Tag: Times Group

  • BBH to design creative communications and digital solutions for CRY

    MUMBAI: Child rights organisation CRY – Child Rights and You – has appointed BBH to develop their creative communications and digital media solutions.

    The agency has been brought on-board at a time when CRY is embarking on its own mission to engage with a younger audience, especially through the digital space. The mandate spans the spectrum of communication solutions – from overall communications strategy to digital initiatives and engagement strategy for CRY’s operations in India as well as overseas.

    CRY Director – Resource Mobilisation and Volunteer Action Yogita Verma said, “Creating brand awareness and mobilising people for the cause of child rights is a challenge, particularly when limited resources need maximum impact. The digital space is one such area where CRY can engage with its target audience, and BBH’s specialisation in digital media and creative tools in the digital space will help CRY reach out to a wider audience.”

    She added that CRY’s communication mandate is to raise awareness and thereby action for children in India for whom a happy, healthy childhood is not a natural consequence and the NGO felt that BBH is not only extremely skilled at what it does, but is also truly passionate about children and committed to ensuring the children a future filled with hope.

    BBH India Managing Partner Subhash Kamath said, “It is not often in advertising that one gets a chance to use one‘s skills and talent for a real cause; something that directly impacts society, especially children. We are proud to partner CRY on their journey and we have tremendous respect for what they do. All of us at BBH are looking forward to working on some groundbreaking strategies for them.”

    BBH Communications, part of the Publicis Groupe, was launched in India in 2009 and has grown to be a 65-people strong organisation with a portfolio of clients like Unilever, Marico, Diageo, Skoda, Red Bull, Google, World Gold Council, Times Group and Acer.

    Established in 1979 in Mumbai, CRY was among the first indigenous Indian NGOs working for the rights of children in India. Since then, the organisation has grown to a national institution, present in over 23 states and reaching out to almost a million children every year. For over three decades, CRY has been committed to making a lasting change in the lives of Indian children by ensuring their right to live, learn, grow and play – in short, every child’s right to a happy childhood.

  • Times Group renews franchise rights for Miss Universe in India

    MUMBAI: The Times of India Group has said it has renewed the franchise rights for the Miss Universe pageant in India.

    An agreement to this effect was recently signed at the Miss Universe headquarters in New York. The Miss India Universe pageant will be produced in isolation as a stand-alone pageant.

    Times Group MD Vineet Jain said, “It is important that the Miss Universe pageant is back once again with the Times Group. The Miss Universe pageant forms an integral part of the Miss India pageant structure in sending its title winners to premium International pageants.”

  • Times Group channels hop on to OneAlliance bouquet

    Times Group channels hop on to OneAlliance bouquet

    MUMBAI: MSM Discovery (MSMD), the distribution joint venture between Sony‘s Multi Screen Media (MSM) and Discovery Communications, has entered into a multi-year distribution deal with Times Television Network (TTN) to strengthen its TheOneAlliance bouquet.

    The move comes close on the heels of IndiaCast-DisneyUTV JV that further consolidated the Indian television distribution space. The consolidation will help broadcasters to grow their pay-TV business as India moves towards digitisation of cable TV networks.

    The news and entertainment channels of TTN – Times Now, Movies Now, ET Now and zoOm – will now be exclusively distributed in India for collection of subscription revenue over the cable (analogue and digital), DTH, IPTV and HITS platforms as a part of TheOneAlliance bouquet. The deal between TTN and MSMD comes into effect from 6 February.

    The channels were earlier distributed by Prime Connect, the distribution joint venture between Times Group and media entrepreneur Yogesh Radhakrishnan.

    In a related development, Radhakrishnan has moved the Delhi High Court. The matter came up for hearing even today and will now resume on Monday.

    “The channels have terminated their distribution contract with Prime Connect and moved on to TheOneAlliance bouquet. This has weakened the JV and even made it redundant in that sense as it has no Times Group channels,” an industry source said on condition of anonymity.

    TTN will, however, undertake the marketing and channel penetration plans independently.

    Strengthening the OneAlliance bouquet

    The addition of TTN channels will strengthen TheOneAlliance’s English news offering which will include Times Now and TV Today Network’s Headlines Today. The bouquet will also have a business news channel in ET Now.

