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Tag: streaming

  • Eurosport & Jio TV acquire broadcast rights for 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup

    Eurosport & Jio TV acquire broadcast rights for 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup

    Mumbai: Eurosport India, Discovery Network’s sports brand, and Jio TV Network have acquired the broadcast rights for AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022. India hosts the 20th edition of Asia’s showpiece women’s football tournament between 20 January and 6 February.

    Eurosport India will telecast the tournament on television. Meanwhile, Jio TV will stream the matches of the competition on its online platform and across its network.

    The Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), which currently holds the media rights for all Asian Football Confederation (AFC) competitions in the Indian subcontinent, has accorded the PayTV broadcast rights to Eurosport India.

    The 20th edition of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022 will feature 12 teams, which have been divided into three groups. Group A includes India, China PR, Chinese Taipei, and IR Iran, while Group B includes Australia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, Japan, Korea Republic, Vietnam, and Myanmar have been slotted in Group C.

    The tournament will begin in a round-robin format where each team will face the other three teams of the group to secure a place in  the quarter-finals which will be held on 30 January. Hosts India will play their opening game against Iran on 20 January as they aim to gather home points to seal the top spot on an opening day.

    The sports event will act as the final stage of Asian qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. With Australia having already qualified as co-host, five more teams will qualify for the main event directly while two of them will progress to the inter-confederation play-offs.

  • Gaana surprises listeners with new feature ‘AutoQueue’

    Gaana surprises listeners with new feature ‘AutoQueue’

    Mumbai: Music streaming app, Gaana has unveiled its latest product feature ‘AutoQueue’ that promises to offer personalised music listening to its users.

    The newly introduced feature is powered by a machine learning algorithm that factors the probability of songs being heard together (past behavior) as well as similarity of music, tempo/bpm, etc to predict possible songs a user would like to hear after they have manually played one song. The algorithm analyses thousands of signals and data points to come up with personalised song suggestions.

    The feature enables consumers to hit up a song and indulge in seamless streaming while Gaana plays similar songs on its own. The benefit is that it will dramatically reduce the time spent in manual searching & solves the problem of “listener’s block” (where one struggles to think of the next song to play). Autoqueue also makes the discovery of new music easier, as listeners get served apt songs they might not know of on their own.

    Gaana CEO Sandeep Lodha said, “In the last year and a half, audio streaming has played a major role in people’s lives and consumption is on the up. With AutoQueue we are going one step further to hyper-personalise each user’s app experience making it effortless to listen to great music. The feature is born of Gaana’s user research & tech capabilities and gives personalised endless background track to the lives our users live in the foreground.”

    The brand has also released an ad film to communicate the ease & joy of music listening with AutoQueue. The lighthearted commercial shows two girls going for a short drive that turns to a never-ending long drive, as Gaana AutoQueue keeps playing surprisingly apt songs that they love.

  • #Retrace2021: Entertainment trends that swept the media industry in 2021

    #Retrace2021: Entertainment trends that swept the media industry in 2021

    Los Angeles: As the credits roll on 2021 and the curtain prepares to rise on 2022, we’ve put together a few previews of entertainment trends to look forward to in the coming year and beyond. The convergence of new technologies, increasing domination of smart devices like smartphones and smart TVs, 5G internet, the growing demand for streaming content combined with the omnipresent Covid lockdowns have been the driving forces behind these trends.

    OTT STREAMING SERVICES

    The global over-the-top (OTT) streaming industry is booming. According to a report published by Research Dive, the OTT market is expected to generate a revenue of $438.5 billion by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.1 per cent. The outbreak of Covid-19 has contributed to this growth, however, leading players are focusing on developing strategies to bolster growth in a post-pandemic market. Netflix leads the pack of providers with 35 per cent of the global OTT streaming market share followed by Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, Prime Video, and HBO Max.

    SOCIAL VIDEO

    By 2022, it is estimated that online videos will make up more than 82 per cent of internet traffic. These clips may be short, only 30 seconds or so long, but the ones that go viral have been viewed over a million times. Social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube have been trying to retain the social video throne but rising star TikTok is working hard to overthrow them benefitting from Gen-Z users during the Covid lockdowns. Growth has also been seen on Instagram which has been putting a heavy focus on optimising users’ video experience. Likewise, LinkedIn users are increasingly preferring video content over other types of posts. Twitter, Snapchat, and Vimeo are also seeing a significant uptick in video content. However, no matter which platforms are able to increase their share of users, one thing is for sure: social videos are here to stay.

