NEW DELHI: Bengal, known for its rich culture and heritage of sweets, has witnessed an evolution. With the rise of consciousness around health and innovation in sweet making, the traditional sweets of Bengal are dying a slow death much like the culture of joint families which are slowly losing relevance in today’s fast-paced lifestyles.
Zee Bangla has always pioneered Bengal’s indigenous ingredients and revived intricacies of Bengal’s heritage so that they don’t become extinct. A classic example of the same is bringing back the folk and kirtan forms into its mega musical reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa which beautifully emphasises the brand promise – ‘NotunChondeLikhboJibon’. And with its new launch – Mithai, the brand has embarked on a journey to revive the lost traditional sweets that Bengal was once famous for.
Mithai is a warm, ‘mishti story’ of going back to the roots, celebrating family values and rituals. It revolves around a business family which has stood strong for over 50 years by staying true to self. The Modak family, residing in south Kolkata, is known for its traditional Bengali sweets and has many franchises across the city. They are a joint family celebrating relationships and every occasion in the true sense. But Siddhartha (Adrit Roy), of the current generation of the family, had a difficult childhood with losing his mother at a young age and staying away from the family for an impressionable amount of time. He has grown up dreaming of going beyond and doing things on his own. He is the modern-day health-conscious man who doesn’t like sweets and has no interest in being part of the family business.
While our male lead has a worldly outlook, our female protagonist Mithai (Soumitrisha Kundu) comes from rural Bengal. Mithai was born to a sweet-making karigar family and is a karigar herself. She makes delicious monohara sweet and comes to Kolkata every day to sell them. On one such day, she is introduced to the Modak family. As she immediately wins everyone’s hearts, she takes up the challenge to get Siddharth to lover her sweets. Thereon, she embarks on a journey to bring Siddharth back to the family beliefs and take the business to greater heights.
The concept is entirely developed and produced in house and directed by Rajendra Prasad Das and written by Shaswati Ghosh. The show will premiere from 4 January, Monday-Saturday at 8 pm.
This show will revisit many forgotten parts of Bengali culture specially sweets like monohara and showcase the rooted nostalgia of a joint family. It will also have an eternal love story following the most basic and relatable concept of human relationships- opposites attract via portrayal of two sides of Bangaliyana – the urban and the traditional.
ZEEL cluster head – east Samrat Ghosh said, “As a brand, we are deeply rooted in Bengali values and cultures – and we put continuous effort to bring it alive both in our fiction and non-fiction offerings into new rhythm. We are sure that such efforts of ours would help our viewers to relive and reconnect with the strong culture and value of Bengalis. Mithai is a story of Bengali culture of “togetherness” in staying in a joint family, a story of exhibiting strong family values, a story of sharing happiness and sweetness– and all these will centre around in the revival of a traditional mishti called monohara.”
NEW DELHI: Ex-BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta, who was arrested earlier this month in connection to the alleged TRP manipulation scam, has been sent to 14-day judicial custody by 8th Esplanade magistrate court in Mumbai.
Dasgupta, who was produced before the court after his police custody ended, also filed a bail application. His lawyer Kamlesh Ghumre argued that Dasgupta was CEO of the Broadcast Audience Research Council but there was a board of directors and a disciplinary committee above him. The bail plea will be heard on January 1.
Dasgupta, the 15th person arrested in the alleged scam, was named the ‘mastermind’ of the scam by Mumbai Police’s Crime Intelligence Unit. It has been alleged that Dasgupta was getting money from one of the accused channels in return for the favours he was doing to them by rigging TRPs.
New Delhi: Reliance Industries has completed the acquisition of shares of IMG Reliance from IMG Singapore Pte Ltd. Going forward, IMG R is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries.
The holding of the company along with IMG-R in Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) is 65 per cent and FSDL has become a subsidiary of the RIL.
The company informed the development in a BSE listing. The sports ambition of Mukesh Ambani continues to grow as IMG Reliance will be soon rebranded.
