New Delhi: Professional Fighters League(PFL), the fastest growing and most innovative league in the world, today announced an international distribution partnership with Eurosport India, marking the first time MMA will be televised on the platform. The partnership is part of PFL’s planned global expansion, which includes a focus on growing the sport in India. PFL is the first organization to present MMA in a Regular Season, Playoffs and Championship format.

As part of the multi-year agreement, Eurosport India will broadcast live PFL Regular Season, Playoffs and Championship events. PFL programming on Eurosport India will also feature classic fights from PFL’s vault, providing fans the opportunity to relive the championship journeys of PFL stars such as Kayla Harrison, Ray Cooper III, Emiliano Sordi, Magomed Magomedkerimov and Nathan Schulte. Original programming created by PFL Studios – a fully integrated global media division of the Professional Fighters League producing original MMA content for all platforms including television, digital and mobile – will also be included.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released recommendations on ‘regulatory framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) communication services’ after a multi-stage consultation process. 

In it's recommendation, TRAI said, “Market forces may be allowed to respond to the situation without prescribing any regulatory intervention. However, developments shall be monitored and intervention as felt necessary shall be done at appropriate time.”
It further added, that no regulatory interventions are required in respect of issues related with privacy and security of OTT services at the moment. 

The regulator also said that it is not an opportune moment to recommend a comprehensive regulatory framework for various aspects of services referred to as OTT services, beyond the extant laws and regulations prescribed presently. “It may be looked into afresh when more clarity emerges in international jurisdictions particularly the study undertaken by ITU,” the official statement read.  

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) has forayed into the regional music space with the launch of its Marathi music channel – Zee Vajwa. 

With this launch, the network will have a total of four channels in the market with Zee Marathi, Zee Yuva and Zee Talkies, capturing 57% viewership share in the Marathi market. With the promise of providing a mono to dolby experience for the Marathi youth, the brand has come up with the tagline -  Zee Vajwa, Kshann Gaajwa.

Speaking on the launch, Ashish Sehgal, Chief Growth Officer, ZEEL said, “As an organization, we have gained in both viewership and revenue due to our diverse portfolio across markets. And, believe in constantly strengthening our product portfolio keeping the customer at the centre thereby adding value to all our stakeholders. Our dominant position across markets echoes our customer-centricity. Our growing viewership and revenue share in Maharashtra is a reflection of our successful journey so far. Our objective has always been to provide a holistic surround to our consumer/customer and in Maharashtra, with Zee Vajwa we see an opportunity for us to not only strengthen our music cluster but further gain viewership/revenue shares as well. We are excited to dial up the impact for advertisers this festive period.”

When Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians step out on the cricket field this Saturday, i.e. September 19, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, millions of cricket enthusiasts are expected to tune in to see last year’s finalists take on each other in yet another blockbuster encounter. While we will have to wait to see which team takes home the Dream11 IPL 2020 trophy, what’s certain is that it will be the game of cricket and the sports-starved viewers who will be the ultimate winners.

For Gautam Thakar, CEO – Star Sports, pulling off the telecast of one of the biggest sporting spectacles in 2020 – in just six weeks during an ongoing pandemic and a lot of uncertainties – one would say would have been challenging but Thakar calls it a different experience.

He is confident that Dream11 IPL 2020 will be the biggest ever - in revenue and viewership - because of the response from both advertisers and viewers.

Edited excerpts:

Media reports indicate that Star Sports may match or marginally exceed last year’s revenue of Rs 2,000 crore as IPL this time coincides with the festive season. What are your ad revenue projections for this season?

This is going to be the biggest IPL ever, both in terms of viewership and revenue. We have sold 95% of our inventory and have 18 sponsors onboard for the show so far. This is the highest number of sponsors we have ever had. Brands had allotted spends for IPL, Asia Cup and T20 World Cup, and now with Dream11 IPL being the only cricket property for 2020 plus it being a festive season, it has become the obvious choice for brands to make.

On the virtual e4m Conclave series yesterday, MK Anand, MD & CEO, Times Network, shared insights on ‘Decoding television viewing in the multi-screen environment’. The session saw Anand having an intriguing conversation with Nawal Ahuja, Co-Founder, exchange4media Group, on the broadcast industry. Anand spoke about the recovery of business at Times Network amid COVID pandemic, how the subscription model has helped the network build revenue, NTO, landing pages, and the way forward for the broadcast industry.

Recovery of business amid COVID pandemic

Starting the virtual discussion, Anand shared, “We have fortunately been within a single-digit variation vis-a-vis last year in the first half. We are going to be closing September in the next 15 days and it is looking like we will be no more than 9% lower than last year, and this is including election revenues from last year. From an industry point of view, for television and advertising, September probably is the first month when there are some signs of things being not as broken as they were even until August. I’m also talking from the group’s point of view; (for) our radio, print, movie and digital business, overall recovery has begun in September. If current conditions are going to hold, then in Q3, we might be getting to a place where we are not broken anymore.”