    The English movie channel offering will also get a boost with the addition of Movies Now as the bouquet already has Sony Pix. Further, zoOm will combine well with Hindi movie channel Max.

    MSMD President Rajesh Kaul says that the addition TTN channels will take the bouquet strength to 28 from 24 and more importantly will maintain the quality of the bouquet.

    “These are top channels in their respective categories and adding them will certainly strengthen the bouquet,” avers Kaul.
    Kaul said the immediate priority is to increase the penetration of TTN channels and monetise it in metro markets where these channels are well distributed.

    TTN MD and CEO Sunil Lulla said, “The Times Group and Multi Screen Media share a similar perspective on the broadcast industry and together we are poised to help grow the industry by ushering in transparency, value creation across the chain and by building strong brands.”

    TTN said its channels reach over 100 million viewers in 30 million urban Indian households.

    “As part of TheOneAlliance bouquet our channels will benefit from penetration in more homes and availability on a wider choice of packages. TTN and MSMD will together be able to effect realisation of a fair share of subscription revenue as well as grow ARPUs (Average Revenue per User) of our premium content offerings,” added Lulla.

    MSM CEO Man Jit Singh said, “TheOneAlliance is a robust distribution force and offers the best of entertainment to viewers. Addition of the TTN channels will further strengthen the bouquet and together we can ride the digitisation wave to maximize the true potential of the business.”

    MSMD already distributes 24 channels across genres including Hindi General Entertainment, Sports, Movies, Factual Entertainment, News, Bollywood, Reality, Action, Animation, Adventure and Lifestyle. Apart from MSM and Discovery channels, TheOneAlliance also distributes TV Today Network and Neo Sports broadcast network channels.

  • Homeshop18 awards Eleven Brandworks its creative biz

    Homeshop18 awards Eleven Brandworks its creative biz

    MUMBAI: On air and online retail brand Homeshop18 has appointed Eleven Brandworks as its creative partner following a multi-agency pitch.

    Eleven Brandworks has been entrusted with the duty of building and establishing a strong ‘HomeShop18’ brand across the verticals of TV, web and mobile.

    Homeshop18 CMO Rashmi Berry said, “Eleven Brandworks displayed the right combination of creativity & agility, both critical in the highly competitive and cluttered E-commerce space. We look forward to building a compelling & differentiated brand with them with their highly talented team of rofessionals.”

    Eleven Brandworks is a full service agency based in Mumbai and Gurgaon, founded three years ago by Prateek Bhardwaj who was earlier a creative director from McCann-Erickson. Its client list includes Tata Mutual Fund, Times Group, Big FM, Archies Ltd, NDTV Goodtimes, Sportsfit and Star Plus.

    Bhardwaj said, “Homeshop18 is already a household name in India. Eleven Brandworks’ mandate is to create a robust integrated strategy for the brand and help carve a distinct dotcom brand out of it too.”

  • Vikatan Group picks Pravin Menon as national ad sales head

    MUMBAI: Vikatan Group has assigned the responsibilities of national head-ad sales to Pravin Menon.

    Menon joins in from Worldwide Media where he was working as GM (South) – ad sales.

    He will report to Vikatan Group MD B Srinivasan.

    Menon said, “Yes I have joined Vikatan Group. My first concourse will be the print diving and then the online print media.”

    Menon brings in over 17 years of experience in the ad sales and marketing industry. He had joined Worldwide Media in May 2007. Prior to joining WWM, he was WWM India Regional sales head for over two years. He had joined Times Group in 1998.

  • LB‘s Ganesh Nayak and Greeshma Jos win AAAI-Cannes Young Lions competition

    LB‘s Ganesh Nayak and Greeshma Jos win AAAI-Cannes Young Lions competition

    MUMBAI: Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and The Times Group have proclaimed the winners for AAAI-Cannes Young Lions Creative Competition 2011.

    Leo Burnett Mumbai‘s art director Ganesh Nayak and copywriter Greeshma Jos will be participating as the official team from India for the International Young Lions Creative Competition in June 2011 to be held in Cannes.

