ITV

Tag: Streamer

  • Netflix to rewire its homepage in a game-changing move

    Netflix to rewire its homepage in a game-changing move

    MUMBAI: Netflix plans to reimagine its homepage, swapping its classic layout for a sleeker, smarter design that’s more than just eye candy. 

    The streaming giant has confirmed that the new homepage will roll out over the “next few weeks and months,” varying by location, as it dives into fresh waters—live events, games, and a cutting-edge search tool powered by OpenAI’s generative AI.

    According to Netflix chief product officer Eunice Kim, the streamer has been tinkering with its home page  for 12 years, but the current refresh is bigger than ever as it involves a mix of new tech and an expanded entertainment range.

    Netflix’s new look is cleaner, bolder, and all about discovery. Visual elements pop, while shortcuts that used to hide on the left now glide to the top. The revamped recommendation engine is a step up, promising to read your mood like a fortune-teller—whether you’re after a thriller, a tearjerker, or a pixel-packed game.

    Kim added that the new look is a playground for everything Netflix  offers—films, live events, and games. 

    But the behemoth isn’t stopping there. A TikTok-style vertical video feed is also in the works, letting users swipe through bite-sized clips of shows and movies—tap to watch, add to your list, or share the hype.

    For Netflix, the new homepage is more than a fresh coat of paint—it’s a gateway to everything it hopes to be.

  • FanCode secures exclusive multiyear deal to stream PGA Tour events in India

    FanCode secures exclusive multiyear deal to stream PGA Tour events in India

    MUMBAI: Golf fans can swing their clubs in glees.  Sports streamer FanCode  has signed a deal with the  PGA Tour to broadcast a plethora of golf events in on its streaming service. This multi-year agreement solidifies FanCode’s position as the ultimate destination for golf enthusiasts in India.

    Said FanCode co-founder  Yannick Colaco “We are thrilled to partner with the PGA Tour  to bring Indian fans closer to the world of golf. This deal reinforces FanCode’s commitment to offering a diverse range of sports content to our audience. Golf fans in India can now enjoy premium access to the sport’s most iconic tournaments and top players, all at their fingertips.”

    PGA Tour  senior vice-president international media Thierry Pascal added: “We have found a perfect partner in FanCode with India being an important market for golf that features a growing community of passionate fans. Through this collaboration, we are excited to showcase PGA Tout  players and events to Indian fans, offering them high-quality golfing action year-round. We look forward to working closely with FanCode to further grow the sport’s popularity across the country.”

    Key Highlights:
    *   Over 40 events will be streamed annually, providing fans with unparalleled access to the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments.
    *   FanCode has already streamed three marquee events from the PGA Tour: the Hero World Challenge, the Grant Thornton Invitational, and the PNC Championship.
    *   The PGA Tour features an impressive lineup of golfers, including Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and rising star Akshay Bhatia.
    *   The partnership aims to bring Indian fans closer to the world of golf and showcase high-quality golfing action year-round.

    Availability:
    *   Fans can catch all the live action on FanCode’s mobile app (Android and iOS), TV app (available on Android TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Jio STB, Samsung TV, OTT Play, and Airtel XStream), Amazon Prime Video Channels, and on the web at www.fancode.com. In addition to the PGA Tour,  FanCode offers fans the DP World Tour;

  • EU nations cooperate to take down pirate global streaming service

    EU nations cooperate to take down pirate global streaming service

    MUMBAI: What does it take shut a global  illegal streaming service originating somewhere in Europe?

    Try this for size: The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation  (Eurojust ). The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). Italian, Croatian, Romanian, Swedish, Swiss, Dutch, Chinese  and the UK authorities.

    Quite a handful, right?

    Well, they all worked down together late November  to take down one of the world’s largest illegal streaming services, according to a  press release issued by Eurojust.  In a large-scale operation, over 100 searches were carried out against 102 suspects. Eleven suspects were arrested in Croatia.

