Eros International, Pakistan's HUM TV ink content pact : Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Film entertainment firm Eros International today announced a content acquisition deal with Pakistan's on­air and digital content firm HUM TV for an undisclosed amount.

The deal is signed between company's online entertainment portal, ErosNow and HUM TV,

Eros International said in a filing to the BSE.

"The deal entails the registered users of ErosNow across the world access to HUM TV's entire library, including the current shows at no extra subscription cost," it added.

Besides, ErosNow subscribers in India will also get an exclusive opportunity to view the content 48 hours prior to its telecast on any other platform, it added.

ErosNow CEO Rishika Lulla Singh said the partnership would give the company's subscribers an opportunity "to view the much sought after and varied Pakistani content".

Hum Network President Sultana Siddiqui said: "The association enables us in reaching out and providing some of our best Pakistani contents to millions of keen internet users across the globe."

ErosNow is an on­demand entertainment portal offering Bollywood movies and a large section of television content syndicated from major TV studios besides music and audio tracks.

Shares of Eros International were treading at Rs 490.20 per scrip in the mid­day trade, down 1.83 per cent from the previous close on BSE.

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India to have 1.4 Billion mobile subscriptions by 2020-Ericsson Report : AnimationXpress.com

Ericsson today for the first time released the India appendix of the Ericsson Mobility Report, which shows key trends and forecasts on mobile traffic, subscriptions, consumer behavior and technology uptake specific to India. As per the report, the total number of mobile subscriptions in India is expected to increase to approximately 1.4 billion by 2020, resulting in a population penetration of 100 per cent. This growth will primarily be driven by the increasing affordability of devices and services.

The report reveals that the GSM/EDGE subscriber base is expected to peak in 2015 and expected to decline thereafter as subscribers migrate to 3G services. The WCDMA/HSPA subscriptions are expected to grow from over 120 million in 2014 to around 620 million by 2020, with the proportion of WCDMA/HSPA subscriptions in the total subscription base touching 45 per cent by that time. LTE subscriptions are likely to reach more than 230 million, forming around 17 per cent of the total subscription base by 2020.

GSM/EDGE technology currently has the widest reach in India, with 95 per cent population coverage. WCDMA/HSPA covered more than 35 per cent of the Indian population at the end of 2014, and is expected to cover approximately 90 per cent by the end of 2020. Additionally, around 40 per cent of the population will be covered by LTE networks by 2020.

In terms of demographics, the proportion of people aged over 50 who use smartphones quadrupled between 2013 and 2015, albeit from a small base. In the same period, there was a three-fold growth in the proportion of 31-40 year old mobile data users.

On average, Indian smartphone users spend over three hours a day on their smartphones and 25 per cent of them check their phones over 100 times a day. Around one third of the time spent on smartphones is used for apps, primarily chat, social media, and gaming. 65 per cent of mobile broadband smartphone users in India prefer video streaming to downloading videos on handsets.

Affordability of smartphones will drive the overall affordability of mobile broadband in India. The number of smartphone subscriptions is expected to reach over 750 million by 2020, up from 130 million in 2014. The continued growth in smartphone subscriptions will lead to an accelerated growth in data usage; monthly mobile data consumption is expected to increase 18-fold by the year 2020 over current levels.

Ericsson, head of region – India, Chris Houghton says: “Maintaining and improving quality of the user experience is likely to be at the top of Indian operators’ agenda over the coming years. A network with a mix of macro sites, micro sites and small cells will need to be established to manage coverage, capacity and network performance for the best user experience and to meet the growing demand for data services.”

Video streaming accounts for the most used mobile data service amongst Indians, followed by social networking. 70 per cent of mobile broadband smartphone users regularly stream videos on their smartphones, and 61 per cent use social networks. Indian smartphone users are also seeing great potential in mobile broadband when it comes to facilitating the way they handle their money and personal finances.

The global Ericsson Mobility Report released earlier this month stated that India grew the most in terms of mobile subscribers, with 26 million net additions in first quarter this year, followed by China (+8 million), Myanmar (+5 million), Indonesia (+4 million), and Japan (+4 million).

