty Little Bheem will also get a new season soon. To battle with the broadcaster-led platforms like Zee5, Hotstar, Voot, which have legacy content and international rival Amazon Prime Video with its shopping benefits, Netflix must reach into the heartland or Bharat as it is called. Especially when it looks to sign on that humongous 100 million subscribers from the country.

    Indians are price-sensitive consumers and it's a well-known fact. As is the fact that India is a mobile-first video consumption market thanks to cheap handsets and almost-free data plans. Last year, Netflix hit both these peculiarities by launching a mobile-only pack for Rs 199 per month as against the Rs 799 for the premium large screen experience. In its latest investor conference call, Netflix chief product officer Greg Peters said that thanks to this, they have been able to add incremental subscribers along with an increase in retention.

    The platform is also coming up with more innovative marketing strategies. Over the last year, Netflix India’s social media presence has also started gaining more word of mouth in the vast e-universe of the country. It is also recently testing a Rs 5 plan for the intial month which has again created good chatter. Moreover, it recently added a feature which allows users to make their watchlist decision easier. On the back of the new top 10 feature, Netflix members will notice a newly designed row that will show them what's popular in India.  

    One of the major challenges for Netflix is increasing its awareness to beyond tier-I and tier-II cities. More vernacular, localised content may give the platform a fillip in India’s interiors where smart phones work, even if TVs don’t because of frequent power outages. Although competition is bound to rise for the streaming service in India with the entry of Disney+, there’s optimism abounding about Netflix’s Indian journey in the days, months and years ahead. It looks like its story will have a happy ending.

  • Nobel Hygiene gets ‘Real’ with the launch campaign of RIO -Heavy Duty Pads

    Nobel Hygiene gets ‘Real’ with the launch campaign of RIO -Heavy Duty Pads

    Mumbai: RIO, the first sanitary pad designed for women with heavy flow, launched its communication campaign featuring Radhika Apte. With the campaign, RIO aims to spread awareness about heavy flow and establish the inadequacy of existing solutions.

    The campaign will also seek to educate the audience on the pains of heavy flow and its main causes being PCOD and early onset of menopause, create solidarity among women facing it by letting them know they are not alone and encouraging them to talk about it. RIO has already taken up a raw and real approach with its Digital Audios released with #MyBloodySecret. The same tone is carried forward in the TVC with Radhika Apte calling Heavy Flow, for what it is. The imagery used is true and brings out the problems of heavy flow without mincing any words and striking imagery. After the successful digital leg, that saw a plethora of women share their stories on heavy flow, the video campaign will take the conversation a step further.

    Commenting on the campaign launch, Nobel Hygiene VP Kartik Johari said, “Menstruation is one of our more discussed taboos, but issues with Heavy Flow are largely subsumed. With our direct campaign, we hope to spark a few million conversations in homes and shine a light on the silent suffering of women throughout the nation. We can’t imagine what it must be like when your body is fighting against you so regularly, and when everyone around you is indifferent, at best! So, we haven’t pulled any punches – casting Radhika Apte with her performing prowess; Afshan as the director of the film, who is close to the problem herself; a maxed female crew, so that we don’t miss a step along the way. And we have a powerful film that can command a heavy-duty conversation, for a heavy-duty problem.”
    The Womb Communications founding partner Navin Talreja said, “1 out of 5 women suffers from PCOD in India, a condition that leads to heavy flow. Most of these women are middle-aged and above. Our communication had to appeal to these mature, self-assured, confident women. This offered us the opportunity to lead culture with this brand and stay away from the fake codes of the category. In a category obsessed with whimsical and impractical pay-offs like women jumping hurdles and wearing white pants, RIO is pitched as an empathetic brand, a brand that understands the real issues faced by real women who suffer from the heavy flow.”

    Radhika Apte also added, “By now, everyone knows what a sanitary napkin ad is going to be like. Same old white pants, girls running and hopping around, and that same old blue liquid! I mean, we’ve had enough. It’s 2020! Why can’t we just show what heavy flow is really like? Why can’t we just show the blood? That’s why the red, bleeding balloon. A symbol of heavy flow. And a symbol to help women open up about their feelings and experiences. Heavy flow is not just something you can forget. It needs attention. It needs solutions; not jugaads.”

