MUMBAI: Having their heads buried in a transformative ecosystem, major DTH players have constantly been expanding their offerings and Airtel’s DTH arm is not an exception. The world is busy discussing traditional TV versus OTT but DTH players like Airtel Digital TV are embracing the opportunities coming from streaming services, according to Bharti Airtel DTH CEO Sunil Taldar.

In an interview with Media Partners Asia executive director and co-founder Vivek Couto during APOS 2020, Taldar spoke in the session "Innovation and growth in India's Video Market" alongside Tata Sky CEO Harit Nagpal. He addressed queries about existing opportunities, changing consumer preferences during pandemic as well as the future of his own platform. He also sounded highly optimistic about creating a universe of hybrid set-top boxes along with the growth opportunity to expand the existing DTH consumer base.

NEW DELHI: India topped the audience count for BBC News with 60.4 million people watching the UK-based public broadcaster in 2020, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. BBC witnessed a growth of 11 per cent in its worldwide audience as compared to 2019, reaching 486.2 million per week,  with India leading the jump in viewership followed by the US with 49.5 million and Nigeria with 37.2 million in the audience. 

“BBC News was the strongest performer, making up 438.4 million of the total (an increase of 13 per cent), with digital platforms proving key. A total of 151 million users now access BBC News digitally, according to the annual Global Audience Measure, up 53 per cent on 2019,” BBC shared. 

In late March 2020, at the initial stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic's global spread, BBC News recorded the highest reach of any international media organisation in the world with 310 million people accessing coverage across 42 languages.

BBC Studios has announced the re-launch of its popular children's channel CBeebies in India, targeted at kids under six years of age. In an interaction with BestMediaInfo.com, Ryan Shiotani, SVP and GM, South and South East Asia, BBC, said they are excited to return to India and bring CBeebies linear channel back to the market.

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On the monetisation plans for the channel as it offers ad-free content, Shiotani said BBC Global News will be marketing and distributing the channel in India. "We are managing the cost structure very closely and it’s based on a subscription model. The TRAI rate for CBeebies channel is Rs 4 for the BBC bundle and Rs 5 for CBeebies on its own (a la carte)."

He said things have changed a lot in India in terms of business. They had discontinued operations in 2012 in the country. "In terms of business, a lot has changed since 2012. I think when we exited the market it was a time when there were delays in digitisation, which meant that operators had capacity issues. That's something that has gone away with the improvement in infrastructure over the years. There are no capacity issues like before," he said.

Singing reality show ‘Super Singer’ is all set to return on Bengali GEC Star Jalsha, from Star India network, every Saturday and Sunday, starting July 25, in a brand new avatar.

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In the very first episode, Super Singer is introducing ‘Challengers’ Round’, with several new participants shortlisted through Challenger audition, conducted across centres before lockdown, who will come on stage to challenge the existing participants of Super Singer.

The opening episode will be a fierce fight of survival in the contest between the challengers and the existing contestants.

Jisshu U Sengupta will be the host. Shaan, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Rupankar Bagchi and Lopamudra Mitra will be seen judging, guiding and mentoring the contestants as the new judges’ panel.

Mumbai: The unforeseen situation of COVID19 has now rendered investors to look for a guide that helps them recover from the pandemic by making well-informed financial decisions and astute investments. With an aim to keep its viewers abreast about the ever-changing financial climate and help them declutter the information overload; CNBC-TV18, as a market leader in the English business news and finance sector, introduces its all-new Clutter Breakers! Simplifying market trends in a slew of fresh programming that caters to a vast and diverse set of viewers, the channel reinvents itself by announcing an all-new line-up of shows and segments for seasoned as well as first-time investors with their specialized market programming.