Previously, IMG and Reliance had joined hands to build a platform to help market sports, fashion and media and entertainment in India.
Reliance has paid not more than Rs 52.08 crore for the acquisition. IMG-Reliance had a turnover of Rs 181.70 crore with net profit at Rs 16.35 crore in FY 2020, Rs 195.55 Crore with net profit at Rs 19.25 crore in FY 2019, and Rs 158.26 crore with net profit at Rs 15.82 crore respectively.
NEW DELHI: CNN-News18, one of the leading national English news channel has kept the engagement and entertainment quotient high throughout 2020 with the best of shows in the most interesting and unique format. As India prepares to bid adieu to the year that 2020 was, CNN-News18 plans to usher in the New Year with a series of specials that will wrap up the year gone by.
Keeping viewers at the core of its content strategy, CNN-News18 is back with another edition of ‘The Bollywood Roundtables’ – an award-winning year-end series that features India’s finest actors, actresses, and directors. Hosted by Shilpa Rathnam, this year’s entertainment series will witness candid and eye-opening conversations with guests who delivered the best performances in 2020. The Actors’ Roundtable will feature Divyenndu (Mirzapur 2), Ritwik Bhowmik (Bandish Bandits), Jaideep Ahlawat (Paatal Lok), Ishaan Khatter (A Suitable Boy), and Pratik Gandhi (Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story) who will discuss how their life changed post each of their successful OTT debuts and how 2020 was a game-changer for the entertainment industry. CNN-News18 will also showcase ‘The Year That Wasn’t’, a year-end episode of the weekly show that will effectively encapsulate the year 2020 by bringing its viewers the best from all facets of the society.
Apart from this, ‘The Bollywood Roundtable – The Actresses’ witnessed Konkona Sensharma (Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare), Sumukhi Suresh (Pushpavalli), Shweta Tripathi (Mirzapur 2), Tillotama Shome (Sir), Maanvi Gagroo (Four More Shots Please! Season 2), Aparna Balamurali (Soorarai Pottru), Shreya Dhanwanthary (Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story), and Rasika Dugal (Mirzapur 2). The artists opened up about their year in the Bollywood and their work, what changed in the film industry post the #Metoo movement, the lack of women directors in the film industry, and pay parity. The channel also showcased a Christmas special of their popular show ‘The Week That Wasn’t’. Anchored by Cyrus Broacha, the programming featured a special Christmas song and a satirical showcase on how people are celebrating a pandemic-era festive season.
MUMBAI: FTA Channels in the prequel era, before they left the space, had for the first time opened up a world of eyeballs and revenue that was being under-served and built successful revenues and business models. Since content was free and was already monetized and exposed on the pay channels catering to urban eyeballs for all the main players. However, while the business was lucrative and it added hundreds of crores worth in revenue to all the players in the FTA platform. Even the weakest player pulled in almost 100crs worth of advertising revenue with a relatively low cost of operation to air/run these channels. But the revenues weren’t negligible. In fact, a few channels almost matched big urban pay Hindi movie channel revenues. That was the kind of weight that FTA channels were punching with.
Even at that time, over 170+ clients were buying these eyeballs & markets. These were mainly led by the FMCGs. The GRP pie was 500+ amongst the top six players in GEC FTA space and the trading levels were very low, as the mystical CPRP was designed for the urban & pay channel trading. A few players of the market got smart and made it U+R base, purely for negotiations and better rates. But no one was willing to unlock or set a benchmark for the rural group as GRPs on Rural base were available in 100s and more. So, the FTA pricing then became a Sell that had very little buy in from both sides of the table. But still, the revenue pie was over Rs. 1200 crores two to three years ago.
Today, all players are back. The GRP pie is again back to its glory of 500 + and the clientele is also back to in excess of 160+ advertisers. This time we have new categories of clients that include education, gaming, etc but FMCG still leads the pack. But as most old clients have matured in the urban market, they are looking for newer markets to grow in. The brightest minds speaking and predicting about the recovery of the economic growth are pointing towards “Rural first”. All this is giving the FTA channels a massive advantage as these markets had to depend on print/outdoor/radio and cinema and got very little support for TV. That has now changed. The revenue pie too has recovered the fastest for FTA and has grown despite the challenges that the other categories of channels are facing in terms of ad bucks.
