ITV

Tag: Tamil

  • BARC week 5: Big Ganga is No. 1 in Bhojpuri genre; no leadership change in other regional genres

    BARC week 5: Big Ganga is No. 1 in Bhojpuri genre; no leadership change in other regional genres

     

    MUMBAI: While there were not many changes in the regional channels space in week 5, the prominent gainer was Big Ganga, which climbed up to the first spot in the Bhojpuri channels’ space.

     

    Additionally, there was also a new entrant each in the Oriya and Tamil language regional channels Top 5 list in week 5 of BARC ratings in Alankar and J Movie respectively.

     

    Regional channel leaders in the Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu space continued to maintain a stranglehold on the top slot.

     

    Bangla GECs

     

    Star Jalsa retained the top position with 243019 (‘000s) followed by Zee Bangla in the second place with 138047 (‘000s). Jalsa Movies held on to its third position with 69803 (‘000s). Zee Bangla Cinema with 34628 (‘000s) climbed up one place to perch at the fourth spot, while Colors Bangla dropped one place to take the fifth place with 31471 (‘000s) in week 5 of BARC data in West Bengal (U+R): NCCS All : 4+ Individuals.

     

    Bhojpuri GECs

     

    Even as it witnessed a fall in ratings, Big Ganga climbed up to the top position in week 5 with 10365 (‘000s). On the other hand, Bhojpuri Cinema forfeited its leadership slot and dropped down to the second place with a considerable drop in ratings at 9727 (‘000s) as compared to 17459 (‘000s) in week 4.

     

    Dabangg retained its third place but yet again with a drop in ratings at 5707 (‘000s). Dangal TV too saw a drop in ratings but maintained its fourth place with 4613. ETV Bihar Jharkhand too held its fifth spot with 2591 (‘000s) in the Bihar (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals according to BARC India.

     

    Kannada GECs

     

    Colors Kanada stood firm in the first spot even in week 5 with a drop in ratings at 261277 (‘000s). Zee Kannada in the second spot witnessed a rise in ratings with 159937 (‘000s) as compared to 145618 (‘000s) in week 4. Udaya Movies pipped Suvarna to claim the third spot in week 5 with 159785 (‘000s). On the other hand, Suvarna dropped to the fourth slot with 139413 (‘000s). Udaya TV maintained its place in the fifth position with 111309 (‘000s) in Karnataka (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals.

     

    Malayalam GECs

     

    Asianet continued to hold the top slot with 330282 (‘000s) followed by Mazhavil Manorama with 97830 (‘000s) in the second place. Flowers TV maintained its place at number three with 88167 (‘000s). Asianet Movies with with 50598 (‘000s) climbed up one place to stand at number four, while Surya TV dropped one place at number five with 49294 (‘000s) in the Kerala (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market in week 5.

     

    Marathi GECs

     

    With no change in the Top 5 channels’ pecking order in the Marathi genre, Zee Marathi retained its numero uno position with 152180 (‘000s). Following it was Colors Marathi with 96885 (‘000s), whereas Zee Talkies maintained its place in the third spot with 63998 (‘000s). Star Pravah in the fourth slot was with 50095 (‘000s), whereas Maiboli stood in the fifth slot with 20489 (‘000s) in the Maharashtra / Goa (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Oriya GECs

     

    Sarthak TV maintained its place on top with 105782 (‘000s) and was followed by Tarang TV with 23447 (‘000s) in the second spot. Colors Oriya was in the third position with 23447 (‘000s), whereas Odisha TV retained its fourth position with 15420 (‘000s). Prarthana bowed out of the Top 5 list, paving the way for Alankar, which made an entry in week 5 at the fifth spot with 8948 (‘000s) in the Odisha (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Tamil GECs

     

    Sun TV remained the undisputed leader in the Tamil space with a spike in ratings at 962670 (‘000s). KTV was at number two with 280055 (‘000s) whereas Star Vijay continued to hold its third spot with 196249 (‘000s). Polimer climbed up one place to take the fourth place with 80166 (‘000s), whereas a new channel J Movie with 79722 (‘000s) made its presence felt in the fifth place. In week 5, Zee Tamil, which was in the fourth position last week, dropped out of the charts in the Tamil Nadu/ Puducherry (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Telugu GECs

