ITV

Tag: VOOT

  • Viacom18 elevates Raj Nayak as COO, restructures leadership team

    MUMBAI: As it steps into the 10th year of its existence, Viacom18, one of India’s fastest growing media and entertainment companies, has announced an organisational rejig that aims to dial up synergies across the multiplatform network that houses iconic brands.

    Led by the elevation of Raj Nayak to Chief Operating Officer, Viacom18, the restructuring exercise is aimed at making the organisation future-ready as it enters its next growth phase. With this move Viacom18 has consolidated its national brands aimed at youth and adult audiences viz. Hindi, Youth, Music and English Entertainment offerings under the leadership of Raj.

    The role of Ferzad Palia, Head – Youth, Music & English Entertainment has been further expanded, to include two new businesses as the network dials up its content & music offerings. ‘Brand Studio’ will create branded content and white label solutions for partners, along with original commissioned content. ‘MTV Music Project’, will nurture an ecosystem of new and established artistes and create original music content. This is in addition to Ferzad’s existing portfolio that includes MTV, MTV Beats, COLORS Infinity, Comedy Central & Vh1.

    With a clear focus on strengthening its rural presence, Viacom18 has also elevated Anuj Poddar from his current role at COLORS Marathi and COLORS Gujarati to lead the rural expansion as Head – Rural Business, including Rishtey Cineplex.

    Saugato Bhowmik, Head – Viacom18 Consumer Products & Integrated Network Solutions, will continue to drive the efforts towards building homegrown experiential IPs and a robust consumer products business.

    Ferzad, Anuj and Saugato will report to Raj Nayak.

    Underlining its belief in the growth potential of regional broadcast entertainment, Viacom18 has entrusted the responsibility of its existing regional channels (COLORS Kannada, COLORS Super, COLORS Marathi, COLORS Bangla, COLORS Odia, COLORS Gujarati) and the soon to be launched COLORS Tamil with Ravish Kumar, Head – Regional Entertainment, Viacom18, thereby combining all its regional offerings under one roof to ensure greater focus.

    Viacom18 is the leader in the kids entertainment category with the No.1 Kids entertainment channel Nickelodeon and a strong portfolio comprising Sonic, Nick Jr and Nick HD+. Under the leadership of Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Head – Kids Cluster, Viacom18, the network will be growing its presence in the ‘kids ecosystem’ as it plans to enhance its repertoire of homegrown content and drive up its consumer connect with live events, experiential touchpoints and learning initiatives.

    Viacom18 Digital Ventures, with Gaurav Gandhi at its helm as COO, will be leading the network’s digital foray with its flagship VoD service, VOOT. In its second year of operations, VOOT will look to grow its portfolio, bolster its content catalogue, collaborate with like-minded partners and launch segmented offerings.

    The network’s film studio, Viacom18 Motion Pictures, led by its COO, Ajit Andhare, will continue to create content-driven cinema, while ramping up its regional play, in line with the network’s enhanced focus on regional entertainment.

    Raj, Ravish, Nina, Gaurav and Ajit will continue to report to Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18.

    “Viacom18’s DNA has enabled it to pre-empt market shifts and adopt unconventional approaches to address conventional business challenges. Since inception, our topline has grown 40x and channel count has grown over 12x while being PAT profitable. Today, Viacom18 has 5 diverse lines of business – in addition to a core broadcast offering it now has a strong presence in digital, filmed and live entertainment along with a fast-growing licensing and merchandising operation. None of this would have been possible without our most valuable asset – our team. Our endevaour has always been to build a future ready organisation with distinct capabilities and a distinctive culture with an emphasis on developing internal talent. This new structure will power us as we enter our next growth phase,” said Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18.

    While congratulating Raj Nayak on his new role, he said, “Raj is one of those rare leaders in our industry who possess a sharp business acumen coupled with a nuanced understanding of what makes brands iconic. I am confident that he will be able to take this portfolio of brands to even greater heights as he leverages deeper synergies in his new role.”

    Viacom18 has announced that the new leadership structure will be operational with immediate effect.

  • Voot partners Google to launch VoD PWA

    MUMBAI: Viacom18’s ad-supported OTT service Voot has turned its mobile website into a Progressive Web App (PWA) using features such as add to homescreen and a service worker. PWA allows reliable, fast, and engaging experience for users on mobile web.

    Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi commented, “In this business both content and technology have equal equity in realizing the potential of our consumer proposition. While content is our domain expertise, to push the envelope in terms of technology, we continuously work with partners from around the world. We are delighted to work closely with Google to launch Voot on the PWA platform. This launch significantly enhances the experience for all Voot users on mobile browsers and we believe this is a big step where users can have an equally rich experience of our service without downloading the app.”

    Voot is available as both a native app and a mobile web app. It offers close to 35000 hours of premium content that includes not only exclusive shows from theViacom18 network channels like Colors and MTV, but also original series created for Voot. It is also the largest online destination for kid’s content under its brand Voot Kids.