Learnings from then and now: Will the Twain meet?
The trading levels are designed for urban pay channels to take lion’s share of the revenue pie. Investments for pay channels are of course significantly more or rather better read as that investment in FTA Hindi GEC is significantly low. Most FTA channels have a larger interest as they have pay and urban centric channels as a group. So, it’s a catch-22 on how to work the true value of the seemingly presented poorer family member. If the business plan is to be looked with the lens of ‘Since content is free, all the value generated is profit’ then this space will languish instead of flourishing.
Is FTA ready for format shows? Is FTA ready for original shows with U+R or rural taste in programming? Are education and sports (non-cricket) ready to build successful revenue models on this platform? Can made for FTA movies be produced at budgets that can be supported by these channels? In spite of having the world’s leading badminton players, we struggle to build a revenue model around it. Wresting too has arguably been a great opportunity missed.
All in all, can FTA be priced aptly and fairly for the audiences it delivers and the markets that it reaches? Can FCT that was free commercial time but was always paid for be applicable to FTA as it’s called free to air? Interesting times await…
(The author is COO, Enterr10 Television. Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to his views.)
MUMBAI: Consumers’ viewing habits are changing, and it’s landed a clear impact on the overall broadcast sector. Despite the challenges posed by the Covid2019 pandemic and other setbacks, broadcasters are seeing virtue in launching new channels. Even during the lockdown, people turned to television to keep themselves engaged and entertained, with BARC reporting a 43 per cent increase in India's TV viewership during this period, compared to the pre-Covid2019 figures.
The rise in TV consumption signifies viewers’ appetite for content – and clearly, the time is ripe to green-flag new channels catering to different tastes and smaller sub-segments across geographies. Let’s have a look at all the new channels that arrived on the idiot box in 2020.
ZeeL
ZeeL’s first lifestyle channel Zee Zest started airing 1 October 2020. The channel presents content that is a perfect encapsulation of food, travel, lifestyle, home improvement, wellness, culture, and DIY. Zee Zest brings some original shows like 100% South Indian, India’s 50 Best Dishes, Ghar Sa Yummy – Swaad Familywala, Food Veda, and Meetha toh Banta Hai. Also in the pipeline are popular global shows making their debut in India, such as Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown Season 5, Jaime: Keep Cooking & Carry On, Far Flung with Gary Mehigan, MasterChef Australia – Season 9, MasterChef USA Junior Season 5, and more programmes across various genres.
Hopping towards a wonderland of delicious experiences, the junior chefs have signed up for an adventurous and a fun filled ride!
Are you ready to join?
The broadcaster forayed into the regional music space with the launch of its Marathi music channel – Zee Vajwa. It will offer 3,000+ playlists, and also have a non-fiction show in the comedy genre, a category first. The network has already captured 57 per cent viewership share in Maharashtra with Zee Marathi, Zee Yuva and Zee Talkies.
ZeeL chief consumer officer Prathyusha Agarwal said, “With Zee Vajwa, we identified a need gap in the lifestyle genre to serve a holistic entertainment experience to the focused Sec A target audience. These viewers seek experiences from around the world but from the comfort of their own homes. That’s where Zee Zest seamlessly comes in, with diverse lifestyle content themes such as wellness, travel, lifestyle, food, home improvement, and culture.”
Another offering, Zee Thirai was launched on 19 January 2020. The channel offers the latest blockbuster Kollywood movies and premieres.
