Tag: SVOD

Netflix Originals popular in most global markets

MUMBAI: Netflix is showing its clout as its popular show Stranger Things’ has emerged as the most popular digital original series in most markets. Parrot Analytics’ Global Television Demand Report examined the demand for all digital original series in 10 markets (Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Greece, Switzerland, Brazil, UK, US).

While Netflix is shifting its focus more and more towards originals, the survey report has proved it is definitely helping the company’s popularity. In six markets including Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Greece, the Netflix original Stranger Things is the most in-demand original series.

Star Trek: Discovery and Black Mirror from Netflix have been placed among top 10 in-demand originals in the most of the surveyed markets. Other than Netflix originals, Amazon Prime Video’s The Grand Tour has also been placed as a popular one in the list in all markets.

While globally the demand for OTT services has increased dramatically, the willingness to pay for subscription is still not very high in the markets. Parrot Analytics carried a survey across four markets including Brazil, Italy, UK, US. In Brazil, over 40 per cent of the people are not willing to opt for SVOD subscription. Over 45 per cent of respondents and nearly 50 per cent of the respondents in the UK and US respectively are not willing to subscribe to any video subscription streaming services.

Italy came out as an odd market in the survey as over 70 per cent of people in Italy are willing to subscribe to one or two SVOD services, much higher compared to the other three markets. Only 18 per cent of people in this territory are not willing to subscribe to a subscription video streaming service.

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May 16, 2018
Vice Media starts Indian journey promising edgy content

MUMBAI: Global youth media brand Vice Media, which officially launched its operations in India on Thursday in partnership with the Times of India group, will bring content in Hindi and English and has introduced all its digital brands under the VICE.com banner.

Along with its digital brands, Vice will also premier a late-night prime time television block across the Times of India portfolio, bringing the best of Viceland’s award-winning content to a mass market like India. Viceland is a multinational brand of television channel owned by Vice Media, which also provides programming and was started in 2016.

According to a statement put out by the company, Vice India’s local content programming will span conversations across topics such as food, music, politics, sports, sex, identity, nightlife, arts, and comedy. The company plans to showcase a wide range youth-oriented content in the coming months, including local mental health crisis, sexual assault on university campuses, navigating life in India as an LGBTQI+ individual, the taboo sex industry, and political action in the region.

However, it must be added here that last month some media reports indicated that at least a couple of people associated with content generation quit Vice India alleging interference of corporate bosses in editorial matters, especially in those edgy news stories that involved a particular political party in India.

Beyond Vice’s main partnership with the Times of India group, additional partnerships, including with Facebook, will bring Vice’s content to millions of new viewers in the region through original local production and reporting, and licensing.

“We are humbled by the response we have received on our content as we launch and are excited to partner people, brands and organisations who are on a mission to connect with India’s youth and impact their future positively,” Vice India CEO Chanpreet Arora said in a statement.

New offices in Mumbai and Delhi will host full-scale Vice operations, including a local offering of Virtue Worldwide, Vice’s in-house creative agency, and a full-service content production studio, Vice Studio, producing local news, culture, documentary, film and scripted content for television, SVOD, OTT and digital platforms.

“A large number of people on Facebook in India are young. We are happy to see Vice Media launch in India and excited about the opportunity that people will get to see content that will be relevant, high quality and something, which will encourage meaningful conversations,” Facebook entertainment partnership head, Asia Pacific, Saurabh Doshi said.

Virtue Worldwide has entered into major brand partnerships that will provide creative services throughout India. Launch partnerships in the region include Mountain Dew (PepsiCo) and Anheuser-Busch InBev. On the heels of its global association, Vice India, in partnership with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, will be working together to create, curate and distribute culture-centric content to augment the reach of the latter’s portfolio brands such as Budweiser in the country.

“We are excited to extend our global relationship with Vice in India to collaborate on creating immersive experiences. We are confident that this partnership will allow both entities to cater and connect to the passion points of India’s youth,” Anheuser-Busch InBev India marketing director Kartikeya Sharma said.

Hosi Simon, CEO of Vice APAC, who was in the country to launch the brand, said, “Our aim is to reach the aspirational mass audience, which is about to make their voices heard loudly in India. We are looking beyond urban India, into the regional emerging and highly curious youth population, which, we believe, will own the future of the country very soon.”