    Voot launched its new UI first on mobile web, ahead of desktop web and native app. Within days of launch, the video watch time on mobile web is jumped over 39 per cent and is comparable to that of native apps. The improvements also had a significant positive impact on reducing load times, reducing abandonments, and much better conversions.

    “We have moved the needle very significantly when it comes to user experience on the Mobile Web by adopting PWA,” said Viacom18 Digital Venture product and technology head Rajneel Kumar. Kumar further added, “All the time and effort we’ve spent on technology and UI changes as well as optimizations seem to be showing very positive results. We are going to continue to refine this further and we are confident that we will continue to see significant consumer lift.”

    “We are delighted with the Voot implementation of a Progressive Web App. PWAs are well suited for India, where the mobile web allows publishers to reach a large audience across a highly diverse set of devices and bandwidth. The early numbers on performance are very encouraging, and demonstrate the potential of mobile web media distribution, ” said Google product manager John Pallett.

    Voot PWA includes offline page caching functionality, fast loading, responsive interface and push notifications. The ‘Add to Home Screen’ feature of PWA allows the user to launch the page from their home screen like a native app and a service worker decreases load times. Voot is an early adopter of this technology and it is only a matter of time before PWAs become the new standard for web interactions, just as responsive design has become the norm rather than an exception.

    While 4G services have recently launched, there are many users who access the Internet via 2G and 3G networks, with slow and sometimes expensive data transfer rates. To reduce the data transfer, VOOT has optimized its images specifically for mobile. The site now dynamically serves either JPEG or WebP images depending upon browser capabilities that minimize image data size, resulting into seamless viewing experience.

    These optimizations resulted in a 63 per cent reduction in first-view page load data transfer and an 86 per cent reduction in data transfer for returning visitors. Page loads became five times faster for first-time visitors, and almost seven times faster for returning users.

  • Network18 FY17 consolidated revenue up by 5% from last year

    MUMBAI: Network18’s Q4 results showed a five per cent YoY growth (driven largely by its TV operations) over last year, posting consolidated revenue of Rs 3,471 crore in FY17 (including proportionate share of JVs) . Segment profits were significantly impacted by pullback in advertising spends in the latter half, operating losses of the new initiatives in regional and digital broadcasting, and losses in digital commerce businesses. 

    Financials for the quarter

    The consolidated revenue (including proportionate share of JVs considered for segment reports) for the quarter ended 31 March, 2017, stood at Rs. 898.4 crore versus Rs. 898.8 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The FY17 consolidated revenue stood at Rs. 3471.1 crore, up five per cent from Rs. 3321 crore last year.

    Segment loss before interest and tax on a consolidated basis, including the performance of joint ventures for the quarter ended 31 March, 2017, stood at Rs 65.5 crore versus segment profit of  Rs. 65.3 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.  Excluding the impact of new initiatives and one-time expenses, the segment profit for the quarter is Rs 5 crore.

    The consolidated revenue as per Ind AS (accounting the JVs under equity method) for the quarter ended 31 March, 2017, stood at Rs. 387.7 crore as compared to Rs. 473.2 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The FY17 consolidated Ind-AS revenue stood at Rs. 1491.0 crore, down two per cent from Rs. 1527.3 crore last year.

    Operating loss on a consolidated basis under Ind AS for the quarter ended 31st March, 2017 stood at Rs. 20.7 crore versus segment profit Rs. 82.7 crores in the corresponding quarter last year. Excluding the impact of new initiatives and one-time expenses, the operating profit for the quarter is Rs. 55.2 crores.

    Highlights 

    One of the highlights of quarters were the tepid ad-industry environment dragged revenues, especially in regional markets. The media industry is still facing impact of deferment of advertising spends that kicked-in from November-December 2016 on likely slow-down in consumer spending. 

    Further, the revival of advertising  spends  has  been  witnessed  at a much faster clip for national  channels,  while regional markets are still recovering with a lag. This has been exacerbated by our launches of regional news and entertainment channels over the last 18 months, including four in early-FY17.

    Despite headwinds, Network18’ s consolidated topline (including JVs) was flat YoY. Listed subsidiary TV18 posted 7 per cent YoY topline growth and its operating profits excluding impact of new initiatives was Rs. 92.6 crores (vs. Rs. 96.7 crores in Q4 FY17).

    The viewership  around  key  events  demonstrated  the network’s’ news  franchise  leadership  and excellence of coverage. CNBC TV18, during the live coverage and analysis of the Union Budget on 1 Feb 2017, garnered 86 per cent market share. On Counting Day of the Assembly Elections of five states, CNN News18 was the number one english news channel.

    Another highlight for the network was the Viacom18, which continues to showcase its strength in Hindi general entertainment, regional entertainment and Kids genres. Colors is now a number two channel, while Nick and Sonic together place us as the top Kids content provider  with a 29 per cent market-share.