     

    The Telugu genre too saw no change in the pecking order from last week. ETV Telugu continued to lead the genre with 426874 (‘000s) followed by Zee Telugu with 370362 (‘000s). Maa TV was in third spot with 364618 (‘000s), whereas Gemini TV retained its place in the fourth rung with 268420 (‘000s). Gemini Movies with 194587 (‘000s) stood in the fifth position in week 5 in the Andhra Pradesh – Telangana (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

  • BARC week 5: Big Ganga is No. 1 in Bhojpuri genre; no leadership change in other regional genres

    BARC week 5: Big Ganga is No. 1 in Bhojpuri genre; no leadership change in other regional genres

     

    MUMBAI: While there were not many changes in the regional channels space in week 5, the prominent gainer was Big Ganga, which climbed up to the first spot in the Bhojpuri channels’ space.

     

    Additionally, there was also a new entrant each in the Oriya and Tamil language regional channels Top 5 list in week 5 of BARC ratings in Alankar and J Movie respectively.

     

    Regional channel leaders in the Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu space continued to maintain a stranglehold on the top slot.

     

    Bangla GECs

     

    Star Jalsa retained the top position with 243019 (‘000s) followed by Zee Bangla in the second place with 138047 (‘000s). Jalsa Movies held on to its third position with 69803 (‘000s). Zee Bangla Cinema with 34628 (‘000s) climbed up one place to perch at the fourth spot, while Colors Bangla dropped one place to take the fifth place with 31471 (‘000s) in week 5 of BARC data in West Bengal (U+R): NCCS All : 4+ Individuals.

     

    Bhojpuri GECs

     

    Even as it witnessed a fall in ratings, Big Ganga climbed up to the top position in week 5 with 10365 (‘000s). On the other hand, Bhojpuri Cinema forfeited its leadership slot and dropped down to the second place with a considerable drop in ratings at 9727 (‘000s) as compared to 17459 (‘000s) in week 4.

     

    Dabangg retained its third place but yet again with a drop in ratings at 5707 (‘000s). Dangal TV too saw a drop in ratings but maintained its fourth place with 4613. ETV Bihar Jharkhand too held its fifth spot with 2591 (‘000s) in the Bihar (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals according to BARC India.

     

    Kannada GECs

     

    Colors Kanada stood firm in the first spot even in week 5 with a drop in ratings at 261277 (‘000s). Zee Kannada in the second spot witnessed a rise in ratings with 159937 (‘000s) as compared to 145618 (‘000s) in week 4. Udaya Movies pipped Suvarna to claim the third spot in week 5 with 159785 (‘000s). On the other hand, Suvarna dropped to the fourth slot with 139413 (‘000s). Udaya TV maintained its place in the fifth position with 111309 (‘000s) in Karnataka (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals.

     

    Malayalam GECs

     

    Asianet continued to hold the top slot with 330282 (‘000s) followed by Mazhavil Manorama with 97830 (‘000s) in the second place. Flowers TV maintained its place at number three with 88167 (‘000s). Asianet Movies with with 50598 (‘000s) climbed up one place to stand at number four, while Surya TV dropped one place at number five with 49294 (‘000s) in the Kerala (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market in week 5.

     

    Marathi GECs

     

    With no change in the Top 5 channels’ pecking order in the Marathi genre, Zee Marathi retained its numero uno position with 152180 (‘000s). Following it was Colors Marathi with 96885 (‘000s), whereas Zee Talkies maintained its place in the third spot with 63998 (‘000s). Star Pravah in the fourth slot was with 50095 (‘000s), whereas Maiboli stood in the fifth slot with 20489 (‘000s) in the Maharashtra / Goa (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Oriya GECs

     