Rishi Jaitly, CEO of Times Bridge, the arm of The Times Group that has invested in Vice India, expressed the hope that the operation would become the country’s leading youth media company, “engaging and delighting millennial and Gen Z audiences” across the sub-continent.

More details on multiple platform partnerships would be announced in the coming months, Vice India said. But it is not clear whether Vice India has applied for Indian government permissions for the Viceland TV channel and whether it would be introduced here at all.

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April 21, 2018
Indian diaspora remains sustainable audience for OTTs

MUMBAI: With the Indian diaspora spread out all over the world, media enterprises have found them to be a worthy group to target. Over-the-top (OTT) players, especially, are finding the diaspora audience a rewarding pursuit. Some platforms use Bollywood to grab their attention while others are targeting millennial audiences with original content.

One the one hand you have players that believe in stock content. Yupp TV has been at the forefront of targeting Indian diaspora through catch-up content. Realising the scarcity of Indian entertainment content for the expat community, Uday Reddy founded the venture. While there is scepticism about whether audiences would pay for catch-up content, Yupp TV has relied on SVOD model for the diaspora and a freemium one in India.

Another OTT platform, Spuul, which also has a large presence outside India, takes the help of popular Bollywood titles to attract them. According to its own viewership statistics, the Indian diaspora has a strong inclination to watch Bollywood movies during leisure time.

On the other hand, a new bunch of players wants to break out of the monotony of catch-up and Bollywood content. Arre, a youth platform launched by ex-TV18 execs B Saikumar and Ajay Chacko, gets a good handful of viewers from abroad for both videos and articles.

“Our show Aisha which is primarily a sci-fi thriller/drama is among the most consumed. It is also one of the most awarded shows from India, internationally. Our other shows like Real High (adventure travel reality), Official Chukiyagiri/ CEOgiri also see a lot of international audiences. We also get a lot of readers on our articles internationally,” Arre co-founder Chacko says.

Chacko feels that the younger audiences want original quality programming of modern India and not the staid staples like Bollywood and catch up.

Holding the same belief, ALTBalaji CMO Manav Sethi feels that content must be unique to get people to pay. “It is very important for today’s consumers who consume content on mobile, paying for data, to watch differentiated things,” he says.

While it comes to market outside India, the US is definitely a promising one, followed by the Gulf countries. For Arre, the US is the largest market outside of India while for ALTBalaji both come in the list of top-five markets. Canada, with a huge number of Punjabi people, is also an attractive market. In fact, on Spuul, other than Hindi content, Punjabi is the highest consumed content.

Depending on the dominant diaspora language in the region, platforms tweak content accordingly. For example, if Canada has more Punjabi people, there will be more Punjabi content for Canada. ALTBalaji released a Tamil show Maya Thirrai, which got traction in Singapore and the UAE, while its Bengali show Dhimaner Dinkaal received got a great response in Bangladesh. Chacko reveals that through YuppTV, Arre gets significant traction for shows, especially the ones dubbed in Telegu among the Indian American diaspora in the east and west coasts of the US.

Two neighbouring countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, also demand Indian content. The similarity in culture, language, dialect, lifestyle and moreover, the pattern of same entertainment content paves the way for OTT players to explore the business there.

These audiences are a good way for OTT players to also get some revenue since most of them only have SVOD or TVOD options. Players say that the diaspora is more likely to pay for content that keeps them connected to their roots. The average revenue per user is higher outside the country. They also have a huge repertoire of choices with good quality in international OTT platforms.

Some platforms want to go beyond the diaspora communities and reach out to other global audiences as well.

“So far, it has been a sustainable model for us, as we have been working on multiple verticals of content but, going forward, we will be paying more attention to India than last year and separate content for specific markets,” Spuul content head Girish Dwibhashyam says.

Due to the diversity of the diaspora, there is no one formula fits all solution. Content creators have to rely on good quality original content to keep these audiences glued.

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April 12, 2018
Turner International announces SVOD service FilmStruck

MUMBAI: Turner International’s Digital Ventures & Innovation (DV&I) Group and Warner Bros Digital Networks (WBDN) have announced a joint venture to launch a new, multi-territory movie-streaming service called FilmStruck.

FilmStruck’s launch in the international marketplace will leverage the strength of assets at both companies, bringing together a broad and diverse movie catalogue as well as long-standing expertise in programming and curation. The service will draw primarily on the extensive Warner Bros library and the Criterion Collection library as well as other global and local content partners.