    OTT entertainment app VOOT continues to gain traction, and are witnessing  more  sticky  usage  patterns  than  competition.  Opinions  website  “Firstpost”  and flagship finance portal “MoneyControl” were standout performers, and have posted impressive growth in traffic.

    HomeShop18 has contributed substantially to the weakness in Network18 profitability.
    The TV home-shopping business continues to face challenges due to a hit to cash-on-delivery payments and a poor spending appetite since November, competition from e-commerce and regulatory issues including imposition of entry tax by several states. The management is taking steps to cut costs and accelerate operating break-even.

    Network18 chairman Adil Zainulbhai said,  “The digital space in India continues to become more and more vibrant, as bottlenecks around connectivity and cost reduce substantially. We see the emergence of new formats and services, and rapidly-evolving business models; and aim to be at the forefront of this change. Our strength in linear media provides us the edge, helping us leapfrog in our aspiration to be a channel-agnostic provider of top-drawer content”.

    New initiatives & one-time charges

    The new initiatives of Viacom18 (2nd  Kannada GEC Colors Super, OTT video destination VOOT and movie channel Rishtey Cineplex) continued to perform well on all operational metrics. The aggregate operating loss of the new initiatives considered in the consolidated segment results for the quarter is Rs. 36.1 crores.

    Three  regional  news  channels  —  News18  Kerala,  News18  Tamil  Nadu  and  News18 Assam/N.E — that were launched during the first quarter of the current year incurred an operating loss of Rs. 26.9 crores during the quarter.

    “fyi TV18”, a lifestyle programming channel from the AETN18 stable (a JV between TV18 and A&E Network), commercially launched in July 2016, gained a market share of 21% in the quarter. The channel incurred an operating loss of Rs. 7.6 crore during the quarter.

  • ‘Common standard’ good to measure ‘unbundled’ viewership & ads cost-effectiveness: EKAM

    MUMBAI: BARC India has announced the phased roll-out of its much-awaited digital measurement service. 

    EKAM Pulse will measure video ad campaigns and will be the first digital offering to be rolled out by BARC India. EKAM Beam, the next product lined up for release, will measure linear broadcast that is viewed on a Digital device. EKAM Stream, will measure both non-linear and pure play digital video content. BARCIndia will also provide industry with EKAM Ad-Scan – which will be a global first-of-its-kind product. 

    EKAM Integra – will help industry with common, robust and independent audience numbers that will give more accurate incremental reach figures. To do this,BARC India’s TV data will be tied with Digital Video data with the help of Single-Source and Digital Booster panels on top of the census measurement and big data.

    www.indiantelevision.com spoke to a cross-section of the industry on the new scale. Sony Pictures Networks India EVP and Head – Digital Business Uday Sodhi, and Dekkho co-founder Tanay Desai both find the proposed new system interesting. 

    Speaking on the announcement, Sodhi said, “While digital advertising spends in India have witnessed exponential growth over the past couple of years, measuring the cost-effectiveness of video advertisements across TV and digital properties has been one of the biggest pain points for brands in India. The launch of EKAM by BARC India comes as a very welcome development in such a scenario. Not only will it allow advertisers to analyze quantifiable differences in video ad impressions, but will also allow them to see unique and de-duplicated reach and frequency across multiple platforms to accurately ascertain the ROI. It will enable fairer pricing for both advertisers and publishers, and will allow for incremental ad revenues for platforms which provide the maximum consumer reach and impressions. Looking forward to the market launch of the EKAM suite of products and the disruption it will bring in the digital ad industry.”

    On the launch of the BARC digital measurement tool, Zee Entertainment Z5 Business head of digital – India Archana Anand said:

    “This is a very positive development, not just for the OTT segment but for the media industry at large. Given the pace at which the digital entertainment industry is growing, it is becoming more and more critical to have a standardized tool for measurement. A common currency for digital measurement  will allow OTT players to benchmark their performance better across standardized metrics and catalyse overall growth of the industry. This will also help broadcasters get a holistic and more integrated analysis of their viewership across broadcast and digital media, enabling them to feel a greater sense of ownership rather than feeling that they are losing out to digital.“

    Viacom18 digital venture’s COO Gaurav Gandhi: said While digital video services are all fully measurable, there is no common industry measurement nor is there common standard for things like viewability.

    Having a common industry measurement will help all industry stakeholders. It will be a big boost to the fast growing digital video business to realize fair values for audience delivered and help the agencies to plan across TV and digital video better (as well as across various digital video services) – as they will now be able to implement true cross media plans. It will also give more confidence to the advertisers that their audience deliveries are backed by a common industry validated source.”

    Dekkho co-founder Tanay Desai replied to indiantelevision.com queries:

    Was it eagerly awaited? How do you see it?

