PVR Pictures, the production arm of India’s largest cinema chain, said it will distribute films from Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Entertainment. Both companies will collaborate for the first time to distribute Reliance Entertainment’s upcoming film Game Over, releasing on June 14. This will be followed by the Hrithik Roshan starrer Super 30, which will release on […]
Bharti Airtel has introduced a competitor to Youtube, which accounts for more than half of India’s mobile internet consumption, with the launch of Wynk Tube — a Youtube like app that will focus more on music and music videos. Unlike Youtube, which does not let its free users switch to an audio only mode, Wynk […]
The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition by a lawyer’s organization, Justice For Rights, seeking censoring of online content such as Game of Thrones, Spartacus, Vikings and Sacred Games. The petition, filed late last year, claimed that such videos constituted “unregulated, uncertified, sexually explicit, vulgar, profane, and legally restricted content”. The lawyers wanted the […]
Growth trends of last decade show that Indian M&E can act as an important contributor to India’s economic growth, but the sector continues to be a dwarf compared to its global peers. Can 2019 prove to be a point of inflection and kick-start next decade of explosive growth? The year was 2009 when Indian media […]
India’s major DTH broadcasters have declared their channel lists and prices under TRAI’s new tariff rules, and an analysis of the same reveals that Tata Sky continues to be undisputed king of HD Channels in India, followed closely by Airtel Digital and Sun Direct. Dish TV and D2h, meanwhile, have slightly less comprehensive lists of […]
The impending December 29 deadline for the introduction of a new set of rules governing the prices of TV channels has set the stage for a mega showdown between broadcasters on the one side and the cable and DTH industry on the other. At the core of the fight is the question of who gets […]
Zee Entertainment and Star India, two of India’s biggest broadcasters, have come out with introductory web-pages on the upcoming TRAI tariff change coming into effect on December 29. The prices were already available to DTH and cable companies as part of pro-forma legal agreements. However, the opening of the webpages indicates that these rates are more […]
Zee Entertainment Enterprises, the largest Indian broadcasting company, said it plans to raise the number of exclusive movies on its entertainment app ZEE5 to 3,000 as it races to become the No.1 provider of digital content in India. The 3,000 exclusive movies would make the platform one of the biggest, if not the biggest, repository […]
PVR, India’s largest multiplex operator by far, said it will acquire 72% of SPI Cinemas, which operates 17 multiplex theaters in South India including Chennai’s Sathyam, for around Rs 633 cr in cash, and the remaining 28% by issuing its own shares. SPI Cinemas is a leading cinema player in South India with 17 multiplexes, […]
Reliance Jio’s delays in ‘going pay’ with its content suite seems to be giving rivals like Bharti Airtel pause for thought as far as their content plans are concerned. Jio unveiled a large suite of content applications when it launched its telecom service two years ago, prompting rivals like Airtel and Idea Cellular to draw […]
Eros International Media, one of India’s leading content producers, said it has formed a joint venture company with V Vijayendra Prasad, the writer of popular movies like Baahubali, Magadheera and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Eros International said Prasad has already penned down 10 stories that will be converted into films by the new company. “To bring these […]
Market tracker CyberMedia Research has called Reliance Jio’s 4G and GigaFiber broadband subscriber targets unrealistic, and said it did not see the company meeting the year-end target of 300 mln for its 4G service or the 50 mln target for its fiber broadband service. “We at CMR feel Jio might slow down around 260-275 million […]
ALTBalaji, the biggest Indian provider of original online content, is signing up paid users at the rate of 25,000-30,000 per day, said Nachiket Pantvaidya, the CEO of Balaji Telefilms, the company behind the app. “We expect to have paid users of 10 mln by the end of the year,” Pantvaidya said in an interview with BTVI. […]
HT Media, the company that publishes the Hindustan Times newspaper, said it obtained approval from its board of directors to invest another Rs 400 cr into its FM business. The company operates ‘Fever 104’ FM stations in over a dozen cities in India. However, it is dwarfed by competitors like Radio Mirchi from the Times […]
DQ Entertainment, creator of children’s TV animations such as Jungle Book, said it decided to open several indoor theme parks in India. The company signed a franchisee agreement with India-based Chiliad Procons to open the theme parks, which it said would be of world standard. “It’s as close as India gets to a Disneyland equivalent,” […]
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, the largest Indian-owned media company, reported a strong quarter of advertisement growth in Jan-Mar, benefiting from a bounce-back from the lows of demonetization last year. Advertising revenue for the Jan-Mar quarter rose 24% on year to Rs 1,050 cr. With this, full-year advertising revenue growth has recovered to 14.5%. Subscription revenue […]
Dish TV, India’s oldest direct-to-home service, has started using the satellite feed of Videocon D2h for its new customers in South India, more or less doubling the number of South Indian channels available on the platform. With this, the number of Tamil channels on Dish TV has jumped to 88, including 4 in HD, compared […]
Sun Direct, the DTH platform from Chennai-based Sun TV Network, said it has added 25 new channels, including five HD channels. With this, the total number of HD channels on the platform has risen to 65 and the number of standard definition channels has risen to 237. It is expected to add another 15 HD […]
The government of India is exploring ways to ban the advertising of junk foods and soft drinks on television channels targeted at children, junior minister for information and technology Rajyavardhan Rathore told the parliament today. Rathore said intimations in this regard will be sent to television channels soon, and the idea was to discourage children […]
The government has reduced the Goods and Services Tax on amusements parks and events such as circus, pageants, drama, functions and concerts. While the GST rate on amusements parks has been reduced to 18% from 28%, all ticket sales of up to Rs 500 each for events has been made GST free. The new rate […]