    The suspects illegally distributed material from streaming services online, including films and series. They also pirated more than 2,500 television channels, mainly sports. The illegal service served more than 22 million users worldwide. They were able to make over Euros 250 million in illegal profits per month. The economic damages to the copyright holders of the material is estimated at Euro10 billion. 

    To evade authorities, the suspects allegedly used encrypted messaging services to communicate and false identities to register phone numbers, credit cards, server rentals and TV subscriptions.

    On 26 November, during an international operation, the servers hosting the illegal streaming were seized and shut down, disrupting the services.

    Collaboration between authorities was set up at Eurojust to effectively pull the plug on the illegal streamer. Coordination meetings at Eurojust’s headquarters allowed authorities from Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK  to work together on the investigation and plan the operation to shut down the service and arrest the suspects. Europol supported the operation by deploying experts and analysing the available intelligence during the investigation phase. 

    The cooperation between the authorities culminated in a joint operation to take down the services on 26 November. The operation  involved over 270 officers from the Polizia Postale carrying out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions. An additional 14 searches were conducted by law enforcement agencies abroad, including five addresses in the UK, and further searches and seizures in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia,  according to the AAPA.

    During  the searches in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Croatia, the UK  and China, over Euros 1.6 million in cryptocurrency and Euros 40,000 in cash was seized. Croatian police arrested 11 suspects. AAPA said that “the immediately seized proceeds represent only a fraction of an illegal business that is alleged to yield approximately Euros 3 billion per annum.”

    The operation was massive as can be ascertained from the results achieved:  102 suspects were identified  with the arrest of 11 people after searching 112 houses. 100 domains were blocked with 29 servers being taken away along with 27 different IPTV equipment and devices. During the searches 560 resellers names were discovered along with an assortment of drugs and weapons. 

    AAPA co-president Mark Mulready said: “We applaud the efforts of the Catania public prosecutor’s office, the Croatian state attorney office for suppression of corruption and organised crime, Europol, Eurojust, and all of the law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional law enforcement actions highlights the considerable challenge our industry faces when dealing with such sophisticated international pirate networks.

    “We are proud to have collaborated with our law enforcement partners to provide technical training and in-field support to assist them in successfully tackling the world’s largest pirate network.   We are very grateful to the AAPA members who supported this action day, including Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto.  We will continue to closely collaborate with law enforcement agencies in Europe and beyond to enable them to successfully identify, investigate and prosecute large-scale cross-border pirate networks.”

    The authorities involved in the actions were:

    * Italy: Public Prosecution Office Catania
    * Croatia: The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime 
    * Netherlands: Fiscal Information and Investigation Service; Public Prosecution Service Rotterdam 
    * Romania: Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism; Direction for Fighting Organized Crime – Cyber Crime Fighting Service
    * Sweden: National unit against organized crime at the Swedish Prosecution Authority; Swedish Police Authority
    * Switzerland: Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland; Federal Office of Police 
    * United Kingdom: City of London Police

  • Zee5 partners with smart TV OS Whale TV

    Zee5 partners with smart TV OS Whale TV

    MUMBAI: Zee5 has got onto another  independent smart TV OS, Whale TV. With this, the streamer will be available on all Whale TV smart TVs, including major brands such as Philips, TCL, and Sharp, across more than 150 countries including India, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the US.

    Zee5 offers south Asian content including original shows, franchise hits, and diverse content across 18 languages. Operating in over 190 countries, the platform boasts a catalogue that spans blockbuster movies, acclaimed TV shows, and lifestyle programming. By partnering with Whale TV, Zee5 is making its content accessible to millions of viewers worldwide. 

    On Whale TV models, consumers will now have an easy-to-use smart TV experience with advanced AI powered recommendations, making it easier than ever to discover and enjoy Zee5’s  wide range of premium titles including Oscar winner RRR, Sam Bahadur, Gyaarah Gyaarah, Hanu-Man (Telugu) and more.