    Sarthak TV maintained its place on top with 105782 (‘000s) and was followed by Tarang TV with 23447 (‘000s) in the second spot. Colors Oriya was in the third position with 23447 (‘000s), whereas Odisha TV retained its fourth position with 15420 (‘000s). Prarthana bowed out of the Top 5 list, paving the way for Alankar, which made an entry in week 5 at the fifth spot with 8948 (‘000s) in the Odisha (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Tamil GECs

     

    Sun TV remained the undisputed leader in the Tamil space with a spike in ratings at 962670 (‘000s). KTV was at number two with 280055 (‘000s) whereas Star Vijay continued to hold its third spot with 196249 (‘000s). Polimer climbed up one place to take the fourth place with 80166 (‘000s), whereas a new channel J Movie with 79722 (‘000s) made its presence felt in the fifth place. In week 5, Zee Tamil, which was in the fourth position last week, dropped out of the charts in the Tamil Nadu/ Puducherry (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

     

    Telugu GECs

     

    The Telugu genre too saw no change in the pecking order from last week. ETV Telugu continued to lead the genre with 426874 (‘000s) followed by Zee Telugu with 370362 (‘000s). Maa TV was in third spot with 364618 (‘000s), whereas Gemini TV retained its place in the fourth rung with 268420 (‘000s). Gemini Movies with 194587 (‘000s) stood in the fifth position in week 5 in the Andhra Pradesh – Telangana (U+R) : NCCS All : 4+ Individuals market.

  • YuppTV launches on-demand movie streaming service

    YuppTV launches on-demand movie streaming service

    MUMBAI: Over-the-top (OTT) player YuppTV has launched its on-demand movie streaming service called YuppFlix.

     

    Backed by its library of more than 5000+ movies in 12 languages, YuppFlix will offer users on-the-go entertainment across genres like comedy, thriller, romance, action, drama and devotional.

     

    YuppFlix will offer instant movie updates through ad campaigns and push notifications, internet premiers of upcoming movies.

     

    Speaking on the launch, YuppTV founder and CEO Uday Reddy said, “The Indian expat communities living overseas have limited access to legal regional movie content. Having established YuppTV as the digital destination for over-the-top Indian content, we felt the time was right for us to launch YuppFlix as the premier on-demand digital movie solution for Indian expats. With our extensive database of movies in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Punjabi and Kannada, we are confident of delivering high-quality digital movie solutions for our users across the globe.”

     

    YuppFlix’s catalogue has over 25,000 hours of on-demand content accessible with a subscription.

  • MIB sets up toll free call centre for seamless transition of DAS

    MIB sets up toll free call centre for seamless transition of DAS

    MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has set up a Toll Free Telephone Number 1-800-180-4343 to answer queries of stakeholders, including consumers, for seamless transition to digitisation. To begin with the queries can be answered in 8 Indian languages – Hindi, English, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu,Tamil & Kannada. 
     

    After the completion of first two phases of cable TV digitisation, which covered 4 metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai) and 38 cities having populations of more than 10 lakh each, Phase III of digitisation is underway. It would cover all the remaining urban areas in the country and is to be completed by 31 Dec 2015. 

    The MIB has been facilitating the smooth switchover to digitisation. In this connection a list of urban areas to be covered in Phase III has been finalised in consultation with the state/Union Territory Governments. A Task Force has been constituted which is meeting every month to take stock of the progress. State and Union Territory Governments have nominated state level and district level nodal officers for coordination work. 10 workshops have been conducted by the Ministry of I&B at regional level to sensitise the nominated nodal officers about their role in the digitisation process.

     

    Twelve regional units have also been set up by the MIB for effective coordination. Secretary (I&B) has requested all the Chief Secretaries to set up monitoring committees to review preparedness for digitisation. Broadcasters as well as Multi System Operators (MSOs) have launched public awareness campaign. MIS software has been made operational for collection of seeding status of Set Top Boxes (STBs) online from registered MSOs, Direct To Home (DTH) and Headend In the Sky (HITS) operators. 