    CLOUD GAMING

    The ability to play the best video games out there without the need for a console has now become a reality and has pushed this industry forward. There are estimated to be about 3.2 billion gamers in the world and very few have the hardware required to play the latest, most demanding games. Cloud gaming solves this problem by streaming video game content from remote servers to your device. The range of video games is extensive from casino to adventure. Major offerings include Nvidia’s GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia, Sony’s PlayStation Now, and Xbox’s Project xCloud. It’s new and evolving technology but a growing trend to watch for in 2022. According to a report published by Allied Market Research, the global cloud gaming market generated $244.8 million in 2020 and is expected to reach $21.95 billion by 2030, seeing a CAGR of 57.2 per cent from 2021 to 2030.

    PODCASTS

    The number of people listening to podcasts in 2022 is expected to grow to 164 million and that’s just in the US alone. Podcasts have taken off and are no longer considered a hobby but a legitimate business model with new opportunities for brands and businesses. In a world where influencers are kings and people trust them more than traditional outlets, podcasts have been an effective way for their hosts to grow their influence and share their niche viewpoints and knowledge on specific topics. In addition, with increasing tolerance for advertising – a recent survey by Nielsen found 78 per cent of listeners don’t mind sponsorship ads – podcast ad revenue is expected to grow to $1.33 billion in 2022. Now, big-name companies like 20th Century Fox and Spotify are jumping onto the podcast bandwagon, backing and developing content and, in the process, increasing the production quality and value.

    GAME STREAMING

    Game streaming has been around since the early 2000s but now is gaining traction. It involves the streaming of video games where people broadcast themselves playing games to a live audience online. Professional streamers often combine high-level play and entertaining commentary and earn income from sponsors, subscriptions, ad revenue, and donations. Game streaming became popular on the US-based site Twitch before growing to other sites particularly in China.

    In 2014, Twitch was acquired by Amazon and since then it has experienced explosive growth. In Q1 2020 alone, Twitch had more than three billion hours watched, 100 million hours streamed, and an average of 1.4 million concurrent viewers, firmly cementing it as the number one platform for game streaming worldwide.

    THE KOREAN WAVE

    The Korean Wave or “Hallyu” refers to the rise in South Korea’s growing international popularity for its culture encompassing dance, music, TV dramas, movies, food, and more. In 2012, the music video for “Gangnam Style” by recording artist PSY was one of the first Korean hits to go global, became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views, and spun off an international dance craze. K-Pop bands exploded onto the music scene in the early 2000s and currently boy band, BTS is South Korea’s biggest cultural currency whose sales rival big names like Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Billie Eilish.

    In 2020, South Korea’s black comedy thriller, ‘Parasite’, written and directed by Bong Joon-ho, won a leading four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film, becoming the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

    Now, this September, ‘Squid Game’, the South Korean survival drama series quietly premiered on Netflix and then took off like a rocket ship. With more fans coming on board every day, Bloomberg has reported that the show will bring in $900 million for Netflix (it was produced for 21.4 million). The Korean Wave is going strong and worldwide fans are enjoying the ride.

    It will be interesting to see how some of these trends fare in a post-pandemic world but, at least for now, we have come to value these forms of entertainment just as the devices we access them from – our mobile phones, smart devices, laptops, and PCs.

  • Zee5 inks multi-show partnership with Applause Entertainment

    Zee5 inks multi-show partnership with Applause Entertainment

    Mumbai: Streaming platform Zee5 has announced a strategic partnership with content and IP studio Applause Entertainment, a venture of Aditya Birla Group for a multi-show association. The two content companies will collaborate to create a robust original content slate of new Zee5 originals in Hindi across genres to entertain viewers across the globe.

    The first offering as part of the partnership is titled “Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’”– a dramedy series with a unique take on a dysfunctional royal family. The show will be produced by Applause Entertainment in association with Emmay Entertainment and directed by Gauravv Chawla and Ananya Banerjee. The original will premiere exclusively on Zee5 in January 2022.

    “Over the last four years, Applause has created a diverse slate of content and explored stories across genres, languages, and geographies. We are thrilled that our first outing with Zee5 is with Kaun Banegi Shikarwati, a light-hearted, heart-warming dramedy that is both quirky and delightful and boasts a stellar cast of actors. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Zee5 and help contribute in a small way to their global ambition,” said Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair.