    Tanay Desai: BARC ‘s Ekam measurement system was eagerly awaited given the lack of transparency in Indian digital media. Today, advertisers on mainstream platforms are often unaware about their exact spends, resulting into 60% inaccuracy in reporting at times. The common denominator for measurement will be challenging to implement — in terms of defining what makes a view, along with specialised metrics for mobile and web for demographic measurement.

    Which are the other methods you have been using?

    Tanay Desai: In-house analytics along with trusted and verified third party vendors to track activity on video, channel and page level. Metrics include engagement, source of session, demographic and geographic data. Dekkho allows advertisers to associate with individual videos, channels and pages of content unlike a fully automated/programmatic allocation system. This ensures brand safety and correct targeting while optimising use of media spends for brands aiming for specific audiences.

    How would it give a fillip to the ecosystem?

    Tanay Desai: OTTs that belong to production houses often sell inventory on a bundled basis. i.e. – TV + digital. This results into little transparency regarding actual views on digital. With the new system in place, digital viewership measurement will be isolated from TV be it a production house backed OTT or an independent aggregator. On the other hand, OTT players themselves will command higher CPMs through superior audience targeting. Media agencies and buyers will have relative knowledge i.e. – compare one OTT’s offering with its peers while spending on behalf of clients.

  • Censorship and extremism worry content creator even as tech helps: Uday Shankar

    MUMBAI: Star India chief Uday Shankar today said while the distance that India has travelled in just one year in adopting internet based behavior is nothing short of remarkable, he was sad that ‘our censor authorities seem to be getting more and more conservative’ as the world gets bolder.

    Speaking at the inauguration of the three-day FICCI FRAMES, Shankar said that “the openness of the internet was supposed to lead to greater plurality of opinions, instead it has created a violent polarity” and a “forced extremism on every matter that has made gray the least acceptable colour in all discourse. As a society we have raised the stakes of every argument to narrowly legal and brutally physical consequences. There seems to be no room left to have civil debates and no place for those who disagree.”

    Clearly expressing a viewpoint that pained the creator of content, he asked: “But can we lay all the blame on the Censor Board itself? In my view the Board generally reflects the dominant consensus of our society and there are increasingly more bodies, mostly self-appointed, who have taken upon themselves the task of censoring media content. The refrain seems to be – I don’t like the legend or the myth on which your story is based, so I will burn down your sets. I don’t like a character, so I will not let you release your film. If you say you are going to do a show of busting fake godmen and gangsters, there is pre-emptive action. And what is becoming alarming now is that sometimes even the forums that you would seek redressal at are more inclined to bless the streetside censorship than speak for the freedom of expression.”

    Extending his argument, he said: “Punishment for disagreement seems to have become the norm. The institutions tasked with protecting expression and plurality, seem to be at loggerheads with the objective itself. By creating elaborate formal ceremonies around it, are we taking the joy out of one of the most loved and celebrated lyrics in our country i.e. our National Anthem? What’s frightening is that the court order has just become yet another weapon in the hands of any goon who is keen to stamp his authority. We are rapidly descending into a mindset where the most critical objective of a work of art is to make sure that it offends nobody no matter how many thematic or creative compromises it has to make.”

    He regretted that the “most worrying part” was that creative minds have begun to self-censor their thoughts and have started killing ideas before they germinate so as to avoid any conflict. “And that is really frightening. The advocates of this vandalism claim that unique measures must be taken to protect our unique culture.”

    However, Shankar said India appeared to be moving fast towards a digital dividend rather than a digital divide. “Personally I find predicting the future to be a tricky business -especially when it involves adoption of new technology. Just a year ago, at this very venue, there was a lively discussion on digital adoption. In less than a year, we are past that tipping point in this country. The distance that India has travelled in adopting internet based behaviour is nothing short of remarkable.”

    From buying goods and services to ordering in, India is now one of the largest markets for mobile applications – be it by volumes of downloads, consumption of video or e-commerce, for which it has already emerged as the next frontier.

    On the other hand, he said the conversation last year was about how many more unicorn start-ups will we see; this year it is about how many lame horses will have to be put down. “Fortunately, the digital story for the M&E sector continues to look exciting and it is already the next big destination for the global digital giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime. The stories of bottomless war-chests may or may not be hyperbole, but, it does give us a sense of the competition that they see from home-grown digital enterprises like Hotstar, Voot and the others.”

    He was confident that there will be a lot more lively activity on this front. The technology that has been introduced in this country is as good if not better than the best in the world. Combined with the reset in costs and quality benchmarks led by Reliance Jio, this has driven the adoption by the Indian consumer at a breathtaking pace.

    But while we celebrate this rapid growth, he said that in 2015-16 the Central Board of Film Certification refused certification to 77 movies. This number was 47 in 2014-15 and only 23 in the year before.

    As an example, he said the movie ‘Jolly LLB – 2’ had to be screened for a group of lawyers and medical professionals who were to decide whether the scenes were appropriate or whether they insulted any profession or institution. “This was despite the fact that the movie had been certified for universal release by the censor board.”