  • BARC week 41: Regional channels’ pecking order

    BARC week 41: Regional channels’ pecking order

    MUMBAI: With the introduction of the rural ratings data by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India in week 41, the number one slot across various regional channels has remained more or less the same with the exception of Telugu and Bhojpuri language channels.

     

    While in the Telugu channels genre, ETV Telugu emerged as the No. 1 channel in week 41, in the Bhojpuri genre, Dangal TV pipped Big Magic Ganga to become the numero uno channel.

     

    Here’s a look at the pecking order of channels across the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bangla, Oriya and Bhojpuri languages in the All India (Urban + Rural) market in week 41.

     

    TAMIL

     

    Sun TV continued to rule the roost amongst the Tamil channels with 1092231 (oooSums) in the All India (U+R) market. Incidentally, Sun TV also became the No 1 channel on All India basis ahead of Star Plus and Colors. Second in line amongst the Tamil channels was KTV with 337657 (oooSums) followed by Star Vijay with 183451 (oooSums). On fourth and fifth position were Polimer and Jaya TV with 95731 (oooSums) and 69870 (oooSums) respectively.

     

    TELUGU

     

    ETV Telugu emerged as the no. 1 channel in the Telugu GEC market with 424252 (000Sums). Second in line was Maa TV with 370706 (000Sums), followed by Zee Telugu with 316913 (000Sums). In the fourth spot stood Gemini TV with 255329 (000Sums), whereas Gemini Movies was in the fifth position with 178486 (000Sums).

     

    MALAYALAM

     

    In the Malayalam GEC genre, Asianet topped the chart with 413385 (oooSums), followed by Mazhavil Manorama with 85146 (oooSums) in the second spot. Followers TV with 77976 (oooSums) stood in the third rung, whereas Surya TV with 75531 (oooSums) and Asianet Movies with 74399 (oooSums) were at the fourth and fifth spot respectively.

     

    KANNADA

     

    In the Kannada GEC genre, Colors Kannada maintained its ranking order with 211268 (oooSums). In second spot was Udaya TV with 154276 (oooSums) followed by Suvarna with 153873 (oooSums) in the third spot in the All India (U+R) market in week 41. Zee Kannada, which was in second spot in C&S 1Lac+ marker in week 40, surfaced at the fifth spot in the All India (U+R) market in week 41 with 114845 (oooSums).

     

    MARATHI

     

    Zee Marathi with 116598 Rat (oooSums) leads the Marathi GEC genre followed by Colors Marathi with 73520 (oooSums) in the second spot. Zee Talkies was in the third spot with 55350 (oooSums). Star Pravah with 36992 (oooSums) and Maiboli with 23975 (oooSums) were in the fourth and fifth spot respectively.

     

    BANGLA

     

    Star Jalsha topped the Bengali GEC space with 241463 (000Sums). In second spot was Zee Bangla with 160222 (000Sums) and Jalsha Movies with 57045 (000Sums) stood in the third rung. Colors Bangla with 40571 (000Sums) was in the fourth spot, where Zee Bangla Cinema with 31173 (000Sums) came in fifth.

     

    ORIYA

     

    In the Oriya channels market, Sarthak TV led with 86337 (000Sums), followed by Tarang TV with 52529 (000Sums) in the second spot. Colors Oriya came up in the third spot with 19247 (000Sums), whereas Odisha TV with 18141 (000Sums) and Alankar with 11600 (000Sums) were in the fourth and fifth spot respectively.

     

    BHOJPURI

     

    Dangal TV with 12650 (000Sums) led the pack by a large margin in the Bihar & Jharkhand NCCS All: Individuals: All India (U+R) data. On second spot was Big Magic Ganga with 8138 (000Sums), followed by ETV Bihar Jharkhand with 5961 (000Sums) in the third slot. The fourth and fifth positions were occupied by DD Bihar and Anjan TV respectively. While DD Bihar scored 3130 (000Sums), Anjan TV totted 2667 (000Sums).