    Zeel president-content and international markets Punit Misra said, “Zee5’s content design principles centre around intimately knowing our viewers and building a bouquet of engaging and entertaining offerings for our multiple consumer cohorts. While Consumer Intimacy is at the heart of our content creation philosophy, our Content Creator Partners are the other crucial pillar in our approach.”

    “In 2021, Zee5 has made a concerted effort to associate with premium content creators across languages and genres, a move that has enabled us to inch closer to our overall vision of ‘Entertainment inclusion’,” said Zee5 India chief business officer Manish Kalra. “Applause Entertainment has had a strong record of creating some of the most popular shows of recent times and with this association, Zee5 is confident of enriching our content slate even further.”

    The move is in line with Zee5’s content-first approach of forging more partnerships within the creative ecosystem to build a diverse slate of originals and movies. The platform had earlier sealed partnerships with TVF (The Viral Fever), Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari, and Red Chillies Entertainment to deliver several new shows across the digital entertainment ecosystem.

    “Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’” features a spectacular cast of renowned Bollywood faces, including Naseeruddin Shah essaying the role of a King while Lara Dutta Bhupathi, Soha Ali Khan, Kritika Kamra, Anya Singh play his daughters, and Raghubir Yadav, Cyrus Sahukar, Varun Thakur and Anurag Sinha play key roles.

     

     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     

     
     

     
     
     

     
     

    A post shared by ZEE5 (@zee5)

     

    Elaborating on the new show, Emmay Entertainment producer Nikkhil Advani said, “Kaun Banegi Shikarwati offers a quintessential story of Indian families that’s replete with oddities and conflicts. But at the core of it, lies unfiltered emotions that are sure to resonate strongly with the masses.”

    Zee5 chief creative officer- Hindi Originals Nimisha Pandey said there is an increasing need for family-viewing content in a post-pandemic era and a multi-dimensional drama like “Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’” works beautifully in that aspect. “We hope that the audience enjoys the roller coaster of emotions with this series,” she added.

  • Vi ties up with ‘Hungama Music’ to offer premium music streaming service

    Vi ties up with ‘Hungama Music’ to offer premium music streaming service

    Mumbai: Strengthening its OTT-based digital content offerings, the telecom major Vodafone Idea on Monday launched its music offering on the Vi App in association with Hungama Music.

    Vi’s music offering with Hungama was unveiled by the musician and composer duo – Salim Sulaiman, who also performed at the launch event. Under the partnership, Vi will offer a six months premium subscription of Hungama Music at no extra cost to all its post-paid and prepaid customers. As part of the offering, customers will be able to listen to ad-free music in as many as 20 languages across genres from Hungama’s library of songs, Bollywood news, and podcasts. Vi customers can also attend 52 Live Digital Concerts on the Vi App, said the teleco major.

    Vi CMO Avneesh Khosla said, “Vi strives constantly to enrich the lives of its consumers through its partnerships with brands that have experience and expertise in the field of entertainment, education, health and financial services. Vi is committed to work with partners across varied domains to provide unique and compelling digital offerings for its consumers with varied needs and preferences. In the near future we will continue to see a lot newer initiatives being launched as this agenda gains scale and momentum.”

    Khosla further added that the launch will fulfill the customers’ need for a comprehensive music streaming service. “Our association with Hungama will allow Vi users to get access to a rich repository of diverse music, across genres and in their preferred language,” he said.

    Hungama Media founder Neeraj Roy said, “Our association with Vi has seen us introduce a first-of-its-kind Pay Per View service model in India’s exploding Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) market, earlier this year. The partnership aligns with Hungama’s aim to explore and develop innovative ways to entertain and engage audiences across the world. Our repertoire is consistently expanding to include a diverse, and rich line-up of multi-genre, multi-lingual content across audio, video, and gaming.”

  • GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    Mumbai: With vast sums of money to be made, it’s not surprising that streaming pirates are continually upping their game to keep their highly profitable illegal businesses afloat.  A recent global study conducted by Ampere Analysis for Synamedia found that sports streaming piracy alone is worth over $28 billion and the Global Innovation Policy Centre places the global TV industry’s losses from digital piracy between $39.3 to $95.4 billion per year.

    From Bollywood and Hollywood blockbusters to LIVE sports including IPL and women’s football, streaming piracy has reached an industrial scale in India. Within minutes of release, stolen content is circulated, exchanged and sold on open internet sites and social media platforms, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as on closed subscription-based pirate networks and dedicated OTT applications. Some illegitimate, subscription-based pirate services are now so good that consumers think they are using the brand’s own service, damaging the brand of the legitimate service and preventing upsell opportunities.