    He said there was a long list of instances “where the creative community has been bullied into changing its output to suit the needs of someone or the other in India. It seems that there are always people lurking in the shadows. Their sole job is to stretch and explore every piece of content that could be potentially offensive to someone.”

    He said the openness of the internet was supposed to lead to greater plurality of opinions, instead it has created a violent polarity.

    Referring to extremist reactions to creative works, he said: “We seem to be following the script that Hollywood had written almost 100 years ago. In the early part of the 20th century, Hollywood had decided to self-regulate itself. It adopted a production code and insisted on its enforcement for almost 25 years. The code covered the use of profanity like hell and damn, any suggestive nudity, wilful offense of any nation, race or creed and any ridicule of the clergy among other things. Doesn’t it sound familiar? The similarity with our own moral code is striking to say the least. Interestingly, television that was just arriving in American homes then, emerged as the challenger to this regime. Along with European cinema that came into the US, television buried this regressive moral code. The question today is – will digital play the same role for our generation and our country? The role of a progressive challenger, the role of providing a bigger canvas to creativity and creating a space for dissenting points of view. This new medium has the ability to truly democratize broadcasting. It offers the creative community the rare opportunity to rethink from scratch their art and how it is communicated. Only when modern technology and contemporary creativity truly come together, will we create a compelling and powerful media and entertainment offering.

    Those present included High Commissioner Nadir Patel and Mayor John Tory, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Ajay Mittal, and Department of Commerce Joint Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey,

  • ‘Big F’ to go bolder in Season 2 on MTV and Voot

    MUMBAI: The second season of Big F is all set to premiere on MTV and delves deeper into the psyche of Indian women to explore their hidden desires and gives them the confidence to break free from societal taboos and claim their desires and their bodies.

    Actor Randeep Hooda is to host Big F Season 2 launching on 12 March at 7 pm. Hooda will be making his television debut with the show, which will also be available for viewers on Viacom18’s online platform Voot from 13 March 2017.

    Viacom18 head youth and English Entertainment Ferzad Palia said, “With MTV Big F Season 1 we took a very bold step with stories of sexual liberation that we showcased and were appreciated for it. What we realized was, as a custodian of youth culture in the country, that MTV had immense power to bring about change – however small – in the way people thought about these things. Season 2 practically wrote itself. The society we live in is known for suppressing the voice of women, more so if they are talking about their desires. Through MTV Big F Season 2 we want to give more power to women and their desires. I am sure, through this season we will be able to change the way the society looks at women and their right to express their sexuality.”

    MTV Big F season 2 will be give a voice to female sexuality, a beast that has long been silenced. It will be bring these sexually- liberating tales through tasteful representation on Indian television.

  • Tug of war between AVoD & SVoD, who will win?

    MUMBAI: Content is the king and distribution is the queen. The year 2016 saw this phrase being used several times by the Over-the-top (OTT) players. But, does the struggle end there? Not really.

    While content remains to be crucial, changing consumption patterns is inevitable. Having the right content mix is still a challenge for the players in the digital eco-system.

    Discussing the importance of content and what can work well at the CASBAA OTT Roundtable Summit 2017 were Zee Entertainment Z5 India Business head of digital Archana Anand and Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi, moderated by TriLegal partner Nikhil Narendran, the session kick-started with the two leading players discussing their evolution.

    While Anand spoke about the ‘BeesKaTV’ app in detail, Gandhi mentioned how the year 2016 saw OTT players burning cash to acquire consumers while it was a fabulous year for them.

    “There is a a lot of demand for content consumption on mobile devices. As an advertising-led video-on-demand (VOD) service, we want to play on our strengths. Acquiring users comes with a heavy cost. There is a streaming cost, technology cost, content cost, etc. A platform has to bare the cost of a stream per user. Voot rides on four pillars – fandom around our reality and drama content available on our TV channel, Kids, Original play, and various languages content. We have built ourselves around content, and are still learning. The market can have 5-6 players with different strategies and we are enjoying a nice slice of the market,” said Gandhi.

    Today, OTT is not just limited to mobile, and the fact that linear TV is not going away yet cannot be denied. How do the consumers consume content is important for which discovery is essential. “Content is crucial and discovery continues to be important. It is beneficial to throw recommendations around one type of content. Curation of original content requires humongous marketing strategy. In the recent Oscars, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video grabbed several awards. What better way to applaud the OTT industry than this,” added Anand.

    It is given that, more than discovery or being a device-agnostic platform, there is a mindset shift required. Making people pay for content remains to be one of the many challenges for the SVOD players. With the data prices coming down, more and more people are going to consume digital video. Though, there is a segment of people who are not part of the data bandwagon, but they have consumed content. So, does it lead to the exit of linear TV in India? Perhaps, not.