    The 30-sec TVC / video will be seen across multiple digital platforms and television channels that include Sun TV, Star, Zee, News18 and a few more.

    Rio sanitary pads come in XL size and will have features such as Cottony Top Sheet, 3X More Absorption, Better Dryness, Wetness Lock, Odour Lock, Extra glue grip and will provide Complete Coverage with Strong Side Leak Guards instead of wings. RIO will be available in leading retail & chemist stores and will also have an online presence on Amazon

  • Disney starts the year with strong quarter, reports $20.86 bn revenue

    Disney starts the year with strong quarter, reports $20.86 bn revenue

    MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company (Disney) reported its first fiscal quarter earnings, the first result since the launch of its new streaming service Disney+. Beating Wall Street expectations, the company has seen a strong start by reporting $20.86 bn revenue in contrast to market expectation of $20.79 bn. Disney’s adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.53 versus the expected $1.44.

    “We had a strong first quarter, highlighted by the launch of Disney+, which has exceeded even our greatest expectations,” said Disney chairman and chief executive officer Robert Iger said.

    “Thanks to our incredible collection of brands, outstanding content from our creative engines and state-of-the-art technology, we believe our direct-to-consumer services, including Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, position us well for continued growth in today’s dynamic media environment,” he added.

    Media Networks revenues for the quarter increased 24 per cent to $7.4 bn, and segment operating income increased 23 per cent to $1.6 bn. Cable Networks revenues for the quarter increased 20 per cent to $4.8 bn and operating income increased 16 per cent to $862 mn. Broadcasting revenues for the quarter increased 34 per cent to $2.6 bn and operating income increased 41 per cent to $575 mn.

    Studio Entertainment revenues for the quarter increased from $1.8 bn to $3.8 bn and segment operating income increased from $309 mn to $948 mn. Higher operating income was due to increases in theatrical and TV/SVOD distribution results at legacy operations, partially offset by a loss from the consolidation of the TFCF businesses.

    Direct-to-Consumer and International revenues for the quarter increased from $0.9 bn to $4.0 bn and segment operating loss increased from $136 mn to $693 mn. The company stated that increase in operating loss was due to costs associated with the launch of Disney+, the consolidation of Hulu and a higher loss at ESPN+. However, it also mentioned that these increases were partially offset by a benefit from the inclusion of the TFCF businesses due to income at the international channels including Star.

    The company’s biggest bet at streaming Disney+ delivered an impressive 26.5 mn subscribers, starting from Nov. 12 through year’s end. ESPN+ had 6.6 mn subscriber as of 28 December. Hulu’s SVOD only subscriber stood at 27.2 mn while the service combined with Live TV offering had 3.2 mn subscribers.

    “The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for ESPN+ decreased from $4.67 to $4.44 due to a shift in the mix of subscribers to our bundled offering. In November 2019, the Company began offering a bundled subscription package of Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. The bundled offering has a lower average retail price per service compared to the average retail price of each service on a standalone basis,” Disney stated.

    “The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for our Hulu SVOD Only service decreased from $14.49 to $13.15 driven by lower retail pricing and a shift in the mix of subscribers to our bundled offering. The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for our Hulu Live TV + SVOD service increased from $52.31 to $59.47 due to higher retail pricing,” it added.

  • WoW Music in a Brand New Avatar → iLove! Activates DD Freedish – Adding 125 million viewers!

    WoW Music in a Brand New Avatar → iLove! Activates DD Freedish – Adding 125 million viewers!

    MUMBAI: PEN Studios TV Broadcast arm, revamped its WoW Music Channel to iLove, which will now cater to an additional 30 million households across India! iLove has evolved into the fastest growing music channel, successfully more than doubling its viewership in the last 6 months!

    DD Freedish is equipped to provide access to more than 30 million households(~ 125+ million viewers), most of which fall under the HSM(Hindi speaking Markets). iLove is poised to quadruple its viewership leveraging DD Freedish starting December 01, 2019.

    This is in conjunction with permissions from MIB (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) authorizing the re-branding to iLove.

    PEN Studios has Eight TV Broadcast Channel licenses, Two of which are on-air viz. B-Flix and iLove. Six more channels are being prepped to launch in 2020 including MTunes+.