    But with superior intelligence and the appropriate technology and legal procedures in place, the industry can stay one step ahead, protect its revenue streams and stop criminals siphoning off billions in revenue that rightfully belong to content owners and services providers.

    Pirate profiteers raise the stakes

    Although low quality pirate content filmed surreptitiously in cinemas is still available, as more consumers switch to digital platforms, pirates are using increasingly sophisticated ways to steal content – and deliver it in pristine quality.

    And the pirates’ methods have advanced considerably since they simply exploited “the analogue hole”: in other words, stole content from the HDMI ports of Set Top Boxes. As license owners and operators have increased their protection methods, cracking down with a combination of source-detection and disruption technologies as well as legal action, pirates have been hunting for new and more concealed ways to source content and find the weak link in the chain.

    From Digital Rights Management (DRM) hacking as seen recently with Widevine, to bypassing client watermarking and manipulating legitimate OTT applications, today’s streaming pirates have found ways to steal not just high-quality content but entire OTT services, including redistributing directly from the service provider’s content delivery network (CDN).

    Sourcing, aggregating and distributing content

    A quick Google search will quickly take you into a world of organised crime: industrial scale professional hackers, criminal technology experts with content aggregators, content wholesalers and content resellers conducting the biggest criminal heist the world has ever seen.

    Current anti-piracy approaches – such as DRM, client hardening and concurrency restrictions are simply scratching the surface of OTT piracy and pirates continue to profit.

    Using the intelligence provided by our operational security team and with access to pirates’ scripts, we have unearthed the root source of this problem – the OTT protocol is broken. The technology of OTT delivery makes it simple and cheap to set up as a pirate operator. Pirates don’t necessarily need to break the DRM to steal content. Using pirate servers and clients, pirates are hacking the OTT protocol to get the DRM license and redirect pirate clients to legitimate service and content providers’ CDNs.

    With little to no acquisition or content costs, pirates have become ultimate media super-aggregators. They can bring highly-sought after content together at an unbeatable price with no geo restrictions or competition law challenges – and then redistribute the stolen content to their paying customers at the expense of the video service provider by using their infrastructure undetected. 

    Protecting content across the ecosystem

    With an understanding about the methods used and insight into how pirates operate, Synamedia has developed the industry’s first solution to systemically address the inherent weaknesses that make it easy for pirates to not only steal content but also entire OTT services, including gaining access to the service provider’s CDN.

    Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard makes it possible to securely distribute content on open platforms by validating that only legitimate subscribers and applications are granted authorised access and receive content. It gives each client a unique identity that is not cloneable and allocates secure keys for signing service requests, ensuring all client messages are validated for their authenticity and origin. This has a critical role to play in protecting content, but tackling piracy requires an all-round team approach, blending pre-breach approaches with proactive detection and disruption technologies and solutions.

    Synamedia’s unrivalled intelligence-based model leverages AI technologies alongside human intelligence – including undercover investigators and cyber security, psychology, criminology, and sociology experts – to monitor and map the piracy supply chain, detect, deter and disrupt piracy and orchestrate anti-piracy activities and legal and technical takedowns.

    The financial rewards on offer and the ease of set-up – combined with the low risk of arrest or meaningful punishment – means the problem of piracy will not go away.  But, by making life as difficult as possible for both pirates and viewers of illicit streams and making legal subscriptions more attractive, content owners and rights holders can not only protect their content investments, but video service providers can cut infrastructure costs and create the opportunity to capture new subscribers.

    (Deepak Bhatia is general manager and head of sales, India at Synamedia. The views expressed in this column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them)

     

  • Netflix India offers a thrilling treat in latest promo for ‘Red Notice’

    Netflix India offers a thrilling treat in latest promo for ‘Red Notice’

    Mumbai: Netflix India has come out with a new campaign for its action-packed Hollywood blockbuster movie, ‘Red Notice’. Conceptualised by 22feet Tribal Worldwide, the campaign invites fans to experience an adrenaline rush at the ‘Red Notice Shop’, where everything is free if they can steal it!

    The Red Notice Shop has been brought to life in a 3000 sq. ft. retail space at Phoenix Palladium, Mumbai. The space is guarded with lasers, sensors, secret codes, CCTV cameras, alarms, and top-notch security. The ‘heist’ is successfully completed if one is able to ‘steal’ from the Red Notice Shop. Prizes include not only goodies, tech delights, ownable shop merchandise but also three precious gold Faberge eggs from the film with exclusive rewards inside them, said the streaming network in a media statement.