    “The next 24 months are going to be crucial for the digital space. TV is here to stay for a long time. There are some segments that will grow faster than the rest. Ad-supported OTT platform complements TV perfectly. We create fandom around our popular TV shows on Voot which gets us more eyeballs and, at the same time, boosts our TV business. There is a lot of headroom for television,” said Gandhi.

    Anand resonated with Gandhi’s point of view on whether digital can replace TV framework.

    But, who will determine the right pricing for each of these platforms? Are the advertisers ready to buy slots? For advertisers to hop on board, the platform first needs to monetise its content, grab maximum number of eyeballs, and then measure it. “The choice is with the players whether they want to play by volume or margin. Indians are ready to pay for transactions than subscriptions. The transactional business will get its value, but the subscription business will take its time. Newer and better models will emerge in the market. The volumes are growing large, but the challenge is — pricing. The advertisers require volume for which more watch-time is a given,” added Gandhi.

    Contradicting that, Anand said, “The real challenge is: value for money. Even the advertisers are invisible in videos. Selling inventories to other broadcasters or platforms becomes difficult.”

    It remains to be seen who’s content will work in the long run, and which model proves to be successful for the players in the digital space.

  • VH1 Supersonic ’17 to hit big, 20 sponsors on board, more IPs in pipeline

    VH1 Supersonic ’17 to hit big, 20 sponsors on board, more IPs in pipeline

    MUMBAI: “At this moment and time, our mandate is very clear – to build the live industry in India, for which you need to have real ticketed events.”

    Standing true to his words, Viacom18′ Integrated Network Solution (INS) and consumer products business head Saugato Bhowmik is focused on building the industry in the live entertainment business for Viacom 18 through ticketed events. Of the five IPs under Live Viacom18 banner, the gigantic music event VH1 Supersonic is all set to take Pune by storm by taking the viewers to a fantasy world. Transforming into a multi-genre international music festival with this edition after a successful run in the past three years, the mega event claims to have doubled its sponsorship value since it’s launch.

    With Gionee as the title sponsor, the festival is powered by Budweiser and has locked deals with as many as 18 other sponsors from various sectors such as — Fastrack, Mexitos, Ajio.com, Reliance Digital, Bisleri, Spraymint, Dot Shot, etc, several hopping on board for the first time. If media punters in the events space are to be believed, the three-day festival has managed to get approximately Rs. 12-15 crore from their sponsorship deals.

    “VH1 Supersonic has nearly doubled its sponsorship value since the previous editions by partnering with brands from diverse sectors on the back of tremendous success in the past editions and a transformed genre line-up. We have got the highest number of partners for this edition. Apart from the several partners that we have already on board,  more sponsors are always welcome,” said Bhowmik.  

    The network has signed a long-term partnership with all the brands on board. According to Bhowmik, only in the long run can a true brand’s value be maximised and leveraged for the people to associate the festival with the partners’ brand value and vice-versa.

    In its fourth year, the music festival has adopted a unique approach to promote its brands across platforms. Going beyond the conventional route of sponsorship, the festival is in the process of creating customised branded content for its sponsors.

    After movies for two of it’s main sponsors, Gionee and Budweiser, webcasts as well as web-series are in the making. A six-part web series on music hosted by Nikhil Chinappa titled Gionee VJ Hunt and another six-part web series bringing the lives of Supersonic fans on the screens is also in the pipeline. All this,  plus some highlights from the festival, will be aired across the network’ bouquet of channels mainly VH1 and it’s OTT platform, Voot.

    The brands associated with the music festival would be able to successfully reach out to 90 million viewers through  the campaigns running in their TV channels and Voot, claimed Bhowmik.

    As far as the promotions are concerned, the network is heavily marketing the festival across print and its TV channels. Apart from this, they are heavily leveraging social media platforms. They have also set up over 100 OOH sites across India.

    With the venue moving to Pune from Goa, the festival and its philosophy remains unaltered. “The change in the venue was part of the journey and a transformation for the brands itself. Our philosophy is to provide transformational experience and we, at this venue, can develop a lot of experiences that we have always promised the audience. We want more and more people to experience us at an affordable rate. Our prime audience is the youth and the young professionals. A large part of them is right in the heart of the youth capital ie Pune. It was a very easy decision to make. The vision of the brand was well communicated and everyone was excited about the multi genre festival,” added Bhowmik.

    The promising artist lineup for this year comprises over 50 artistes with three headlining acts. After sending fans into a frenzy with Eric Prydz and going in for an encore with Macklemore, Vh1 Supersonic recently unveiled Zedd as its third headliner.

    In addition to the immaculate lineup, the music festival has unique on ground experiences. The audience can also enjoy a gamut of experiential activities and can lose themselves in numerous hangout zones, filled with fun and adventurous activities, enjoy in a curated beer garden, weave through engaging art installations, shop at flea markets, etc.