    PEN Group is the fastest growing Entertainment Powerhouse. Pioneering Film syndication since the 1980’s to Doordarshan and subsequently to C&S channels across all major broadcasters viz. Zee, Star, Sony, Viacom, to name a few. After producing smashing box office successes like Kahaani and Shivaay, they recently announced a big production with Sanjay Leela Bhansali titled “Gangubai” starring Alia Bhat. PEN is very strong on theatrical distribution and formed a Joint Venture, ‘PEN Marudhar’ last year. PEN Marudhar has distributed over 20 movies till date including Zero, Badla, Dream Girl, Marjaavan to name a few and will be distributing the upcoming Love Aajkal 2 and Angrezi Medium. Acclaimed for its multitude of box office returns, PEN has a legacy of working with some of the most inspiring minds from the film industry and has been consistent in enabling quality content catering to a wide range of audiences across India. PEN has tied up with VFX company Famulus which furnished VFX for Mission Mangal.

  • Star and Disney head Sanjay Gupta to join Google as new Country Manager

    Star and Disney head Sanjay Gupta to join Google as new Country Manager

    MUMBAI: Sanjay Gupta, who steered Star and Disney India growth by expanding its digital footprint and acquisition of broadcasting rights for critical sporting events,  has stepped down and is expected to join Google India as its country manager and vice president of sales and operations.

    Gupta, as MD of Star and Disney India, took bold decisions and made Star into one of the country’s largest media company. He was instrumental in expanding Star footprint on digital platform.

    Launched in 2015, Hotstar, Star’s OTT platform, is far ahead than its competitors with over 300 million monthly active users, as per the latest available data, more than double the Netflix’s 150 million global users.

    Gupta, who has joined Star in April 2009 as COO, also built Star’s sports broadcasting business with acquisting of broadcast rights for major sporting events like IPL, Pro-Kabaddi League and football league, Indian Super League.

    In September 2017, Star India trumped Facebook, Reliance Jio, Sony and Bharti Airtel, and won broadcast rights for IPL for whopping Rs 16,347.50 crore for the next five years. That bet has largely paid off. This IPL season, Hotstar topped the 10 million concurrent viewership mark a number of times and in May this year, Hotstar set a new world record when 18.6 million users simultaneously tuned into Hotstar’s website and app to watch the final IPL game.

    Under his stewardship, Star also expanded its footprint in regional content. In June 2017, Star India launched India’s first ever regional language sports channel in Tamil. In 2018, Star broadcasted IPL in 6 languages, including Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bangla. In July 2019, Star launched its Marathi sports channel. Star also operates an array of regional channels like Star Jalsha, Star Vijay, Star Pravah, Asianet, Star Maa TV, Star Suvarna.

    Gupta, who has nearly three decade expirence, is expected to join Google where he succeeds Rajan Anandan, who left Google eight-months-ago to join Sequoia Capital India as its managing director.

  • Entropik Tech helps broadcasters better monetise content

    Entropik Tech helps broadcasters better monetise content

    MUMBAI: With the implementation of the new tariff order a few months back, the broadcasting industry has become more consumer-centric than being dependent on ad revenue for functioning as it gives the consumer the power to choose what one wants to see. The insight was shared by Entropik Tech founder and CEO Ranjan Kumar during an exclusive interaction with Indiantelevision.com, where he was talking to us about his company, which he claims to be India’s only EmotionAI startup.

    Kumar added that the growth of digital technologies and OTT services has made it quite difficult for broadcasters to monetise their content as consumers now have the choice to view it on other platforms.

    “That’s where technologies like EmotionAI can help the broadcasters. We help them create more consumer-centric content by bringing in deeper insight into the user behaviour and emotions in a scalable manner,” said Kumar, who is currently working with big broadcasters like Viacom18 and Star.

    He shared that using tools and technologies like brain wave mapping, facial coding, and eye-tracking, Entropik Tech is able to better understand the nuances of content and support the creative process for the broadcasters.

    “For example, say Netflix is launching the new season of Sacred Games, and comes to us with the promo to test how impacting it is. We will map a users brain waves and eye movements, etc, to record what part of the promo they liked, what part fell flat, and which characters drew their attention the most. They can then optimise that promo based on these inputs for creating a better impact on the audience,” Kumar elaborated.