FilmStruck will offer film lovers a broad collection of high-quality and critically-acclaimed movies across many categories – mainstream, cult, independent, classics, art house, foreign and documentary film. The eclectic but highly accessible content will also feature curated themes, exclusive bonus material including cast interviews, Criterion original mini-documentaries and hosted introductions, and original artwork.

The UK is the joint venture’s initial launch market in what is planned as a multi-market roll out over the next two years.

FilmStruck Curzon is expected to roll out in the UK in the coming weeks and will be available on demand on most phones and tablets, online and on TV via streaming devices.

The UK service will launch in association with iconic cinema brand Curzon as Filmstruck Curzon and will feature a branded Curzon area within the service curated including access to titles from the Curzon Artificial Eye film library. The agreement with Curzon also includes opportunities to leverage its established market position, experience, and consumer base and cinema operations and to launch additional Curzon branded cinema services in other markets.

“We’re thrilled to take this significant step together as a joint venture with Warner Bros Digital Networks, after many years of growing collaboration across various other projects with Warner Bros. as a whole,” said DV&I EVP Aksel van der Wal. “FilmStruck helps us realise a shared vision for what we see as a clear gap in the market for film lovers around the world. We’re also delighted to be working with a partner of Curzon’s heritage and prestige.”

Warner Bros Digital Networks president business and strategy Craig Hunegs said, “International film fans now have a new home for a wide and diverse range of movies including some of Warner Bros.’ most iconic titles. Digital Networks is very excited to partner with Aksel and the Turner team to do this in an even more direct and compelling way.”

Curzon digital venture director Philip Mordecai said, “Curzon is thrilled to be joining at this early stage and see this collaboration as a further marker in our commitment to premium consumer services in the UK and internationally.”

The international expansion of Turner’s SVOD service FilmStruck marks Turner’s growing activity in the space outside of the US, and is its first SVOD service in the general entertainment space. Turner International now offers three international SVOD brands, with EI Plus in Brazil and the recently launched Nordics brand Toonix respectively providing sports and kids & family OTT products.

The addition of FilmStruck to its international portfolio of brands is also part of Turner’s wider strategy to do more in the OTT space and expand its options to create fan-centric experiences that engage new audiences.

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January 20, 2018
Viacom18’s Sudhanshu Vats: Indian media’s growth will be similar to China

MACAU: Even as he said that the growth trajectory of the Indian media space will be similar to that of China, Mumbai-headquartered Viacom 18 Media group CEO Sudhanshu Vats made it clear that both television and digital spaces were complementary to each other having a great future in India.

“Indian media market’s evolution will be very similar to that of China. Where we (India) are today in 2017 is where China was in 2011,” Vats said on Wednesday during the opening keynote on the third and last day of the CASBAA Convention 2017 here in a conversation with media industry veteran Marcel Fenez of Fenez Media.

“In India, the future of television is television and also digital. If you are a content provider or a story teller, you have an advantage,” Vats said, adding that he expected a significant growth surge on the AVoD and SVoD sides of the media business.

Vats went on to highlight the reasons for pushing the company’s digital venture VOOT, stating that not only has the app downloads run into double digit millions, but that about 15-18 per cent of the content on the platform was exclusive even as the Viacom18 team learns from the digital evolutionary processes in the US and China markets. Launched in early 2016, VOOT engages kids as well as adults with 17,000 hours of network content.

“We do a lot of content around digital, which is called VOOT exclusive. India has a big appetite for reality shows and there is a huge amount of curiosity about what happens behind the scenes,” Vats explained. Viacom18 hosts some of India’s biggest reality shows – ‘Fear Factor’ and `Bigg Boss’. He also thinks that India will skip credit cards to e-payment, which can help aim for VOOT SVoD with a paywall.

According to Vats, a Unilever India veteran marketer-turned-media professional (he jokingly mentioned that in his previous company he was famously referred to as the `Laundry Man’ for driving Unilever’s home washing products in India), “Essentially we are storytellers. The big business we are in is content and we need a robust pipeline of content and creative talent. But the challenge is getting talent, and retaining them.”

In this context, he explained later, Viacom18 has started a start-up initiative, encouraging young talent to express themselves in a creative manner as new disruptive ideas in Indian media will not come from within an organisation, but from outside.