Once again innovating and reinventing themselves, the channel seeks to lay impetus in separating the news from the noise by providing actionable and insight-driven solutions to its viewers. The channel has launched a brand-new weekly show, ‘CNBC-TV18 Investment Guide’ that is led by Anuj Singhal and Surabhi Upadhyay. The first episode kicked off with Raamdeo Agrawal, of Motilal Oswal Group, and acts as the perfect beginner’s guide for stock market investments. It sheds light on the basic rules of investing along with informing viewers of the mistakes to avoid. Add to that, another new show, ‘Smart Money’ sees anchor Sonia Shenoy offer a helping hand to the viewer as she solves a host of queries and market-related issues asked by them.

Week 28 of BARC Ratings saw the Top 5 channels in Malyalamgenre witness changes in the positions. According to BARC Ratings of South GEC for week 28, the following are the ranking of various Regional GECs.

Malayalam:                                                 

Asianet leads the Malayalam GEC category followed by Flowers TV that moved up and secured the 2nd spot this week. Surya TV on the 3rd spot and for the last two spots we have MazhavilManorama and Zee Keralam.

Dish TV India Limited has reported consolidated subscription revenues of Rs 776.6 crore and operating revenues of Rs 869.1 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.

While operating revenues stands at Rs 869.1 crore, the subscription revenue is at Rs 776.6 crore. The advertisement income stands at Rs 12.1 crore for the quarter ended March 2020.

For FY20, Dish TV has posted operating revenue of Rs 3556.3 crore with an EBITDA of Rs 2106 crore.

The fourth quarter had started on a modest note for Dish TV India Limited with the focus being subscriber retention and addition of quality subscribers. As the country slipped into a COVID-19 induced lockdown, television became the default fallback option for the population including some of those who had been irregular in recharging their DTH connections. News channels, followed by movies and general entertainment channels notwithstanding the re-runs of old shows witnessed high time-spent by viewers. Dish TV India witnessed a surge in renewals and recharges with digital mediums constituting 76% of all subscriptions received by the Company. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and e-wallets became the preferred online, real-time payment modes over cash and physical outlets for subscribers recharging their DTH accounts. Increasing proportion of renewals through digital mediums should be the new normal in the post-COVID-19 world. The indispensability of television as a source of information and entertainment never needed substantiation and the current circumstances have only reiterated that.

BENGALURU: The Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani-controlled MSO and broadband internet services provider Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd (Hathway) reported consolidated profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 66.06 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2020 (Q1 2021, quarter or period under review) against loss of Rs 9.38 crore for the corresponding year ago quarter Q1 2020 (y-o-y). Consolidated operating EBITDA for the period under review at Rs 118.18 crore (28.2 percent of operating revenue) grew 26.9 percent y-o-y from Rs 83.14 crore (20.7 percent of operating revenue).

Hathway’s consolidated operating revenue fell 6.7 percent y-o-y in Q1 2021 to Rs 419.56 crore from Rs 449.78 crore in Q1 2020. Consolidated total income (total revenue) during the quarter fell 3.6 percent y-o-y to Rs 514.46 crore from Rs 506.68 crore.

KOLKATA: A week after Netflix dropped Indian Matchmaking, Mumbai-based matchmaker Sima Taparia had her face splashed on memes and posts on social media. Unlike its reality TV breakout hits Love Is Blind and Too Hot To Handle, Indian Matchmaking does not show a liberal dating culture setup or deep connection of love. Instead, it promotes the Indian arranged marriage trope. 

Media, content creators and millennials across the globe have expressed their views and written official reviews about the latest trending show. While some think we can’t hide bitter truths for long, some are of the view that Netflix should not have promoted such a tainted social system. The appearance of colourism and casteism has made it receive a fair amount of backlash.

Full-service digital marketing agency TheSmallBigIdea has won the social media mandate for Zee TV. The mandate was awarded post a multi-agency pitch which saw participation from several other leading digital marketing consultancies.

TheSmallBigIdea’s data driven approach to content backed by their in-house analytics tool ‘ACE’ aided this win.

The addition of Zee TV further strengthens TheSmallBigIdea’s entertainment portfolio and positions it as a partner of choice for media and entertainment brands in India. Launched in 1992, Zee TV is the flagship channel of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd with a strong foothold in rural and urban markets across India.