    The whole research is done on a sample group consisting of members from the target audience as defined by the client. Then they are given a chance to view the content and their cognitive behaviour is noted and studied by neuro-scientists. The creative and data team then shares inputs with the client to help them optimise the content for the right audience.

    The EmotionAI technology of Entropik Tech can also help advertisers in recognising correct time slots and channels to advertise on based on rich consumer data and insight that the platform can provide. “We take the good currency to the right content, leveraging technology,” said Kumar.

    Explaining more the prospects that Entropik Tech has for brands, Kumar revealed that it can help brands in designing better packaging or choose the right fragrance and colour for the products as well as using the cognitive technologies for increasing saleability. 

  • Star India rev growth offset by incremental rights expense, weakness in ad rev: Disney management

    Star India rev growth offset by incremental rights expense, weakness in ad rev: Disney management

    MUMBAI: The purchase of 21st Century Fox, which was aimed at helping Walt Disney Company's future plans, is causing initial pain to the Bob Iger-led media conglomerate. In its fiscal third quarter result for 2019, Disney missed earnings expectations partly because of the worse-than-expected performance of Fox assets. Star India, the newly acquired premium property of Disney after the completion of the merger, was not able to live up to expectations.

    “We estimate Star generated about $150 million of operating income in the third quarter last year. Star's results this quarter came in well below our expectations and were driven primarily by a meaningful step-up in rights cost for the quadrennial Cricket World Cup and the Indian Premier League as revenue growth was more than offset by the incremental rights expense,” Disney Senior EVP and CFO Christine McCarthy said.

    Despite the initial challenges, Disney CEO Bob Iger highlighted the benefits of the deal such as the addition of Star and Hotstar to the Disney portfolio giving a significant presence in India. He added that it is a huge market with interesting dynamics notably, a rapidly rising middle class with a strong and growing appetite for media, especially sports. He also noted that Hotstar’s broad array of premium sports rights will serve it well over the next five years especially as it expands the service into markets across Southeast Asia.

    “It was the quadrennial Cricket World Cup, of course. They have their Indian Premier League, which is ongoing, but this is once every four years for the World Cup. There were a couple of significant games that were rained out. They have insurance coverage for some of those, but any proceeds would be in future periods. And there was also some weakness in advertising revenue that was related to the local advertising market,” Iger commented on Star’s performance in India.

    Disney also continued to spend big on streaming services such as Disney+, ESPN+, the platforms where it sees its future. Moreover, the firm also took full operational control of streaming platform Hulu, which further affected the balance sheet.

    Disney’s earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter decreased 28 per cent to $1.35 from $1.87 in the prior-year quarter where it was expected $1.74 by the analysts. Total revenue stood at $20.2 billion against the consensus estimate for $21.4 billion.

  • Reliance Big Synergy appoints Salil Arunkumar Sand as senior creative director

    Reliance Big Synergy appoints Salil Arunkumar Sand as senior creative director

    MUMBAI: Anil D Ambani-led Reliance Entertainment's Big Synergy has strengthened its creative team with the appointment of Salil Arunkumar Sand as senior creative director.

    With over two decades of experience in writing, directing and creating some of Indian television’s fiction and non-fiction shows, Sand will be based at the company’s Mumbai office. Some of the shows in which he demonstrated his creative prowess that millions of viewers have enjoyed over the years include Indian Idol, Jassi JaiseKoi Nahin, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahin Toh Hoga, Khamoshiyaan and Boogie Woogie.

    Reliance Entertainment’s Big Synergy CEO Rajiv Bakshi shared, "We are steadfast in our commitment to invest in the development and production of entertaining content and formats across fiction, non-fiction and factual genres, and enable omniplatform consumption. Salil will strengthen our existing team of content visionaries and empower Big Synergy’s drive to create must-watch content.”

    In the past, he has worked with leading media companies including Zee Entertainment, Sony, Star and Balaji Telefilms.

    Sand said, "I am focussed to utilise my experience in creating successful content for Big Synergy’s clients in national and regional markets. I am excited with this opportunity to work along with the finest creative leaders in the industry and contribute to the company’s vision to create engaging content.”