(Another reality show running on MTV India is Dropout, a nationwide hunt to find hidden creative talent in ‘dropouts’ to be groomed by industry leaders into entrepreneurs, to solve real-world business problems in a short span of time.)

Terming Viacom18’s 10-year eventful existence as “fantastic” when it had grown 40x, Vats, whose many passions include running marathons world over, said the company’s journey had “now just begun” in India’s media landscape that has been changing dramatically over the years pushed by content, delivery mechanism and technological evolutions. (Incidentally, he completed his daily quota of an hour’s running before getting ready for the morning keynote.)

As part of innovations being undertaken by Viacom18, Vats pointed out that the company plans to set up an engineering hub in India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore, to help various in-house products.

“The big media companies are consolidating and coming together with telecom companies,” Vats said highlighting the disruptions and convergence happening in the Indian media landscape, “If you had asked me before, I wouldn’t have thought that would happen.”

Batting on the front foot for a digital India, Vats said the country was an “exciting” market. “It’s at the cusp…ready to take off. If you have a five-year horizon, it (India) is where you should be,” he aptly summed.

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November 9, 2017
Vice strengthens foothold in APAC, Hosi Simon made CEO

MACAU: Vice Media has announced a major expansion of its offerings across the Asia Pacific region, with a plethora of new deals that will allow it to reach hundreds of millions of additional viewers.

Vice India will launch in early 2018 through a partnership with the Times of India Group, allowing it to produce and distribute local programming for online, mobile and linear platforms. New offices in Mumbai and Delhi will host full-scale Vice operations, including a local offering of virtue worldwide and a full-service content production studio producing scripted, film, news and culture content from India for television, SVOD, OTT and digital platforms.

With an online video market that is expected to hit $ 46 billion over the next five years, the APAC region is home to 60 percent of the world’s young people, according to the United Nations, demonstrating a significant opportunity for the youth-focused media brand.

Vice global general manager Hosi Simon will relocate to Singapore, the new headquarters of Vice APAC, to become chief executive officer for the region. Simon announced the new role and the series of partnerships today at the CASBAA Convention 2017 in Macau.

In addition to opening a full-service content and commercial hub in Singapore, which will offer a studio for local documentary, scripted and film content production, and provide creative services through Virtue Worldwide, Vice announced new offices and partnerships that will allow the youth brand to expand its reach and library of intellectual property.

Vice is building on its partnership with Docomo Digital in Japan across several territories in Asia. It has also entered into partnerships with leading global and local brands in the region, with more territory launches, partnerships and employee appointments to be announced in the coming weeks.

“We believe there is a huge opportunity for Vice to build out a deeply relevant, highly local, youth media company across the Asia Pacific region,” said Simon. “With the growing importance of local culture to young people, along with a surging youth population and increased connectivity, some of the most dominant forms of global youth culture across technology, music, fashion, consumer brands, food and identity will come from this part of the world. We hope to play a significant role in creating and giving a voice to these movements, and helping to bring them to the rest of the world.”

The full slate of announcements to expand in the APAC region include:

Vice Singapore – Under the direction of new Vice Asia Pacific CEO Hosi Simon, the Vice Singapore regional headquarters will serve as the nucleus for Asia Pacific activity, becoming a content hub offering the full scale of Vice services, including complete production capabilities, locally staffed editorial content, and creative services through Virtue Worldwide. Vice Singapore will be fully operational by January 2018.

Vice Indonesia – Vice remains in close partnership with JawaPos TV, which will air branded Viceland blocks and Vice news tonight episodes, and digital content in primetime slots beginning this month. Young people aged 18-34 comprise 50 percent of Indonesia’s overall population,opening the door for it to reach the young audience on whatever platform they consume content.

Expansion of Vice + Docomo Digital partnership: Based on the success of Vice Japan’s partnership with Docomo Digital, Vice and Docomo have significantly expanded their partnership to bring Vice+, Vice’s subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, into Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and other territories to be announced. This will allow Vice content to reach millions of new young people in a region with a fast growing youth population.

Virtue worldwide brand partnerships: Virtue worldwide has entered into major brand partnerships that will see the creative agency that was born out of Vice provide creative services throughout the Asia Pacific region. Launch partnerships in the region include Unilever in Indonesia, National Basketball Association in China, Budweiser in Australia, Nike in Thailand and the Philippines, and a BMW/Alexander Wang collaboration around a new vehicle launch in China.

