Executive Dossier

“You call ‘Bigg Boss’ scripted or non-scripted you will end up watching it”- Abhishek Rege

Published

10 years ago

March 15, 2016

MUMBAI: “It’s been ten years for Endemol in India and we proudly say that we are the first International production house that has not wrapped up and gone back. Today, at this point, we are poised to be the leaders in the non-scripted format,” says Endemol Shine India TV business COO Abhishek Rege.

The production house which has brought some major international formats to India, Endemol Shine India doesn’t require any introduction. The popularity and fan following of its shows like Bigg Boss, Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi, Deal or No Deal and Voice say it all!

In 2006, Endemol started production in India and first enthralled Indian audiences with the Indian adaptation of Big Brother . The production house has had a successful run in the fiction and non-fiction space since then.

In conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s team, Rege speaks about his journey with Endemol Shine India, shares his views on BARC rural data, digital space and responds to rumours about Bigg Boss being a scripted format. Excerpts of the interaction:

How challenging has your stint with Endemol been? What have the major highlights been?

It’s been a great roller-coaster ride. We have seen really tough times between 2011 and 2012. There was a large amount of fragmentation that we went through in the market as well, but overall, the journey starting from Laughter Challenge and Chhote Miyan to doing Bigg Boss, the Voice and “So You Think You Can Dance” today has been fantastic. It has been a rich and wonderful experience and not to mention – a great learning. We had some great partnerships with international players and also locally. It has been a great run.

For me, the major highlights in the journey were when Viacom launched its Hindi entertainment channel Colors and we went in with Bigg Boss, Fear Factor and created a new franchise of Chhote Miyan. Our attempt to bring in professional wrestling into the GEC space with partnerships with TNA too was a fulfilling experience.

Investments into our Endemol Indian entity by CA Media and our foray into the movie business were also the high points.

Until now, only English entertainment channels aired international content. Now Comedy Central is rolling out the home-grown Indian show Challenge Accepted. Do you see more of that happening in the near future? And do you think these shows have the scope to be licensed globally?

Absolutely! The English entertainment sector is going through a lot of growth. Until now, the competition was between who acquired the best of the shows from various catalogues. Doing a show like Challenge Accepted is a big step, if it works, you will see others trying to emulate it. But at the end of the day, the economics will drive any such foray.

You need something locally developed, because if you buy formats then cost will be a big roadblock for producing a show. The budgets for such shows may not be too high and hence one may not be able to do big ticket shows in this space as yet. The monetization potential for such adapted shows will be lower because they are likely to cater to Indian audiences only.

After the rural data roll out do you see content becoming a bit conservative?

Not really. From the advertisers’ perspective, it’s more about what content they are picking up, which in turn depends on their target group. We need to understand if those rural pockets attract national advertisers or local. The market which clients look for are towns and cities which have access to national brands or are self-distribution points. So in reality, broadcasters are not catering to a hard-core rural group. Hard-core rural audiences don’t have the same affiliation to buy national brands as they are prized very high as compared to what they can afford. That is the market segmentation wherein the advertisers decide who their consumers are, and that will make the difference. Therefore, rural data should not be affecting content strategies too much.

Bigg Boss is one of Endemol’s marquee shows. However, it’s often rumoured of being scripted to some extent. What is your response to that?

It’s not scripted, is all that I can say. Bigg Boss is one of those shows where the PR is not limited to any positive or negative buzz. It’s one of those shows which feed on anything about it. Whether they love it or hate it, whether it’s scripted or not, people will end up watching the show. They want to know when the next fight will happen and they will come back to watch it.

How is the interest in the regional Bigg Boss versions growing?

We did three seasons of Bigg Boss Kannada and now will be doing a second season in Bangla soon. Though Bigg Boss season one in Bangla didn’t hit the top as compared to the Kannada market, we had 50 per cent of the channels’ GRPs at that point of time. While in Kannada, the first season of Bigg Boss which aired on Colors Kannada did extremely well, the second season didn’t go all as planned. But the third season that aired on Colors Kannada again broke all the records. The success of Bigg Boss season 3 in Kannada proves that we have a great potential in the Tamil & Telugu markets.

Endemol has produced a few sports shows like 100% De Dana Dan, Stumped etc. What kind of scope is there in the sports content space and can we expect anything new on that front this year?

We don’t have anything that is specifically targeted at sports. But yes, we have a lot of scope in the sports genre. Our focus right now is films. We did a show called IPL Rockstars where singers performed in the stadium while the crowd gathered before a match was about to start. We haven’t delved further in this genre yet except something like Stumped which is more Call TV, but right now we are focusing more films.

Do you think India has truly woken up to branded entertainment? Is there anything lined up from Endemol in that space?

The potential on branded entertainment for the producer is always questionable because of the structure that we follow here. The broadcaster gets all the rights and product placements. Therefore, it’s not that easy for a producer to garner a share in the branded space. I think digital will be the door which will be a lot more open for branded content. Right now we don’t have anything in that space but the future looks promising.

How different is it producing content for OTT players and television? Can an OTT production be more expensive than TV?

It’s quite different producing content for OTT as compared to television because you need someone to understand the sensitivity and the attention span of the consumer when it comes to OTT. There will also be comparisons on scripted and non-scripted content from both the sides. You need to have power packed content for digital. Edits will play a major role. You just can’t run a drama or a soap on it – that is more for catch-up. Digital is a place where you can have creative freedom as well. It is where your lifestyle, youth & niche segments will come in, and as far as production costs are concerned, it can be cheaper than regional and it can be more expensive than GEC, for making something premium like the Game Of Thrones.

On what basis do you decide on the international formats that can be brought to India and how much are they modified to suit Indian sensibilities?

We look at two things while adapting international formats, one is the cultural adaptability and the other is how economically feasible will it be? The format should be relevant to the Indian audience and to our culture. We can’t bring shows which have cultural differences or something which our audiences might not relate to. Also we have to see if the format is financially feasible or not. In the UK, production houses spend around US$ 10 million on a pilot, and here we don’t have that budget even for an entire series.

We modify the format to an extent where the rules of the key game play are not affected. There are always some Dos’ and Don’ts of every format that have to be protected.

What other formats of Endemol do you plan to get to India in the near future?

That’s tough to answer because we keeping pitching and we don’t decide what comes in, the broadcasters decide that. I think the line-up for most of the broadcasters is pretty much tied up, so we are waiting to see what will come out from this year’s MIPTV/ MIPCOM.

What are Endemol’s plans going forward? What’s in store from Endemol India in 2016 in terms of fiction and non-fiction?

Our focus will be a lot on films, that’s going to be our key acceleration area while our TV focus will continue as usual. But films’ are something which will help us to take next the step to diversify and grow. Digital is another area we are looking closely at. In the non-fiction space we will be coming up with season 3 of Bigg Boss in Bangla soon, and then we will be doing the subsequent seasons for Kannada and Hindi at the end of the year. Also looking forward to the subsequent seasons of other franchises we have set up to come in this year.

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Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

Published

1 month ago

January 27, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

Published

3 months ago

December 3, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

Published

3 months ago

November 28, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8.

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability.

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns.

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives.

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes.

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement.

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift.

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.

As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium.

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception.

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence.

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors.

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable.

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact.

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.