Agarwal stated that all of Zeel’s new launches not only established themselves strongly in their respective markets but also aided market growth. Zee Punjabi captured a third of the viewership pie in the first four weeks of its debut, and consumption of Punjabi language content grew by 23 per cent compared to the one per cent growth in total TV viewership in Punjab/Chandigarh. Even during the lockdown, Zee Punjabi capitalised on the surge in demand for content as viewership grew by nearly 60 per cent (BARC data: weeks 12-15). The network’s new movie channels – Zee Biskope, Zee Picchar and Zee Thirai – captured a significant share in the movie genre, which rose by 28-29 per cent in a growing TV pie. (BARC data: weeks 12-15).
Enterr10 Television Network
The network expanded its footprint in south India with Dangal Kannada, close on the heels of its Bhojpuri offering, Enterr10 Rangeela.
Dangal Kannada underlines the network’s aggressive expansion into the growing regional broadcast entertainment space. Armed with dubbed versions of shows such as Ramayan, Mere Sai, Phir Laut Aayi Naagin,Tenali Rama, etc, the channel started airing from 30 September. Kannada film and TV actress Hariprriya is the brand ambassador for the channel and plays an integral part in its marketing campaigns.
After Bhojpuri Cinema, Enterr10 Rangeela is the network’s second offering for Bhojpuri audiences. The channel has launched a strong mix of fiction and non-fiction content ranging across series and reality shows, awards, and blockbuster films and world television premieres. Ramayan (Bhojpuri) is the channel’s launch pad serial.
Star Vijay, owned by Disney-Star, came out with Tamil music channel Vijay Music. Priced at Re 1 per month, Vijay Music hopes to compete with other channels in the segment such as Raj Television Network’s Raj Musix, Sun Network’s Sun Music, Jaya TV Network’s Jaya MAX.
Star India has also postponed the launch of three new channels, Star Movies Select, Star Sports 3 HD, and Disney Channel HD. It is also rebranding Movies OK as Star Gold 2. It has not provided a new date of release.
The broadcaster has decided to add Star Movies Select to cater the audiences in standard definition (SD) category as a premiere movies channel, in addition to Star Movies Select HD (high definition).
To give larger-than-life experience to customers, the broadcaster will offer Star Sports 3 HD at a price of Rs 5 per month, in addition to existing Star Sports 3 in the SD category. Meanwhile, it plans to launch a second HD kids’ channel, Disney Channel HD, that will cost around Rs 10 per month.
With the revamping of Movies OK to Star Gold 2, the broadcaster will end the ‘OK’ branding. Previously, it had renamed the Life OK channel to Star Bharat. Star Gold 2’s SD version will cost Rs 2 per month, while for its HD variant customers will need to shell out Rs 5 per month.
DD Free Dish
The state broadcaster run free-to-air DTH platform DD Free Dish added three new channels – ANB News, Aryan TV National, and News India 24×7 hese channels won the bid during the forty seventh e-auctions held on 26 August. They are allotted slots for the period between 1 September 2020 to 31 March 2021.
All three channels have a presence on other DTH platforms and fall under the news category – ANB News is a Punjab-based Hindi news channel, Aryan TV National caters primarily to Bihar, and News India 24×7 is a Hindi news channel focused on Rajasthan.
Tata Sky
In a move to further strengthen its regional slate, the DTH operator launched Tata Sky Malayalam Cinema, for which it joined forces with leading Malayali GEC Asianet.
Tata Sky Malayalam Cinema offers an uninterrupted movie-viewing experience to film enthusiasts, across the content spectrum – action, romance, drama, and comedy on television. The service will showcase the biggest blockbusters of Mollywood with exclusive movie premieres before television. The channel is now available to all subscribers on #1805 (SD) at a minimal cost of Rs 1.5 per day. With this, Tata Sky has regional cinema offerings in all four major south Indian languages – Tata Sky Telugu Cinema, Tata Sky Tamil Cinema, Tata Sky Kannada Cinema, and now Tata Sky Malayalam Cinema.