  • Sun TV loads South Indian languages films on HOOQ in multi-year deal

    Sun TV loads South Indian languages films on HOOQ in multi-year deal

    MUMBAI: The OTT acceleration in India is rapidly getting recognition from film and television companies. After collaborating with the likes of Yash Raj Films and Shemaroo Entertainment, OTT player HOOQ has now joined hands with top South Indian broadcaster Sun TV in a multi-year deal.

    HOOQ will carry Sun TV’s library that includes a mix of super hit films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada languages. 

    Sun TV group CEO S L Narayanan said, “We are excited about the possibilities arising out of our association with HOOQ, a digital distribution platform of impeccable lineage. Sun TV holds a large library of blockbusters and timeless classics with enduring appeal.”

    “Sun TV Network’s extensive library with titles from Tamil to Malayalam will help us ensure we have something for everyone in India. More importantly, we want our customers to continue to enjoy the largest and best catalogue of Hollywood and Indian content of any service available today,” added HOOQ CEO Peter Bithos.

    It may be recalled that Asian OTT player HOOQ recently set shop in India with over 30,000 hours  of movies and TV series.

  • Pustaka launches India’s first language eBook portal

    Pustaka launches India’s first language eBook portal

    BENGALURU: Pustaka Digital Media today launches India’s first ebook selling and lending portal in vernacular languages -www.pustaka.co.in. Initially www.pustaka.co.in will have 150 plus titles from the eminent authors of Tamil, Kananda and Telugu languages. The company plans to launch digitization model for all Indian language books by the end of 2020 based on the response from both reader and author community.

     

     

    Book lending library is a gift for book lovers and avid readers. With the new language eBook portal, Pustaka is introducing the traditional book subscription model on eBook platform. www.pustaka.co.in will address the need of the growing e-reader community of India and abroad who wants to read and cherish various literature of their own language. While bridging this gap, this new concept of eBook lending service opens a new stream of revenue for the authors in addition to current conventional revenue model.

     

     

    Commenting on this development, Nivetha, Founder & CEO, Pustaka Digital Media said, “www.pustaka.co.in will provide a whole new experience to the Indian language book readers with rich mobile content. We often complain that the young generation do not read native language books. Unfortunately, most of the native language books are not available as eBooks and they slowly migrate to English. Pustaka’s goal is to bridge this gap by publishing regional language books as eBooks. By the end of 2020, we plan to have few lakhs eBooks from all Indian languages on the platform of Pustaka”.

     

     

    Initially, the readers will be able the access the works of the eminent authors including Indira Soundarrajan, Pattukottai Prabhakar, Yandamoori Veerendranath, Neela Padmanabhan, Devibala, Rajesh Kumar, K.T.Gatti, Balabhadrapatruni Ramani and many more authors. The company is in the process of digitization various works of other prominent authors which will be available in a month’s time.

     

     

    ”Pustaka’s goal is to connect authors and readers of regional language books using technology. The new age readers are techno savvy and reads on the go. This trend has been driving the eBook market. Along with the English language books, Indian readers want to read their native language books of their favourite authors. Our plan is to target the readers of all age groups across India and other parts of world who desires to read their own language books”, said, Padmanaban, Director of Pustaka Digital Media.

     

     

    Few best seller books which will be available for the readers on Pustaka’s platform includes Tulasi, Tulasidala, Pallikonda Puram, Aindhu Vazhi Moondru Vaasal, Khajuraho etc.

     

     

    Delighted by this initiative Mr. Indira Soundarrajan (One of the prominent author in Tamil), said, “Nowadays, the way people read is changed and I feel it is necessary to adapt to that change. I would like to congratulate the team of Pustaka Digital Media for this great initiative. This will be able to bond the new age readers with our rich Indian literature and culture.”.

     

  • Tata Sky completes half of its MPEG-4 STB rollout

    Tata Sky completes half of its MPEG-4 STB rollout

    MUMBAI: It was a year ago that Tata Sky decided it would stop depending on the government for giving its additional transponder space and switched to the alternative method of compression that others in the industry had already begun.

