CarDekho, a car search and buy brand run by GirnarSoft, has seen a steady recovery in the overall sales this festive season and has been able to touch almost 80% of last year's numbers. 

In terms of web traffic, the brand has performed 30% better than last year. As recovery becomes more visible, the brand has prepared a marketing plan for the next calendar year. 

Gaurav Mehta, CMO at GirnarSoft (CarDekho, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels), said the brand will spend the majority of its marketing monies on TV and digital. 

“While the offline channels will remain, they will be much more closely integrated with digital. Dependence on digital is going to increase in the coming time. CRM solutions, AR/VR technologies, showroom displays: these kinds of digitisation will be seen getting implied in offline channels,” Mehta said.

If one were to scan through the last few decades, broadcasting industry faced back to back disruptions like never before in last four years.  Starting from demonetization in 2016 to GST in 2017 followed by a long legal battle against the first tariff order.

And when the sector finally made peace with the first order called NTO 1 and decided to implement it, in comes NTO 2.0 followed by COVID 19. With so much to tackle while keeping the pace and the morale of the industry going, Star & Disney India’s managing director K Madhavan took charge as the new president of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) on September 25, 2020.

 

In his first interview in his new role, Madhavan spoke to Naziya Alvi Rahman, Editor, exchnage4media, about the necessity for a stable regulatory system in the industry. He also spoke about the need for having a separate regulator for telecom and media industry, his belief in BARC’s efficiency, his views on ad cap controversy, the impact of the growth of OTTs on the television industry, deteriorating quality of content on TV and his other plans as IBF president. Below are edited excerpts.

KOLKATA: Amongst the homegrown OTT players, SonyLIV was late to enter the original content space. After its recent rebranding, the OTT platform has made a splash, especially with the launch of Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta story. Following its success, the platform is leaving no stone unturned to retain the buzz around the show.

On Saturday, SonyLIV published a four-page advertorial in The Times of India. The separate sheet of the feature contains interviews with actors, the production house, the director, and a review of the show along with the promotion of other original content on the platform. It further included original headlines from newspapers around the scam and photographs of Sucheta Dalal, Harshad Mehta and his lawyers.

Following the success of the first season of ‘Tales of Valour’, an authoritative factual documentary series that presented the valiant stories of bravery of Indian soldiers, Times Network has announced the second season of the docu-series. Featuring 13 exemplary heroic tales from the crucial battles India has fought since independence, Tales of Valour Season 2 chronicles the heroic stories of resilience and sacrifice of Indian soldiers.  Curated and narrated by Maroof Raza, Consulting Editor, Times Network and one of India’s foremost military historian and strategic affairs expert, the 13-part series will telecast from November 28 every Saturday at 7 pm and Sunday at 10.30 pm on Times Now and Times Now World and Saturday at 8.30 pm and Sunday at 11:30 am on Mirror Now.

Mumbai: Celebrating World Television Day, Tata Sky, India’s leading content distribution and Pay TV platform, launched the campaign #YahaSabDekha conceptualized by Chimp&z Inc. The campaign features an original mashup track from the internet and social media sensation Yashraj Mukhate.

The campaign film uses a mix of illustrations and real imagery, capturing memorable moments and the most-beloved characters and scenes from different genres of entertainment. Presented in Yashraj’s signature style, the imagery was woven together with original lyrics, delivering a distinctive composition that promises to strike a chord with viewers and netizens.

The campaign was released across Tata Sky’s social media handles on 21st November, World Television Day and was simultaneously shared by Yashraj on his social channels. Owing to its trendy format with a touch of nostalgia, the mashup track garnered favor among millennials, resulting in over 2.6 Million Video views and is still gaining momentum.

 India Ahead’s well-known anchor and Business Editor Ridhima Bhatnagar has joined CNN News 18 as anchor.

 Bhatnagar was associated with India Ahead News for over two years.  She was also part of CNBC TV 18 as anchor from 2015 to 2017.

Bhatnagar has also served stints at ET Now, News X and NDTV in the past. She has over ten years of rich experience in media and holds Post Garduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism  from Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.

Sony Pictures Sports Network (SPSN) is all set to broadcast Team India’s first cricket series in the new normal. Team India’s tour of Australia will commence on November 27, 2020 and will be aired live on Sony Ten 1, Sony Ten 3 and Sony Six channels. For the tournament, Sony has already signed close to 15 sponsors, including six ‘Co-presenting’ sponsors.  

The six Co-presenters of the series are Maruti Suzuki India, My11Circle, Byju’s, Amazon.in and Vimal Pan Masala. The Associate Sponsors are Mondelez, Pernod Ricard, MRF, SBI Mutual Fund, Netflix, Ather Energy, Dettol, Car24, PharmEasy and MP Birla Cement. The broadcaster is in the process of closing more brands before the series begins. 

Mumbai: Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has acquired the exclusive pay television & IPTV broadcast rights for the Lanka Premier League (LPL) India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan & Maldives and non-exclusive FTA rights for the same countries excluding Sri Lanka. The tournament will take place against the scenic Sri Lankan backdrop at the Mahinda Rajapaksha International Cricket Stadium from 26th November to 16th December 2020. SPN will telecast the series LIVE and Exclusive on SONY SIX Channels and will be livestreamed on its on-demand OTT platform SonyLIV in India.

Five franchisee teams, named after Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Dambulla and Jaffna, will compete via the round-robin format, featuring 23 matches over a 15-day period for the title. Colombo will take on Kandy in the opening match and the final will be played on 16th December 2020. A galaxy of global stars which includes Andre Russell, Shahid Afridi, Wahab Riaz, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Amir, Angelo Mathews, Irfan Pathan and many more will be taking part in the 15-day extravaganza.

Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India has acquired the exclusive pay television & IPTV broadcast rights for the Lanka Premier League (LPL) India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan & Maldives and non-exclusive FTA rights for the same countries excluding Sri Lanka. Global sports broadcasting giant Sky Sports have won the rights for UK while state-owned Independent Television Network (ITN) have won the rights to telecast matches in Sri Lanka whereas Geo and PTV have won the telecast rights in Pakistan. 

Talking about the partnership, Rajesh Kaul, Chief Revenue Officer, Distribution and Head – Sports Business, Sony Pictures Networks India said, “We share a long-standing relationship with the Sri Lanka Cricket board and as the rights holders of Sri Lanka Cricket, this is a natural extension. There is never enough cricket for India and the Lanka Premier League is a good brand of cricket that is set to feature many sub-continent players making it a very attractive addition to our cricket portfolio. Sony Pictures Networks India is the premier destination for the best of international cricket and for us, it is not just about broadcasting an event but it’s about bringing people closer to the game. We are extremely happy to say that with Lanka Premier League we will be bringing that brand of cricket for our audience in India.”

MUMBAI: For those of a certain generation, the television has always been there in the corner of the front room, entertaining us, educating us, shaping our mindset and attitude. Believed to have been invented by an assortment of individuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the credit for the TV unit is generally given to John Locke Baird. Just like the internet this side of the millennium, the television, in its age, revolutionised the world. The first World Television Forum was staged by the United Nations in the mid ’90s, and that is when the humble TV set was honoured with a day of its own. Ever since, 21 November is celebrated as World Television Day.

TV has proved to be an indispensable medium that has played a crucial role over the past decades, as well as during this prolonged pandemic. It provided a crutch to the Indian psyche and kept more than a billion people united, engrossed, and informed with content across genres in multiple languages.