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Global M&E Industry: India leads digital drive: The Hindu

For a change, India is found leading the world in virtualisation of content in the Media and Entertainment (M&E) business thereby creating an edge in this domain.

India’s top M&E companies namely Star India, Zee Entertainment, Sony and Colors have already adopted the digital mode in key workflow processes across the supply chain, two years ahead their western counterparts thus sharply increasing the output of their executives engaged in content creation and saving 30 to 40 per cent on cost.

In this digital drive by moving their content to the cloud, these firms are now able to have real time collaboration in the areas of production and distribution, reach out to their overseas customers in a few hours of the local telecast, supply video on demand to customers and prevent piracy.

India went from paper to paperless in the 90s, the manufacturing sector embraced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) during the same time to transform its processes and the banking sector underwent drastic changes by adopting information technology in a big way but the M&E sector functioned the way it was.

Considering that M&E business never had a big craze for technology adoption, Indian M&E companies, which had skipped technology generations are now actually leading the revolution across the world, according experts.

While Star India adopted the digital process in all its workflow, the equivalent of ERP in manufacturing, in April 2011, others gradually followed and are now 18 to 24 months ahead of their global peers. To put things in prospective M&E companies from the U.K. and the U.S. are adopting media ERP only now.

With the change, M&E executives are now able to live in the physical world and work on several content forms in the virtual world available on digital devices without being actually present at every location, be it the place of shooting, studio or editing room. They are now able to access unedited or edited video anytime and place of their choice.

This has been made possible by an Indian company called Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), a part of the world’s largest integrated media services company Prime Focus Ltd., which has aggregated the diverse stakeholders of the TV/advertising industry on a single virtual platform shared by broadcasters, production houses, ad creative and media agencies.

“We had predicted long back that applications will soon become a utility. Generally, economic activity drives technology but ours is a classic case where technology drives economic activity in the M&E space. The Indian M&E sector was the first adopter of our Clear Media ERP, the specialised solution, which digitises the media supply chain for every media and entertainment professional in the world. Technology always tells the truth and utilisation of the Media ERP has resulted in savings of 30 to 40 per cent in terms of cost efficiencies,” said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, Founder and CEO, PFT.

With the introduction of the digital media supply chain content creation, dissemination and distribution process has become more creatively enabled. Real time collaboration is helping in the creation of better content and instant interaction has enhanced the process of content creation.

This media ERP is driving efficiencies and is helping in reduction of cycle time. It has also enabled newer revenue streams apart from curbing piracy. It has led to contextual advertising and enabling internet platforms to intelligently engage users, said experts.

The benefits are so alluring that now 85 per cent of the scripted television in Hollywood is using PFT’s solutions.

In an era of the ‘death of appointment viewing’, Mr. Sankaranarayanan said, “The next phase of evolution is Digital Next Realities where content providers have to engage customers with a better experience anytime anyplace. The success of Hotstar app by Star India with 1.4 crore downloads shows that Indians are now ready to consume content whenever wherever they want so broadcasters will have to make it accessible in the relevant preferred devices.”

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Star India, Karan Johar ink three year production and distribution deal worth Rs 500 crore : The Economic Times

MUMBAI: In a landmark deal, Uday Shankar, chief executive officer of Star India, and film

director Karan Johar have inked a three­year production and distribution deal in which Fox

Star Studios, Star's studio vertical will join hands with Johar's Dharma Productions to coproduce and distribute nine films in a deal which is estimated to be worth Rs 500 crore.

The nine films, boast Dharma Productions' blockbuster directors like Karan Johar, Ayan

Mukherjee, Karan Malhotra and Abhishek Verman, among others, toplined with stars like

Ranbir Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai, Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, among others. The Star TV

network will also be roping in Johar into a much larger creative role. "It was time to scale up for Fox Star Studios and deepen our presence and reset the dial, creatively and

commercially," said Star's Shankar, who has the nod of Newscorp chief James Murdoch on

this one.