KOLKATA: Digital is it. Across the country, and age groups, Indians are getting online, and consuming more high speed broadband data than ever before, whether it is for entertainment, education, commerce or banking. While the telcos have been serving their needs for a large part, the increasing maw for data and speeds has thrown up increasing opportunities for multi-system operators (MSOs) and local cable operators (LCOs)  even as their video distribution operations are seeing churn.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) advisor Arvind Kumar spoke about this potential future of MSOs in a virtual fireside chat hosted by Elara Capital. Kumar said that a number of people want broadband services currently and they are looking at fibre-to-home services. According to him, it is not possible for a telecom service provider to satiate the demand of 300 million households even in the next ten years. 

Read our coverage on TRAI 

“Therefore MSOs must focus on providing a broadband connection with cable TV services. This is right for them. This makes a very good business case for the MSOs. Neither any TSP will be able to fight with them, nor DTH operators will be able to do so. The MSOs should focus on how to give broadband service at the same time along with cable services to retain subscribers,” Kumar added. He also mentioned that the Covid2019 crisis has proved the demand for broadband connectivity. 

MUMBAI: Down south, leading Indian TV network, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) is penning a new script in its run up to the festive season. When the Indian government announced the lockdown, it slammed the doors tight on the inflow of revenues for the whole economy – with the exception of a few sectors. Television channels, which are reliant on ad revenues from companies mesmerising consumers to go out and buy products through TVCs, in particular, felt the pain immediately. Even as bound-at-home India watched more and more television, advertisers turned off the advertising tap. Result: for nearly four months, and more, anywhere between 50-80 per cent of broadcast revenues disappeared poof into thin air.

Broadcast executives have been working day and night - since the gradual lifting of the lockdown two months back – to get advertisers to spend more and pay more the advertising spots. Most of them are banking on the upcoming festival season to get them out of the hole they are in currently. Yes, they are expecting a spike but they are wise enough to know that it is going to lag behind the massive festive ad bumps they had in 2018 and 2019.

National Geographic will be back with the second season of Mega Icons from September 20. This season will deep dive into the life journey of Deepika Padukone, Ratan Tata, A. R Rahman, and Kalpana Chawla to decipher many milestone moments that defined their success. 

The maiden season was a success and featured the stories of Virat Kohli, APJ Abdul Kalam among others.

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Featuring globally acclaimed icons from various walks of life, season 2 of mega icons promises to be bigger and better. The series will bring viewers closer to these icons through exclusive and intimate interviews of them and their close ones. Using cinematic recreations, the unique format will decode whether it was their conditioning, experiences, and hard work, or their perspective to look at things differently that defined their path to success. The global icons featured in Mega Icons season 2 have been carefully selected keeping in mind some of the biggest obsessions of the country — movies, music, science and entrepreneurship. The four-part series is aimed to feed the curiosity of discerning viewers, who wonder what made these Icons into who they are today.

Hindi General Entertainment Channel Star Bharat from Star Network is coming up with a new show ‘Excuse Me, Madam’ from September 14 and will air every Monday to Friday at 8.30pm.

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Produced by Edit II Productions, ‘Excuse Me Maadam’ is all set to enthral its viewers. The show is based on the lives of three unique characters. Sanam played by Rajesh Kumar, Kranti played by Sucheta Khanna and Madam played by Nyra Banerjee. It’s a fun story revolving around Sanam who falls head over heels over his Madam. The show is said to take its audience on a ride of laughter, strange happenings, accidents, coincidences, hits and misses, desires, failures and above all, the wild fantasies of Sanam, which never get fulfilled. The show also stars comedian Anup Upadhyay, Vishwanath Chatterjee and Sapna Sikarwar.

Mumbai: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) is the leading Marathi entertainment network with brands like ZEE Marathi, ZEE Talkies and ZEE Yuva that are not just entertainers but cultural icons. During the telecast of the  Zee Gaurav Puraskar 2020 on Zee Marathi, ZEE announced the addition of one more family member – A new Marathi music channel – Zee Vajwa. The channel logo was unveiled amidst tremendous fanfare by renowned Marathi actor Swwapnil Joshi & the energy bomb of Marathi film industry, Siddharth Jadhav.

The logo unveil at the award ceremony created an extraordinary musical mahual which the channel promises to create for its viewers. In keeping with the tagline “Zee Vajwa, Kshann Gaajwa”, the channel aims to inspire its viewers to live each moment to the fullest because Kshann Zingaat Tar life Zingaat! The channel promise will also be brought alive through the content offering to give a music++ experience to the viewer.