     

    A huge order for six million MPEG-4 boxes were given to Broadcom that would mean Tata Sky spending close to Rs 1,000 crore to replace all the initial MPEG-2 boxes that it had seeded at peoples’ home with MPEG-4. A year later, the DTH operator has converted nearly half of its MPEG-2 subscriber base to MPEG-4.

     

    Speaking to indiantelevision.com Tata Sky MD and CEO Harit Nagpal says, “We have replaced close to three million boxes. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Odia, English, Gujarati and Marathi language channels have already been compressed and boxes have been deployed in the respective areas.” Now, the large Hindi base of north India is left which it says it will soon complete.

     

    With this compression technique, the DTH operator has managed to fit three channels in the space of two in its existing transponder space. Nagpal adds that in the last one year, Tata Sky has added nearly 50 channels.

     

    The cost of this entire exercise is being borne by the operator. Tata Sky’s signals are being beamed off Insat 4A; but it had signed a contract to lease 12 transponders on ISRO’s GSAT-10 satellite around six years ago which have not been delivered to Tata Sky yet, even after the satellite launched in to space in September 2012.

     

    Emergency teams were also brought to seed the large amount of boxes. Tata Sky is continuing to add more channels to its regional packs, despite the fact that it hasn’t got any additional transponder capacity. However, a source from the company says that it has given up hope of having more space. 

     

     

  • Endemol India gets Ashok Vidyasagar as senior VP for south

    Endemol India gets Ashok Vidyasagar as senior VP for south

    MUMBAI: Endemol India is getting an expert hand to lead operations of the entire south India business in new senior vice president Ashok Vidyasagar. His mandate will be to focus on scripted business opportunities as well as exploit the non scripted catalog of Endemol in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

     

    Vidyasagar will be based out of Chennai and report to Endemol India COO (Television) Abhishek Rege. He has had nearly five years of experience in the media and entertainment industry and TV programming.

     

    Prior to this he was with Big Synergy Media as business director for south operations, Bates 141 as senior VP and general manager, Enfatico as country lead, group business director at DDB and account director at HTA Bangalore and JWT.

     

    Speaking on his appointment Rege said, “Regional markets, especially the southern markets, are fast-growing verticals for Endemol India.  We have always been focused on building regional franchises of our global shows especially in the south. In the past too we have seen great success with Deal or No Deal in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam and now most recently Bigg Boss Kannada has been a huge hit.  With Ashok leading the southern market, we hope to further expand and build more such ventures. We welcome him to the Endemol India team and look forward to benefiting from his talent and experience.”

     

    Ashok has a commerce background with a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration with additional studies completed under the Executive Education from IIM, Bangalore on Integrated Marketing Communications.

     

    “I am excited about my new role at Endemol India.  Endemol India, is one of India’s largest TV content companies with presence in television, film and digital content, and has in a short time, taken great strides in the south market most recently with the success of Bigg Boss in Kannada. I look forward to building its business down south and establishing new ventures while growing and driving forward existing business. Branded content and branded engagement in TV is huge business and other new media like digital, YouTube, cinema and mobile make interesting avenues for expanding the scope of content strategy and business. I would like to leverage my brand experience and work on content strategies for brands and channels in the south of India which is an exciting set of four markets. With the increasing percentage of ad spends of national brands in south, the possibilities are huge for branded engagement and content. Value and volume of new content in south India have shown impressive growth year on year. Hence, brands and channels are ready to make high investments for content resulting better ROI for them and therein lies the business opportunity for content,” said  Vidyasagar.

  • Puthu Yugam goes Korean, network launches mobile apps

    Puthu Yugam goes Korean, network launches mobile apps

    MUMBAI: They were late entrants into a market that was dominated by the Marans’ Sun group. Nearing three years into its foray in broadcast television media space with a News channel  ‘Puthiya Thalaimurai TV’ (PT), besides running the successful Tamil magazine of the same name, the New Generation Media Corporation owned by the Sri Ramaswamy Memorial (SRM)  group had launched a general entertainment channel (GEC) Puthu Yugum (PY) on 23 October 2013.