    Said Zee5 chief business officer Manish Kalra:  “Smart TVs are an increasingly dominant way for people to consume content. This strategic alliance with Whale TV further strengthens our global reach, enabling entirely new audiences to discover our curated catalogue of premium South Asian content at scale. We are confident that this partnership will accelerate our efforts to bring viewers across the globe seamless access to the best of south Asian content.”

    “With Whale TV we aim to deliver a smart and simple TV experience to consumers, where they can watch their favorite entertainment whether that’s streamed, broadcasted or playing on a connected device. With our global reach it is important that we offer a diverse content selection and we are delighted to add Zee5 Global to our platform,” added Whale TV VP content distribution Lucas Huang. 
     

  • Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘SRK+’ app runs out of ideas, thanks to Disney+ Hotstar

    Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘SRK+’ app runs out of ideas, thanks to Disney+ Hotstar

    Mumbai: Shah Rukh Khan is at it again! A day after building up buzz and keeping his fans guessing over the launch of his supposed new OTT venture ‘SRK+,’ the Bollywood superstar has released a video that takes the narrative further for the app. In what’s now clearly a collaboration between the actor and Disney+ Hotstar, the ideas are hilariously dismissed as having been already explored on the streaming platform.

    The video sees the star with his reel manager discussing story ideas, trying to figure out new ideas for SRK+. This time around they are also accompanied by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap who pitches in with a couple of story ideas of his own. But they are all variously shot down because apparently the concepts for a film/web series have already been seen on the Disney+ Hotstar platform.

    In the ad film, finally out of desperation, the actor demands to know if they have anything ‘good’ at all on hand, to which his manager consoles him by saying they do have an IPL team. Much to their consternation, Kashyap shoots this down by cheekily pointing out that the Disney+ Hotstar platform has the Tata IPL too!

    https://www.instagram.com/tv/CbKBWv7gYAp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

    Actor Ajaya Devgn too joined in the banter on social media by adding his two bits to it with a hilarious caption that read, “Sorry @iamsrk pehle bata dete, Rudra SRK+ pe hi release karta. Ab #ThodaRukShahRukh.”

    Khan has been keeping his fans guessing about his big OTT move for a while now. The enjoyable ads created in partnership with Disney+ Hotstar have been garnering a lot of attention and eyeballs from netizens and industry colleagues alike. This latest one takes off from where he left off in September last year when the streamer released a promo on the superstar’s alleged debut on OTT.

    On Tuesday, SRK posted a message on his Instagram and Twitter handles, with the loaded caption: “Kuch kuch hone wala hai, OTT ki duniya mein”

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CbHOCOGommx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

     Celebrities like Salman Khan and Karan Johar had joined in the fun, too, congratulating Shah Rukh Khan on his supposed digital venture. 

  • ALTBalaji looks at sachet pricing model to more than double the ARPU

    ALTBalaji looks at sachet pricing model to more than double the ARPU

    MUMBAI: The ongoing streaming war across the world has seen OTT platforms investing aggressively in original content with high cash burn. But ALTBalaji, the digital venture of Ekta Kapoor-led Balaji Telefilms, is not taking the same path. With conservative rational investment, the company has seen a profit before tax level breakeven in the last quarter and is keeping a hawk-eye at achieving break-even targets before launching the second phase of its strategy possibly after two years using rich analytics data.

    “We are focused on our breakeven targets, which we will achieve and therefore we are right-sizing our business to this. We are not a bottomless hole where you have to keep showing widening losses and keep acquiring consumers. We do not believe in this philosophy at this stage. We first want to have the proof of the pudding, we want to break even and then use our rich analytics data to launch phase two of our strategy possibly two years from now,” Balaji Telefilms management said in an earnings call after the Q2 2020 results.