    22feet Tribal Worldwide national creative director Debashish Ghosh said, “Most viewers fantasise about being in a role similar to one of their favourite characters or plots in a film. We wanted to give them an unexpected leg-up. So, we set up a shop to pull off a heist where stealers are keepers if you don’t get caught. And if you do, you don’t land up behind bars. Either way, the experience leaves an indelible mark and lodges Netflix & Red Notice in your memory for good.”

    To generate buzz about the Red Notice Shop, a promo film was also launched that introduced the shop to the fans. This was followed by a series of short, tutorial videos featuring stand-up comic Prashasti Singh and actor Javed Jaffrey. In these tutorials, the duo is seen dodging the multiple security measures at the ‘Red Notice Shop’ in an attempt to steal the Faberge egg – failing at stealing but winning at bringing home the fun quotient.  

  • Prime Video’s Gaurav Gandhi, Disney+ Hotstar’s Sunil Rayan on growing SVOD in India

    Prime Video’s Gaurav Gandhi, Disney+ Hotstar’s Sunil Rayan on growing SVOD in India

    Mumbai: After the windfall of 2020, the streaming industry saw consumers’ on-demand content consumption patterns getting more and more well-entrenched and diversified in 2021. As exaggerated trends rationalised, players in the OTT world emerged out of the unarguably positive conundrum with a lot more clarity on charting their individual growth stories and also that of the industry as a whole.

    At the Apos Indian Summit – a two-day virtual event which concluded on 24 November – Disney+ Hotstar president Sunil Rayan and Amazon Prime Video country head Gaurav Gandhi talked about having learned the “balancing act” through the session titled – ‘The Next Stage of Growth for Online Video’.

    Drivers for Adoption

    In addition to widely discussed factors such as affordability of internet services, smartphones, and smart TVs and the availability of content, Rayan and Gandhi had their own unique insights on the growth drivers for streaming services. 

    According to Rayan the surge in volume and diversity of content through the years has brought about the mainstreaming of online video in different stages. “While the early stages were mostly about penetrating the market, the second wave of creating localised content that we are currently riding has propelled the trend further. Going into the third stage of deep localisation where user experience will become highly personalised, we will witness another leap in adoption,” he averred. 

    Like Rayan, Gandhi too believes that the encouraging pace at which Indians took to on-demand services was also a result of a new wave of content coming in. “The content distribution structure in India has always been such that it didn’t allow scope for any kind of premium cable or premium pay. As a result, we never really had access to high cinematic quality content. In the last three or four years streaming platforms have brought world-class content including original long-format series that Indian viewers had not seen before. And this includes both global content and local, home-grown stories,” he said.

    Commenting further, he added that a significant factor in the five-year-growth story of video streaming in India has been its “rich and robust content ecosystem with content industries in over ten languages. That makes it a prolific entertainment market.”

    The emergence of films as a popular segment on streaming platforms, accentuated by the direct-to-digital wave of 2020, further quickened the pace of adoption. “India has a large audience base that loves movies, but the country is very under-screened. Video streaming not only solved the problem of limited access to new movies in the very early window but also enhanced their reach and accessibility. Indian films are today being watched in over 4500 cities and towns and 180-190 countries worldwide on various streaming services. It has also encouraged talent, fetching its appeal across borders,” stated Gandhi.

    Both Rayan and Gandhi recognised the role of advancements in digital payment infrastructure in transforming a largely ad-supported industry into subscription-driven. Rayan shared that a “significant portion of payments for Disney+ Hotstar comes through UPI.”

    Developments such as these and others like rapid growth in smart TV sales, give Gandhi a good reason to dispel the prevailing notion of India being a highly price-sensitive market where viewers are unwilling to pay for content. He estimates the addressable market for SVOD in India to be above 50 million currently, with a potential to reach nearly 100 million in the coming years.

    The response to Disney+ Hotstar’s revised pricing plan designed to have devices tailored against tiers is another testimony to the acceptance of SVOD by value-seeking customers. Elaborating on the rationale behind the new scheme, he stated, “While we were providing access to all types of content, the mode of access is where we thought we could add more value. The broad idea was to make available all types of content to individuals as opposed to having content restrictions by tiers.”

    Growing the SVOD Category

    Rayan observed that going ahead “the overall success of SVOD will depend on three factors – making content more interactive, innovation in business models beyond the existing freemium, AVOD, TVOD, SVOD to something like ‘mircotransactions,’ and taking the user experience to a level where people can get their ‘intent’ from the platform itself.”