In10 Media Network
The network recently ventured into the kids’ entertainment space on Children’s Day with a new premium Hindi channel, Gubbare — Masti Ke Phuwarre. The current programming includes a mix of Indian animation such as Appu – The Yogic Elephant, Love U Ganesha, Chhota Hatim and Seven Monsters, and has introduced Billa Jasoos, Marcus Khiladi, My Bhoot Friends, Leo and Tig, The Dabangg Girls, Atchoo to Indian audiences on the channel. Apart from cartoon shows, animated movies are telecast on weekends. Gubbare, a pay channel, is available on all major DTH and cable operators across India.
In10 Media Network MD Aditya Pittie shared that the network is focused on building scalable businesses and strategically expanding its footprint in the industry. He added, “In our country, television continues to be a primary viewing platform for kids’ entertainment among most households.”
Prior to this, the IN10 Media Network launched its first regional movie channel – Filamchi – Filman Ka Laalchi, a 24×7 linear broadcast channel for Bhojpuri cinema fans across the country. With an extensive collection of over 250 Bhojpuri blockbusters, the channel is available on DD FreeDish and will soon be accessible across all major cable operators and platforms.
Shemaroo Entertainment Media Network
On 1 May 2020, Shemaroo Entertainment Media Network launched Hindi GEC Shemaroo TV. CEO Hiren Gada mentioned that the network is always keen to experiment and set milestones in the media and entertainment space. With this industry-first initiative allowing viewers to tune into Shemaroo TV live on Facebook, Gada hopes to reach out to a new and wider set of audience and offer content that they would like to watch and enjoy in their free time.
Other channels that debuted in 2020 include Fun TV, Blue (Naaptol), Satya Movies, Surya Cinema, BDM Bhojpuri, Surya Bhojpuri, 9X Jalwa, Maha Punjabi, C7 and Lord Budhha TV.
MUMBAI: From the start of daily soaps in 2000, Hindi GEC fiction has witnessed multiple ‘eras’: From the now-notorious saas-bahu dramas in the first decade, to shows addressing societal evils and women empowerment,to family-based love stories that brought in the younger viewers. With each passing era, characters in the Hindi GEC category have become smarter, more fashionable and more progressive in their outlook. What’s interesting, however, is that characters who have managed to retain long-term popularity among the audience have one aspect common to their personalities: they are generally over-indexed on the personality dimension ‘sincerity’.
In her brand personality framework, psychologist Jennifer Aaker identifies five dimensions to a personality –sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. Most brands will have some image associations with these dimensions, but the more enduring brands largely have one emphasised primary dimension, and optionally a secondary one.
While originally designed for brands, the framework works equally well for celebrities and characters. In the Hindi GEC category, the one emphasised dimensionacross most long-standing popular fiction characters is the sincerity dimension. Five of the seven popular Hindi GEC characters between 2016-19 (based on Ormax Characters India Loves)had sincerity as their strongest, or a strong number two, dimension. These five characters span a width of age, profession and content genres. There’s themiddle-aged shop keeper and familyman Jethalalin a sitcom; young dentist Ishita engulfed in across-cultural family drama where she falls in love with a divorced father;the quintessential girl-to-bahu journey of Akshara; the young and quirky Pragya who marries a rock star accidentally; and the talentedvillage singing prodigy Kullfi,who moves to the city in search of her father.
The trend continues in 2020. The undisputed success story of this year has been Star Plus’July launch Anupamaa. The show has achieved record ratingsin a challenging and disruptive Covid2019 period. The lead character of the show raced to number two on Ormax Characters India Loves within a month of the show’s launch, a new record in character popularity tracking in the last decade.
Anupamaa’s rapid growth is a combination of various factors, such as a unique yet relevant concept (it addresses the ‘anti-family’ topic of extra-marital relationship in a very family-palatable way), strong writing and direction, and the performance by thelead actor herself. It is no surprise, however, that Anupamaa’s character too is heavily loaded on the sincerity dimension, even more than the five characters listed above.
So why do ‘sincere’ characters strikesuch adeep chord with the audience?