Vice has operated in the Asia Pacific region since 2003 and currently has offices in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and Indonesia. This vast expansion in the region follows the series of deals Vice announced earlier this year, providing major inroads into the nascent mobile content market in the APAC region, and furthers Vice’s ability to bring content directly to young people on whatever screen they are watching. The series of deals will allow Vice to further cultivate the growing young audiences across the APAC region, growing its presence across multiple screens and reaching millions of new viewers across the region.

Simon assumes the role of CEO, Vice Asia Pacific after serving as global general manager of Vice Media for over a decade, where he oversaw the strategy, growth and operations of Vice digital assets around the world, including Vice’s owned and operated channels, publishing and large-scale brand partnerships, and mobile and OTT platforms, and launched many of the newer offices around the world.

Vice has developed an outstanding global reputation for producing the gold standard of video content for young people, forging innovative distribution partnerships across mobile, digital and linear platforms with A+E Networks, HBO, YouTube, Snapchat, Sky, 20th Century Fox, Verizon, Canal+, and more to take its programming to young people everywhere.

These deals significantly increase Vice’s vast international footprint, ushering in new audiences, revenue streams, and content production. With these deals, Vice’s award-winning multi-platform programming across lifestyle, culture, news, sports, food and more, will be delivered to over 80 territories by Q1 2018.

November 7, 2017
FTV India working on linear and SVoD launch by Dec ’17

MUMBAI: FashionTV is taking a leap forward by presenting its unique 12+ new FTV+ OTT channels and FashionFlix SVoD at at MIPCOM, Cannes 2017.

The 20-years young global satellite TV network dedicated to lifestyle and fashion, launched its multi-content platforms FTV+ and FashionFlix, presenting significant amount of original and informative programming for the platforms of the next generation TVs.

The company is currently working on the launch of the FTV China, FTV India, FTV Indonesia, FTV Spain, FTV Japan, FTV Africa, etc. both, in linear and SVOD, formats by the end of the year.

FashionTV group president Michel Adam said: “FTV channels and VOD are now more engaging to our audience across all devices. The FTV+ platform presents 12+ visually stunning OTT streams on FTV+ cover all types of themes and can be received through satellite, IP or mobile application.”

FashionFlix is a SVOD platform focusing on the cult movies as “The Devil Wears Prada”, “Yves Saint Laurent”, “Coco Chanel,” and Fashion trend-setting films as “Matrix”, “James Bond — Skyfall,” and documentaries about the fashion industry and the iconic people behind the luxe of the world of fashion.

The content on the platforms is available in SD, HD, UHD and VR and can be received on the Web, Apple Store, Google Play, AppleTV, AndroidTV, AmazonTV, Roku and on many OTT platforms.

FashionTV just launched two localised livestreams – FTV USA and FTV Brazil, broadcasting world class production, exclusive shows and the hottest up-and-coming fashion trends from USA and Brazil,” the FTV CEO said.

October 14, 2017
Global OTT rev to touch $83 bn by ’22, India could improve ranking: Study

NEW DELHI: A global study projects that OTT TV episode and movie revenues would touch $ 83 billion by 2022, more than double the $ 37 billion recorded in 2016 with India expected to clock $ 1.5 billion by then, which will help it go up the pecking order that is presently led by the US.

The US will remain the dominant territory for online TV and video revenues by some distance, though the its share of the global market will fall from 51 per cent in 2016 to 40 per cent in 2022, The Global OTT TV & Video Forecasts report stated, adding contributing half the Asia Pacific total, China will add a further $7.6 billion with its total revenues reaching $12 billion in 2022.

Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray told Indiantelevision.com via an email exchange, “We estimate that OTT revenues reached $246 million in India in 2016. We forecast that this figure will be $1501 million by 2022.”

Pointing out that India’s OTT revenue growth will be “pretty impressive”, Murray said India is also likely to improve its ranking from No. 18 in 2016 to No. 11 by 2022. The present report studied OTT trends in 138 countries.

Interestingly, Asia-based research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) few months back estimated the Indian online video industry generated approximately US$ 230 million in total sales in 2016, and is on course to reach approximately US$340 million in 2017. MPA projected a 35 percent CAGR to 2022 as total industry sales top US$1.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the Digital TV Research, released recently, went on to add global SVOD (subscription video on-demand) became the largest OTT revenue source in 2013. It will generate half of the OTT revenues by 2022. SVOD will add $24 billion in revenues between 2016 and 2022, with AVOD up by $17 billion. AVOD will total $29 billion by 2022; up from $12 billion in 2016.