    Disney+ Hotstar started its Originals journey in 2019 and it has since then diversified into various genres and formats. “We intend to deliver a piece of original content every two weeks for all our different kinds of users including sports fans, active streaming users, and ‘TV watchers’  who use OTT as a ‘companion app’ to TV. Additionally, we are also exploring ways to get internet users on to our platform with short-form content, short but episodic and other formats that are native to digital,” said Rayan. 

    India is one of the highest engaged countries for Prime Video service in the world. Having grown three times in the last two years, today it enjoys viewership from 99 per cent of the pin codes. Another highly encouraging development witnessed by the brand is the emergence of ‘cross viewership’ wherein viewers are watching content across languages. “Today 50 per cent of the viewership for Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada DTS films on our platform comes from outside the home state. Similarly, international language content such as ‘Parasite’ last year or ‘Maradona: The Blessed Dream’, this year is being viewed widely,” shared Gandhi.

    He credits the quality of Indian content on streaming services that are at par with international standards for the 20 per cent viewership (one in every five views) on Prime Video originals coming from outside India. According to Gandhi, another significant trend in the past couple of years, especially through 2020-21, has been the acceptance of OTTs as a ‘living room phenomenon’ and a product for the household as well as the individual, simultaneously.

    Buoyed by these developments, Prime Video has doubled down on investments in the content to keep the momentum on SVOD going in 2022. As regards sports content, while it has made a start in the direction, Gandhi asserted, “We feel very good about the fact that our overall entertainment portfolio has many strong pieces in it, and we are not dependent on anyone. We would like to evaluate the opportunities that exist in sports, but we are not compelled to.”

    For Disney+ Hotstar 2022 will be about “working on user engagement, experience, and stickiness while delivering quality content at scale,” informed Rayan.

  • Epic Digital Originals launches new show ‘Epic Explorers’

    Epic Digital Originals launches new show ‘Epic Explorers’

    Mumbai: Since time immemorial, India has received several keen travelers who came here to attain knowledge and fell in love with the country’s traditions and colors. EPIC Digital Originals has launched a new show, ‘Epic Explorers’ documenting the journey of some of these travelers, and chronicling their experiences of the country.

    The show will explore India’s journey through the eyes of famous foreign travelers who visited the country between 300BCE to 1800 AD. Each webisode will cover explorers like Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta, Megasthenes among many others, and will showcase details about the reasons that brought these travelers here, and which kingdom and era they studied.

    Epic AVP Content and strategy Nisha Thakkar said, “The webisodes are an attempt to showcase our past through the eyes of these explorers to the current generation. At Epic, we are always innovating to bring interesting and exceptional stories to the foreground. Our Digital Originals are a step towards capturing the on-the-go audience.”

    The show premieres on 15 November, every Monday at 7:55 pm on the channel, YouTube, and Epic On.

  • Nippon TV inks licensing deal with Netflix

    Nippon TV inks licensing deal with Netflix

    Mumbai: Nippon TV, Japan’s multiplatform entertainment company, has partnered with Netflix for the first time to make 30 of its biggest drama series and entertainment shows available outside Japan, all across Asia.

    The first 15 titles have just started to stream in October. Titles include its mega-hit 2011 drama series “I’m Mita,” “Your Housekeeper,” whose last episode broke records with a 40 per cent viewer rating in Japan and has also been successful as a scripted format and licensed to Korea; “Death Note,” which is a live-action drama based on its widely popular comic series, and “Tokyo Tarareba Girls,” which is also remade from the hit comic series that saw over 1.8 million copies printed throughout Japan.

    From December, another 15 titles will be added, including the 2019 award-winning drama series “Mr Hiiragi’s Homeroom,” “Your Turn to Kill,” and “Life’s Punchline,” which was broadcast this year with almost 14 million total views to date on TVer, a VOD streaming service in Japan. 

    Entertainment shows as part of this deal include the highly popular adventure variety show “The Quest,” and the contest show “Masquerade,” which is one of Nippon TV’s longest-running programs with its over 40 years history.

    “We are very pleased to announce that Netflix will be offering our content to its audience across Asia,” stated Nippon TV head of finished program sales, international business development Keisuke Miyata. “This region is a key part of our continued growth, and now coupled with Netflix’s strength as one of the world’s leading streaming platforms, we are confident that Nippon TV’s titles will be well received by viewers in this prominent new territory for us.”