Storytelling on Indian televisionis different from films and web-series, because in serials, audience look for ideas that are important to them. They connect with characters that are ‘avatars’ of themselves. They feel their feeling, live their emotions. As a collectivistic society, most Indians value family cohesion and cooperation as a non-negotiable aspect of their identity. They take great pride, and seek comfort, in the strong emotional bonds they share with their family members. Watching stories driven by characters who reinforce family values give these shows a higher purpose beyond entertainment.
In this context, characters like Jethalal and Anupamaa are the quintessential Indianfamily man and Indian family woman respectively, who value their families and relationships above everything else. While the former is in a sitcom and the latter leads a family drama, it is their fundamentally earnest personalities thatendear them to the Indian value system. Coupled with good storytelling, such characters build long-term equity, engaging the audience with their journeys that fundamentally revolve around their large families in a manner that’s truly Indian at heart, i.e.,sincere!
Story and storytelling will continue to get more progressive with time. But the cherished place characters high on sincerity have in the hearts of Indian TV audience is unlikely toweaken anytime soon.
(The author is Ormax Media partner. Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to their views.)
NEW DELHI: The Walt Disney Company has announced that it will have two separate leaders for APAC and India. The development comes weeks after Star & Disney India chairman and president – APAC Uday Shankar’s decision to step down.
In an internal memo to the organisation, The Walt Disney Company chairman international operations and direct-to-consumer Rebecca Campbell mentioned that a leader for India business will be announced in early 2021. In the interim period Star & Disney India head K Madhavan and Disney+ Hotstar head Sunil Ryan will report to her directly.
She further announced that Luke Kang will be the new president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific. He will oversee the company’s business in Australia/New Zealand, Greater China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.
Kang will report into Campbell.
For the record, Uday Shankar resigned in October and will exit the organisation at the end of December. He is moving on to pursue an entrepreneurial career wherein he would support and mentor India’s young minds to create transformational solutions with funding from global investors.
MUMBAI: Indian Film & TV Producers Council (IFTPC) today held its twenty-ninth AGM and re-elected Sajid Nadiadwala as president for the year 2020 2021. Nitin Vaidya is the new incumbent.
Nadiadwala addressed IFTPC team for restarting the shooting by engaging the government in continuous dialogue. He also praised the media and entertainment industry for generously helping cine workers and labourers. The new president complimented the IFTPC Team for working relentlessly in providing monetary aid and supplying food items to the industry workers. Nadiawala appreciated the effort for standing as a united body in times of difficulty to help the industry. He mourned the sad demise of many industry stalwarts such as Rishi Kapoor, Irfan Khan and P.Balsubramanium.
IFTPC chairman TV wing JD Majethia in his address complimented the Maharashtra government for acting fast to restart the industry. He congratulated TV Producers for conducting the shoots very smoothly without any major mishaps. Majethia also mentioned the first-ever death Insurance of Rs 25 lakh provided to the workers had raised their confidence to attend their duties. He also said that when pessimism prevailed in the industry it was IFTPC that was confident and worked relentlessly to restart the industry.
Bollywood producer Ramesh Taurani, David Dhavan, indiantelevision.com group founder CEO & editor in chief Anil Wanwari, producer Rajan Shahi, Lalit Sharma, Bobby Arora, Sandeep Jain and Goldie Behl also attended the Indian Film & TV Producers meeting among others.
KOLKATA: Star & Disney India has appointed Kevin Vaz as CEO of infotainment & kids genre. However, he will continue to lead the regional entertainment channels as well. He has been given the responsibility following the stepping down of Anuradha Aggarwal who was head of English, infotainment & Kids cluster at the company.
Vaz has been associated with the broadcaster for a long period. He joined as a sales executive in 1996 and went on to become the sales manager in 2000. By 2009, he was promoted to president – ad sales, where he built the monetisation engine that allowed Star to invest more aggressively in content and remain profitable at the same time.
Back in 2018, he was elevated to CEO of regional entertainment and was given the charge of heading Star India regional channels portfolio across Maharashtra, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra & Telangana, Kerala and Karnataka.