    The winners were chosen from amidst a total of 165 entries, received for the competition themed — ‘Don‘t Bribe. Follow Rules‘.

    There was a two-phased judging process and the jury had names such as BBDO India chairman and NCD Josy Paul; and JWT, Mumbai senior VP and ECD, creative head Tista Sen.

    The Times Group, the official festival representatives of Cannes in India, will sponsor the wining team‘s trip to Cannes.

    Announcing the result convener of the competition, Vinod Nair said: “The Times Group and AAAI are giving a rare opportunity to young creatives in India to participate in Cannes Lions and compete with the very best young talent in the world.”

  • Zoom awards creative duties to Metal Communications

    Zoom awards creative duties to Metal Communications

    MUMBAI: Metal Communications, the Mumbai-based integrated brand and marketing communications company, has won the creative duties for Times Group’s Bollywood entertainment channel Zoom.

    Metal will be responsible for all brand and branding deliveries for Zoom that include shows, special programming, tie ups and properties.

    Zoom Entertainment Network CEO Avinash Kaul said, “We are happy to appoint Metal as our creative agency; a team of energetic, driven and young creative professionals who share our passion for Bollywood and Bollywood centred programming to partner us in creative and impactful messaging for our brand Zoom.”

    Metal VP Ambarish Ray added, “We believe that passion and drive are our biggest assets on the balance sheet. The Zoom win assures us that our assets have not depreciated.”

    Zoom offers pure Bollywood content to over 8 million viewers.

  • Times Group MD Vineet Jain is PTI chairman

    Times Group MD Vineet Jain is PTI chairman

    MUMBAI: Times of India Group managing director Vineet Jain has been elected chairman of the board of directors of the Press Trust of India (PTI). Jain, who was earlier vice- chairman, replaced Punjabi Kesari Group editor Vijay Kumar.

    The vice-chairman role went to Mathrubhumi Group chairman and managing director MP Veerendrakumar. The election was held following the 62nd annual general meeting of the PTI’s shareholders.

    Jain, who has played a key role in expanding the Times of India and other publications of Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd, was PTI chairman in 2002-03. He has also led BCCL’s successful entry into online, radio and television services.

    Veerendrakumar was formerly a Member of Parliament and Union Minister. A past President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), he is associated with media-related bodies in India and abroad.

    The members of the PTI board also include Vijay Kumar Chopra (Hind Samachar), N. Ravi (The Hindu), R. Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar), Aveek Kumar Sarkar (Ananda Bazar Patrika), Shekhar Gupta (Indian Express), K.N. Shanth Kumar (Deccan Herald), Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Jagran Prakashan), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), Riyad Mathew (Malayala Manorama) and Sanjoy Narayan (Hindustan Times). The Directors from outside the newspaper industry are Professor EV Chitnis, Justice SP Bharucha and Fali S Nariman.

    A leading news agency, PTI achieved its highest-ever revenue last financial year and is profitable.

  • Bhushan Khot is Zee 24 Taas biz head

    Bhushan Khot is Zee 24 Taas biz head

    MUMBAI: Bhushan Khot has joined as the business head of Zee 24 Taas, Zee’s Marathi news channel.

    Prior to this appointment, Khot was head of the language brand team at Times group.

    Khot will report to Zee News Ltd CEO Barun Das. “I have taken charge and will see the business expansion of Zee 24 Taas,” avers Khot.

  • Zoom adds movies to prime time slot

    Zoom adds movies to prime time slot

    MUMBAI: Zoom, the Times Group’s glamour and lifestyle Hindi entertainment channel, has crafted a movie band called Zoom Theatres. The movie band between 9 p.m to 12 midnight will showcase hits from Bollywood everyday.

    Although the channel began airing movies from last month, it was in the afternoon band and was called Do Se Paanch. The channel has now rescheduled its programmes in the evening time slot.It has also repackaged this slot and called it Zoom Theatres.In the 7 to 9 pm slot in the evening, the channel will air its premier shows and the post 9 pm slot will have the channel air movies like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein & Joggers Park to Shabd & Chameli. Earlier this slot featured repeats of the premier shows.

    With its latest feature the channel promises to bring the latest in Bollywood from romantic comedies, crossover movies to art films.