According to Murray, “OTT revenues will exceed $1 billion in 14 countries by 2022; double the count at end-2017. The top five nations will command two-thirds of global revenues.”

October 6, 2017
Asian OTTs use global, local content, AVoD and SVoD mix to consolidate position, says report

MUMBAI: Over-the-Top services are steadily gaining traction in APAC, but succeeding in a highly diverse and price-sensitive market will entail a thorough understanding of consumer preferences and intent.

OTT players in the region are already partnering with mobile operators to drive subscribership. Examples include Viu’s various partnerships with Telekom Malaysia, Maxis and U Mobile in Malaysia, Indosat in Indonesia, CSL in Hong Kong and Idea cellular in India among others.

A new report, “OTT Video in Asia-Pacific: Localised content and business models are key while mobile will offer opportunity for future video growth” has been added to the repository of Market Research Hub (MRH).

Strategies of the four key OTT video service providers have been discussed in the report in the form of four case studies. The key OTT video service providers profiled in the case studies include Netflix, iflix, Viu, and Hotstar.

The success of OTT services in any market depends upon a host of factors, with viewer awareness and receptiveness among the key factors. Smartphone ownership, cellular and broadband penetration levels, and pay-TV subscription are the other key factors that influence the scope of OTT video services in a market.

The APAC region remains diverse, with a significant variation in internet and broadband penetration levels. Further, owing to lax piracy laws, a significant section of the consumer base is habitual of downloading pirated copies from the internet. In view of these factors, many OTT video service providers are using a mix of AVoD and SVoD to consolidate their position.

According to the report, content remains an integral part of overall viewer experience in APAC. OTT video service providers have realised the importance of high-quality content, as a result of which, content production has gained prominence. Further, increase in smartphone ownership and launch of 4G services in several APAC countries are leading to collaboration between telecom service providers and OTT video service providers.

According to the report, OTT service providers in countries that have low OTT readiness can commence with AVoD services to raise awareness and interest among viewers. The report comments that this strategy has helped Hotstar and Viu in gaining a significant foothold in the APAC OTT video services market.

However, AVoD as a business model is likely to face a lot of challenges, on account of high cost of content acquisition. Further, relying on one particular form of content may not work, and OTT service providers may have to rely on a mix of local and international content to appeal to a wider target audience.

September 16, 2017
Hooq hooks CBS’ Jennifer Batty as CCO

MUMBAI: Earlier this year, OTT service Hooq cofounder and chief content & distribution officer Krishnan Rajagopalan relinquished his post, which lay vacant. Today, the burgeoning SVOD’s service’s CEO Peter Bithos announced that the position has been filled as a replacement has been found in former RTL CBS Asia executive vice-president programming Jennifer Batty.

A 20 year veteran with exposure to channel development and programming in North America, Asia and Europe, Batty will now be bringing all her experience to bear as Hooq’s chief content officer (CCO). She built her career heading up programming at Modern Times Group (Viasat Broadcasting) pay-TV channels across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and held various roles at Alliance Atlantis Communications, from content sales to content development in both Europe and Canada.

“Jennifer understands the region and she knows customers’ media appetite. Her knowledge of Asia combined with her passion for content are assets we welcome to Hooq,” said Bithos.

High on Batty’s to-do list is building on the OTT service’s previous week’s week’s agreement with Marvel for exclusive SVoD rights to three new series – Marvel’s Inhumans, Marvel’s Runaways and Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger.

This represents an extension of a deal signed with Disney early in the year. Additionally Hooq is aiming to extend its list of Asian originals with ‘Saranair Love You’ currently playing in Thai cinemas and available on Hooq three months after the last cinematic screening as well as Asian originals co-produced by Hooq from Indonesia including Critical Eleven, Sweet 20 and Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, which was also recently screened at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes and this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“The growing access to multiple screens and improved connectivity underscores the reality that linear viewing is on the decline. With Hooq, viewers can choose to watch their favourite shows wherever, whenever they want. More than ever, we must provide compelling programmes and an easy-to-navigate platform to retain viewers,” said Batty.

Batty was a key member in RTL Group’s expansion into India and then their joint venture with CBS Studios International, launching RTL CBS Entertainment and RTL CBS Extreme.

September 15, 2017