Update After Reliance Birla's planning to enter Media business

[Arundass]

MUMBAI: Sensing an opportunity in the current digital content ecosystem, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has decided to revive Applause Entertainment under former Balaji Telefilms Group CEO Sameer Nair. Nair, who has spent earlier years in Star India and NDTV Imagine, will be in charge to spin out entertainment content for telecom operators and digital platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. Applause Entertainment, which has been dormant for almost a decade after producing movies such as ‘Black’ and ‘Dev’, will invest up to Rs 300 crore in the first year of its operations. The plan is to produce 15-20 shows across genres. Applause Entertainment will make shows in different languages such as Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Producing movies is also on the radar. The content studio will look to tap into audiences who consume entertainment on mobile phones and over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Amazon Prime video, Netflix, Hotstar and SonyLiv. The bet is that a large audience will consume entertainment content outside the traditional television broadcast. While daily soaps are popular, mass television has not been able to create premium subscription content. Applause Entertainment will work with content creators to produce such kind of content in multiple languages. In India, the OTT market is getting over-crowded with several players entering the space. Global giants such as Netflix and Amazon are not only offering international content but also eyeing to provide home-grown content. The space has seen intense activity and has television networks like Star India, Sony and Zee having their own OTT platforms in the form of Hotstar, Sony Liv, Ditto TV and OZEE. Reliance Industries Ltd has agreed to acquire stake in ALTBalaji. Eros Now, the OTT arm of Eros International, has just announced that it has seen a 38% jump in its paying subscribers to 2.9 million as of June 2017.

Read more at: Kumar Mangalam Birla hires Sameer Nair to rebuild entertainment firm | TelevisionPost.com | TelevisionPost.com


Kumar Mangalam Birla hires Sameer Nair to rebuild entertainment firm | TelevisionPost.com

 

[Technoglitch]

One more player in the OTT Segment and soon we would see the death of satellite broadcasting

 

[Teufel]

One more player in the OTT Segment and soon we would see the death of satellite broadcasting

Satellite broadcasting won't be dead any soon in India. Satellite TV dies in developed countries, where most people have access to fast and affordable internet. India is far from having such infrastructure. There is no point of digital video services if there is no fast broadband internet available to masses.

That's why I think satellite TV is not going dead any soon in India. Cable TV subscription in countries like the US is declining, because more and more people are moving to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc. It will take time for most of the people in India to have average broadband of global standard. Untill then, cable and satellite TV will go on.

 

[Teufel]

One more player in the OTT Segment and soon we would see the death of satellite broadcasting

Satellite broadcasting won't be dead any soon in India. Satellite TV dies in developed countries, where most people have access to fast and affordable internet. India is far from having such infrastructure. There is no point of digital video services if there is no fast broadband internet available to masses.

That's why I think satellite TV is not going dead any soon in India. Cable TV subscription in countries like the US is declining, because more and more people are moving to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc. It will take time for most of the people in India to have average broadband of global standard. Untill then, cable and satellite TV will go on.

 

[Technoglitch]

Satellite broadcasting won't be dead any soon in India. Satellite TV dies in developed countries, where most people have access to fast and affordable internet. India is far from having such infrastructure. There is no point of digital video services if there is no fast broadband internet available to masses.

That's why I think satellite TV is not going dead any soon in India. Cable TV subscription in countries like the US is declining, because more and more people are moving to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video etc. It will take time for most of the people in India to have average broadband of global standard. Untill then, cable and satellite TV will go on.

My assumption is in the next ten years we might expect the.same

 

[Teufel]

My assumption is in the next ten years we might expect the.same

Let's hope so. Government should give good incentive to private players to invest in broadband technology throughout the nation, if they really want to make India digital. Bharat Net is one such program by government which is supposed to connect all the gram panchayats of the country with 100 Mbps fibre broadband. It was supposed to get completed this year, I think but they have extended the deadline to 2019, that will increase the cost of project and delay the much needed digital infrastructure.