    Under phase two of planning, ALTBalaji is looking at producing enough hit content to be able to ‘sachetize’ its pricing two years from now. The company thinks if it can sell content at Rs 2 per day, its ARPU can rise up to Rs 730 a year, which currently stands at Rs 300 a year.

    To enter the next step, the company thinks it has to be able to cater to two major target groups – the under-served male viewing audience, which lacks good quality TV shows, and individual female audience of the age group 20 to 40. Hence, it will look at developing a significant library there.

    “Thirdly, we will have the richest data in terms of numbers and analytics and we need to build an efficient recommendation engine two years from now to be able to optimise retention. Right now, because of the massive inflow of new Internet users, retention is not a top priority also. We do not have more than 42 shows. Once we reach 100 shows, taking a recommendation engine, investing in more AI and ML to ensure that retention happens will bring down the cost of consumer acquisition and retention considerably,” the management said.

    Moreover, the company will also evaluate one single regional language to go into as it learning has led to the belief that sporadically launching single shows in languages cannot attract the audience. Hence, the platform will explore a business plan of launching it in one of the south languages.

    “The ZEE deal understanding is that we shift from a multi-partner system to a kind of pay-based single partner system. We are also kind of exiting the telco environment to partner with the broadcast environment. As part of our strategy, in our first two years, we had to use the widespread telco environment because we had a smaller library, which was growing every month but it still was small,”  the management said on the rationale of its recent deal with homegrown OTT giant ZEE5.

    The other reason for telco partnership was the high cost of consumer acquisition and marketing. "Now, we feel we are in phase two of our business where we will go with single-partner models. In two or three years, we will also be able to have enough library and add enough data to be able to acquire consumers efficiently,” it added.

    However, the company is confident about achieving breakeven between 36 – 48 months of launching ALTBalaji while cash breakeven has already been achieved. After seeing a PBT level breakeven in the last quarter, the company hopes it will be improved in the Q3 and Q4 because of the ZEE deal. The management thinks that being a debt-free Rs 250 crore plus  cash company, it is positioned much better than many debt-ridden companies. Moreover, having a library of 48 original shows, it has a significant lead to drive it going forward.

  • TV relevant for streamers too finds survey

    TV relevant for streamers too finds survey

    MUMBAI: The growth of video streaming is beyond question as streaming devices are easier options for viewers to explore various chunks of content. However, streamers in various parts of US also have a bonding with traditional TV according to a report from Nielsen local watch report.

    93 per cent of streamers watched traditional TV on a typical day. The 7 per cent of the streaming viewer of the age group 25-54 streamed exclusively while 47 per cent of them watched only traditional TV on a typical day. Rest 46 per cent consumed a mix of traditional TV and streaming.

    In Detroit 53 per cent watch only traditional TV, while 39 per cent use a mix of both traditional TV and streaming devices. Eight per cent use only a streaming device in a typical day. The statistic varies in Portland where 41 per cent of streamers watch only traditional TV in an average day, with 12 per cent only using a streaming device to view content. 46 per cent use a combination of traditional TV and a streaming device in an average day.

    A huge number i.e., over 65 million US homes have an enabled device capable of streaming content to the TV as of last November. However, the OTT-savvy homes are more from urban areas. On the other hand, mid-size markets are showing more growth. Young affluent audience also has more inclination towards streaming devices. Homes, where the head of house is less than 35 years old, are 34 per cent more likely to have a streaming device than the average home. While this age group accounts for 20 per cent of streaming device owners, the age group of 25-54 comprise 44 per cent, and age group of 55+ make up 36 per cent.

    Like India, US viewers also have an affinity towards local media. 91 per cent of streaming device owners access local media on TV or online. 51 per cent access local news through app on mobile devices. 43 per cent have accessed local radio. 40 per cent completely or to some extent agreed to the importance of social media for keeping a track of local information.

    The survey reaffirms the importance of broadcast TV for even OTT viewers. Broadcast TV’s charm has not faded in this digital era also.