    Apart from the wide expanse of three stages- main strange, spectrum stage and Gionee bass stage, the festival has taken on several social initiatives such as women safety, zero drug policy, fire safety, health and sanitation, ets so as to send a resounding message to the young audience.  Pune police would be providing security to the event besides private agencies. The venue has been converted into WiFi cloud zone for the audience.

    Going ahead, Live Viacom18 plans to scale up its IPs to lot more. The network has already mapped clear consumer segments and will fill in the gaps in its portfolio. “IP interactions and crafting is a very difficult taste and has to be done in a detailed manner. We are crafting those ideas at the moment. There is no lifeline to the launches as it requires a lot of preparatory work and will take sometime.  Without worrying about the timeline, Viacom18 assures to launch many more IPs in the future,” concluded Bhowmik.

    Also Read:

    After Eric Prydz, Macklemore, Gionee Vh1 Supersonic now ropes in Zedd

    Reinstating optimism in youth, Zing to launch ‘Aye Zindagi’   

    ‘MTV Unplugged’ 6 line-up includes Rahman, Shreya, Badshah & Amit Trivedi   

    Sony targets 9m HD subs & diaspora with youth-focused Rox in Dolby quality

    Over 50 HD channels now available in Dolby Audio in India

  • VH1 Supersonic ’17 to hit big, 20 sponsors on board, more IPs in pipeline

    VH1 Supersonic ’17 to hit big, 20 sponsors on board, more IPs in pipeline

    MUMBAI: “At this moment and time, our mandate is very clear – to build the live industry in India, for which you need to have real ticketed events.”

    Standing true to his words, Viacom18′ Integrated Network Solution (INS) and consumer products business head Saugato Bhowmik is focused on building the industry in the live entertainment business for Viacom 18 through ticketed events. Of the five IPs under Live Viacom18 banner, the gigantic music event VH1 Supersonic is all set to take Pune by storm by taking the viewers to a fantasy world. Transforming into a multi-genre international music festival with this edition after a successful run in the past three years, the mega event claims to have doubled its sponsorship value since it’s launch.

    With Gionee as the title sponsor, the festival is powered by Budweiser and has locked deals with as many as 18 other sponsors from various sectors such as — Fastrack, Mexitos, Ajio.com, Reliance Digital, Bisleri, Spraymint, Dot Shot, etc, several hopping on board for the first time. If media punters in the events space are to be believed, the three-day festival has managed to get approximately Rs. 12-15 crore from their sponsorship deals.

    “VH1 Supersonic has nearly doubled its sponsorship value since the previous editions by partnering with brands from diverse sectors on the back of tremendous success in the past editions and a transformed genre line-up. We have got the highest number of partners for this edition. Apart from the several partners that we have already on board,  more sponsors are always welcome,” said Bhowmik.  

    The network has signed a long-term partnership with all the brands on board. According to Bhowmik, only in the long run can a true brand’s value be maximised and leveraged for the people to associate the festival with the partners’ brand value and vice-versa.

    In its fourth year, the music festival has adopted a unique approach to promote its brands across platforms. Going beyond the conventional route of sponsorship, the festival is in the process of creating customised branded content for its sponsors.

    After movies for two of it’s main sponsors, Gionee and Budweiser, webcasts as well as web-series are in the making. A six-part web series on music hosted by Nikhil Chinappa titled Gionee VJ Hunt and another six-part web series bringing the lives of Supersonic fans on the screens is also in the pipeline. All this,  plus some highlights from the festival, will be aired across the network’ bouquet of channels mainly VH1 and it’s OTT platform, Voot.

    The brands associated with the music festival would be able to successfully reach out to 90 million viewers through  the campaigns running in their TV channels and Voot, claimed Bhowmik.

    As far as the promotions are concerned, the network is heavily marketing the festival across print and its TV channels. Apart from this, they are heavily leveraging social media platforms. They have also set up over 100 OOH sites across India.

    With the venue moving to Pune from Goa, the festival and its philosophy remains unaltered. “The change in the venue was part of the journey and a transformation for the brands itself. Our philosophy is to provide transformational experience and we, at this venue, can develop a lot of experiences that we have always promised the audience. We want more and more people to experience us at an affordable rate. Our prime audience is the youth and the young professionals. A large part of them is right in the heart of the youth capital ie Pune. It was a very easy decision to make. The vision of the brand was well communicated and everyone was excited about the multi genre festival,” added Bhowmik.

    The promising artist lineup for this year comprises over 50 artistes with three headlining acts. After sending fans into a frenzy with Eric Prydz and going in for an encore with Macklemore, Vh1 Supersonic recently unveiled Zedd as its third headliner.

    In addition to the immaculate lineup, the music festival has unique on ground experiences. The audience can also enjoy a gamut of experiential activities and can lose themselves in numerous hangout zones, filled with fun and adventurous activities, enjoy in a curated beer garden, weave through engaging art installations, shop at flea markets, etc.