     

    Targeting the Tamil youth during prime time, Puthu Yugum has brought in south Korean shows to its programming mix. On offer are dubbed versions of south Korean dramas acquired from broadcasters MBC and KBS such as Boys over Flowers (KBS2), The Greatest Love (MBC), Playful Kiss (MBC), Moon Embracing the Sun (MBC), Iris (KBS2), Pasta (MBC)and A Hundred Year Legacy (MBC).The shows originally broadcast in south Korea from 2009 onwards, are aired between 7 pm to 8 pm Monday to Thursday with repeats at 10:30 pm, along with a marathon run on Saturday at 9 pm on Puthu Yugam. Show rights are with the channel for approximately one to three years.

     

    “Since Puthu Yugam is from the SRM group that also runs the SRM University, our president Dr Sathyanaranan had an opportunity to observe the trend of the students. He noted that they are obsessed with Korean (K) series. He suggested us to bring them to Puthu Yugam.  K series has brought lot of young blood into the channel,” says New Gen Media Corporation CEO RBU Shyam Kumar.

     

    PY is also in talks with channels in Turkey, UK and US to acquire some of their shows. Shyam says that the culture, storytelling as well as sentiments which seem to match with those in Tamil culture, is appealing to the audience they cater to. This apart, he adds that several Tamil directors are inspired from Korean films and series.

     

    Nearly 25 fresh dubbing artists are being employed to lend their voices to the Korean characters. A specialist Sanjay Mohan, who has worked for Star Vijay and NGC, and is well versed with both Tamil and Korean languages, has been roped in to monitor the content translation.

     

    Advertisers such as Poomex, Head & Shoulders, White Tone, Harpic, Lizol 10X, Vodafone, Wheat naturals and Prestige have been brought onboard for the Korean shows. The channel refuses to declare the acquisition cost but says that although it differs from channel to channel, it is equivalent to acquiring a “mega show from a Hindi GEC for Tamil dubbing.”

     

    The two channel group also considers the digital space important. New Gen Media Corp convergence head K Manikandaboopathi says, “Digital is all about convenience.  Smartphones/apps are the way people seek information these days and the audience growth is unlimited. It’s an untapped market with unlimited potential. Positioning our brand via handsets and tabs is the way forward for us and has more option for audience engagement.”

      

    Manikandaboopathi says that rather than invest in advertising the app, cross promotion is done via Facebook, TV and the website. 74 per cent of app downloads are from India itself. The PT app has had 240,000 downloads on Android since its launch in November 2013 with about 1.25 lakh downloads happening during the recently concluded elections. The group has invested Rs 50 lakh on the PT live, PPY live, PT VOD, PY VOD and PT Tickr apps. Two of the group’s shows have special apps- Chinna Chinna Cinema (Puthu Yugam) and Nerpada Pesu (Puthiya Thalaimurai). Some of the apps are free while some are paid.

     

    However, the Korean dramas are not available on the apps, since the channel has not acquired the digital rights for them. The apps are the group’s way to reach out to younger audiences in India, between the age group of 18 to 40, specifically. 

     

    The company says that the PT application seems to have become quite popular, while, on the PY front, more work needs to be done as yet. It has had 30,000 downloads in six months. “We need to focus on increasing the visibility as this is mostly demanded by the non-resident Tamil diaspora. We have witnessed that the audience prefers catch-up TV via the app. So, a new and free video on demand app has just been launched last week on iOS and will soon launch on Android,” informs Manikandaboopathi.

     

    While the News channel has made a mark among Tamilians with its claims of having overtaken Sun News and Jaya News within 60 days of launch in August 2011, the GEC is yet to firm up against the big guns that rule the Tamil TV GEC roost – Sun TV, Star Vijay, Jaya TV and Kalaignar. The Sun Network and Jaya Networks are connected to the political heavyweights in the country – the DMK and AIADMK families respectively, while the Star Network has a major stake in Star Vijay. While PT claims to be the only News channel without any political affiliation, SRM Group founder TR Pachamuthu had contested the recent Lok Sabha elections under a BJP ticket, but lost to the AIADMK’s RP Marutharajaa.