With the industry reeling from huge losses, big budget films failing and negative growth,

closing a deal of this size has taken over six months, according to industry insiders, and has had other studios too vying for the deal. According to the deal, some films will be a coproduction between Fox Star and Dharma, while others will be pure distribution. Revenues are usually split equally on coproduction, while on distribution they are on commission, which varies between 10­12.5%. "I believe in relationships, bonds and vibes, and I connect with people. If I like them, I want to work with them which was the case here. For the rest, I left it to my CEO, Apoorva (Mehta) who is the business brain and backbone of this deal. Unlike what people believe, collaborations don't dilute brands, in fact this is a profile and power deal, which we hope will bring back the falling footfalls to cinema halls," said Johar, who feels the industry is going through a crisis and an infusion of good content, screenplays and scaling up new talent is what is the need of the hour.

Dharma's chief executive Mehta adds it is by far the biggest collaboration that the Indian film industry has ever seen, specially given the roster of talent that Dharma is bringing in. "With this strategic deal, Dharma has entered into a new phase of movie business which will provide a disruptive growth model for all the parties involved. It looks like the beginning of a game­changing era for the industry," said Mehta, speaking to ET from London.

While Fox Star Studios has not seen much box office success in their last few films, specially with their last release, Anurag Kashayp's Bombay Velvet, which failed, they bring in global distribution muscle which could add as much as a 25% incremental to a film's overseas collections. In fact, Fox Star Studios began their Bollywood journey six years ago, with Karan Johar's My Name Is Khan (MNIK), which was the first Indian film to open new markets in Europe and the Far East. It was in fact, released in 2010, across 60 countries and opened up many new markets and did a record Gross Box Office of $23 million

in 2010. "This strategic alliance envisages the stakeholders pooling in their collective strengths and thereby chalking a new path for Bollywood, specifically in the way in which films are marketed and distributed. Consolidation through strategic alliances is the way forward in the film industry," said Vijay Singh, CEO, Fox Star Studios.

For Star chief Shankar it is a rare deal, as globally, he adds, the company does not get into such collaborations. It is the cross pollination between two creative forces which will see new horizons first on television, a prospect Shankar is excited about. Star broadcasts more than 40 channels in seven languages, reaching more than 720 million viewers every week across India and 100 countries. "It is the soft power around the deal which is the big deal," ends Shankar

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USIBC in talks to create $100 bn M&E industry in India by 2020:bestmediainfo.com

The US-India Business Council (USIBC) recently led a series of discussions and meetings between top executives of the media industry and senior Government of India officials to discuss how opportunities can support the recent initiatives of the Government, including Make in India, Digital India, and improving the country’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

Led by Joe Welch, Senior Vice-President, 21st Century Fox, the delegation included senior representatives from The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, Viacom18, and the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

“Media and entertainment companies are celebrating over 20 years of Making in India, and as an industry we are eager to do more, given the appropriate policy environment. We are encouraged by the Government of India’s willingness to see the industry as a partner for growth,” said mission leader Joe Welch.

India is already home to more than 800 television channels with 140 million paid TV homes and a vibrant film industry that produces more than 1,000 movies in a year. The delegates expressed continued commitment to the market, which is expected to grow at 13.9 per cent annually – double that of the global media and entertainment industry. Film and television are significant employment generators for the Indian economy and enhance India’s image among external audiences from a socio-cultural perspective.

Talks between industry executives and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Finance, Department of Telecommunications, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, and the Ministry of External Affairs focused on providing a further impetus to the already robust sector and taking appropriate policy measures to reach the $100 billion level by 2020.

Such policy measures include liberalisation of foreign direct investment caps, restrictions on vertical integration, single window permitting, digitisation implementation, and copyright enforcement.

Diane Farrell, Executive Vice-President, USIBC, said, “The two-day mission was conducted with the goal to raise the profile of the media and entertainment industry as a key contributor to India’s growth. The media sector in India is promising for the Council’s member companies, but is also a real opportunity for the Government of India to create jobs and showcase itself as a global leader in content creation.”

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