    Apart from the wide expanse of three stages- main strange, spectrum stage and Gionee bass stage, the festival has taken on several social initiatives such as women safety, zero drug policy, fire safety, health and sanitation, ets so as to send a resounding message to the young audience.  Pune police would be providing security to the event besides private agencies. The venue has been converted into WiFi cloud zone for the audience.

    Going ahead, Live Viacom18 plans to scale up its IPs to lot more. The network has already mapped clear consumer segments and will fill in the gaps in its portfolio. “IP interactions and crafting is a very difficult taste and has to be done in a detailed manner. We are crafting those ideas at the moment. There is no lifeline to the launches as it requires a lot of preparatory work and will take sometime.  Without worrying about the timeline, Viacom18 assures to launch many more IPs in the future,” concluded Bhowmik.

    Also Read:

    After Eric Prydz, Macklemore, Gionee Vh1 Supersonic now ropes in Zedd

    Reinstating optimism in youth, Zing to launch ‘Aye Zindagi’   

    ‘MTV Unplugged’ 6 line-up includes Rahman, Shreya, Badshah & Amit Trivedi   

    Sony targets 9m HD subs & diaspora with youth-focused Rox in Dolby quality

    Over 50 HD channels now available in Dolby Audio in India

  • ‘MTV Unplugged’ 6 line-up includes Rahman, Shreya, Badshah & Amit Trivedi

    ‘MTV Unplugged’ 6 line-up includes Rahman, Shreya, Badshah & Amit Trivedi

    MUMBAI: After successfully completing five mellifluous seasons, Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged is back with a smashing new season to take music entertainment to newer heights with the best ever line up including musical maestro A.R. Rahman, fan favourites Shreya Ghoshal and Amit Trivedi, the music man of the moment Badshah, hitmakers Sachin-Jigar and Benny-Neeti amongst others.

    To make an already great season even better, Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged season 6, along with debuting on MTV on 14 January at 8 pm the show will also air on MTV’s brand new Bollywood music channel MTV Beats and will also be available on Viacom18’s online platform Voot.

    Viacom18 Youth and English Entertainment head Ferzad Palia said, “Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged has carved a niche for itself by celebrating the country’s myriad music genres by giving the music a chance to be the star in the show. Unplugged music is music in its rawest form – stripped of all distractions – which makes it extremely powerful and allows the artist to truly display his or her prowess as a musician. The line-up for this season is truly fantastic and I’m confident that the viewers of MTV will be in for a total treat when they tune into one of the greatest seasons of the show with the best of the best musicians performing unplugged.”

    The show, which is now in its sixth season has been extremely popular with the viewers since it first aired on MTV. The last season saw unprecedented success as it reached out to over 34 million viewers across the country with episodes featuring artists such as Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Pritam, Sukhwinder Singh. Along with creating musical magic on air, the show also raked in a reach of over 47 million on digital platforms and a reach of over 17 million over radio. With the new season all set to roll in, MTV has lined up a whole host of 360 degree promotional activities including radio, digital, print, cinema and brand associations to ensure that Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged Season 6 reaches greater heights of popularity than ever before.

    Pernod Ricard India assistant vice president (Marketing) Raja Banerji added, “Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged continues to tread on this successful journey to create one of the finest and most refined musical shows. This season features a perfect line-up of some of the biggest starts from Bollywood performing unplugged – music in its most pristine form. This musical extravagance brings alive the brand’s philosophy of “Make it Perfect” in every way. Tune into perfection and witness these accomplished musicians showcase their versatile repertoire only at Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged”.

    Bringing in none other than the Oscar winning great A. R. Rahman back for yet another season, the Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged season 6 is all set to redefine Saturday evenings as pure unadulterated music takes center stage. The legend, known for his unique style, will be seen performing a mix of old and new songs and will also be throwing in a surprise rendition of eternal fan favourite Urvashi Urvashi. Stunning the audience with her first stint at going unplugged, Shreya Ghosal will give viewers enough reasons to tune in and make them swoon over her magnificent renditions. Apart from Shreya and A. R. Rahman, completing the line-up for the season are Badshah, Benny Dayal, Neeti Mohan, Amit Trivedi, Sachin-Jigar, Jubin Nautiyal, Siddharth Mahadevan, Amit Mishra, Shahid Mallya, Divya Kumar and Jasleen Royal who will be seen mesmerizing viewers with their magical music.

    Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged season 6 is set to go on air on 14 January at 8 pm with A.R. Rahman kicking off the show on a grand note. Indulge in some sinful musical ecstasy and witness magic in motion as the artists set the stage on fire with their soulful renditions of the biggest hits on Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged season 6.

    Artiste line-up for Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged Season 6

    A.R. Rahman

    Badshah

    Shahid Mallya

    Amit Mishra

    Shreya Ghoshal

    Sachin-Jigar

    Jubin Nautiyal

    Jasleen Royal

    Amit Trivedi

    Benny Dayal & Neeti Mohan

    Divya Kumar

    Siddharth Mahadevan