MUMBAI: The last quarter of financial year 2018-19 was not very smooth for any player in the cable and broadcast industry due to the implementation of the new tariff order (NTO). India’s largest direct-to-home (DTH) operator also saw few bumps on the way but the entire transition process has now settled down. Dish TV India group CEO Anil Dua noted the positive change and also highlighted that the NTO has created level playing field between cable operators and DTH players.

MUMBAI: In a move that can have far-reaching implications for India's broadcasting sector, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) order on landing pages. A bench headed by HMJ Arun Mishra will hear the matter, listed as item 21, today.

The sector regulator’s action comes in the wake of TDSAT, by virtue of its 29 May order, setting aside TRAI’s 3 December directive to broadcasters and distribution platform operators (DPOs) to refrain from placing registered television channel, TV rating is released by BARC India, on the landing page or boot up screen.

MUMBAI: While Tamil Nadu’s state-run cable operator Arasu Cable revised down its subscription rates recently, the move has led to a political crisis in the state. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has dropped former IT minister Dr Manikandan from his cabinet.

After the recent announcement of price revision, Manikandan accused Palaniswami of unilaterally taking the decision of reducing the cable TV monthly subscription as per a report from The Hindu. “I was not consulted. The chief minister announced it. A meeting will happen soon,” Dr Manikandan said. He also alleged that the government declined to fund the government cable network Arasu Cable.

MUMBAI: Direct to home (DTH) operator Independent TV has neither made the required payments nor furnished the bank guarantee to Antrix Corporation for reconnection of signals.

As a result, the DTH operator’s service is still unavailable even as more than one month has passed.

In its earlier order, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had directed Independent TV to pay up to Rs 12 crore in order to get signals reconnected by Antrix Corporation.

The tribunal had asked the DTH operator to pay Rs. 5.83 crore along with a bank guarantee of Rs. 6 crore or furnish a bank guarantee of Rs. 12 crore valid for at least two months for the restoration of transponder service.

“As soon as the petitioner complies with this part and furnishes the bank guarantee or makes the payment, of respondent no. 1 shall reconnect the signals,” the TDSAT had said in its order.

The Pitch Madison Advertising Outlook Report 2019 revised its forecast for ADEX 2019 downwards on Thursday. It was attributed mainly to a drop in TV Adex in the first quarter of 2019.

According to the original report, released in February 2019, Adex was forecast to grow by 16.4 per cent, but the agency has revised it downwards now to 13.4 per cent.

As per the report, the decline is majorly due to the impact of the New Tariff Order (NTO). The whole shift took some time to come into effect during which BARC had advised advertisers not to use the ratings for planning and buying. Another aspect that was highlighted as the reason was the pull out of certain GECs from DD Free Dish which led to a loss of 275 GRPs per week in the Hindi GEC + Movies market.

We spoke to experts to know what the industry felt about this revision.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has moved the Supreme Court against Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal’s (TDSAT) order on the landing page issue, according to media reports.

The matter will reportedly come up for hearing in the apex court today (Friday). It is said to have been listed with a Bench headed by HMJ Arun Mishra.

On May 29, 2019, TDSAT took a landmark decision to set aside TRAI's directions on landing page, making it legal for television channels to place their ads on the landing page. TDSAT also mentioned that the regulator doesn’t have the powers under the TRAI Act to issue such a direction. TRAI had asked the broadcasters and distributors of TV channels not to place any registered TV channel ad, whose rating is being measured, on the landing page. The authority had contended that it influences TV ratings.

MUMBAI: The inaugural edition of Tele-Wise Tamil saw BARC India COO Romil Ramgarhia share some interesting numbers related to TV consumption, viewership, advertisement and average time spent (ATS) in Tamil Nadu (TN). He also gave an understanding of trends and behavioural patterns of different genres in the dominant regional market.

Ramgarhia began his session by explaining how demographically TN is different from other states in India. The state is dominated by 53 per cent of women viewers. 34 per cent of all India TV population belongs to NCCS AB home but Tamil Nadu has 47 per cent of NCCS AB home. In spite of smaller family size, Tamil Nadu’s TV consumption is high. Ramgarhia informed that NCCS A home consumes more TV in the state.

While total TV consumption in India per week is about 1000 billion viewing minutes, TN itself gets 110 billion viewing minutes.

“Over the last two years, overall TV consumption in India has gone up by 21 per cent largely aided by digitisation that happened in the state a little later compared to others states. Despite NTO coming in, the market was resilient and though it had some dent it bounced back much faster compared to other states that we have witnessed,” said Ramgarhia.

He added, “Generally, the overall consumption of TV in India goes up by 15 per cent in the second quarter but in Tamil Nadu the consumption in that quarter went up to 20 per cent. This year we are hoping to see the same trend compared to 2018-19.”

Around 9 per cent of the population resides in Tamil Nadu and it contributes 12 per cent of total TV viewership. Tamil Nadu is the only state in the South which has a higher viewership from urban areas. The state has 55 per cent viewership from urban areas and 45 per cent from rural. Telangana has 57 per cent of viewership from rural and 23 per cent from urban. Karnataka has 52 per cent of rural and 48 per cent of urban viewership. Kerala has 50 – 50 per cent of rural and urban viewership.

MUMBAI: The purchase of 21st Century Fox, which was aimed at helping Walt Disney Company's future plans, is causing initial pain to the Bob Iger-led media conglomerate. In its fiscal third quarter result for 2019, Disney missed earnings expectations partly because of the worse-than-expected performance of Fox assets. Star India, the newly acquired premium property of Disney after the completion of the merger, was not able to live up to expectations.

“We estimate Star generated about $150 million of operating income in the third quarter last year. Star's results this quarter came in well below our expectations and were driven primarily by a meaningful step-up in rights cost for the quadrennial Cricket World Cup and the Indian Premier League as revenue growth was more than offset by the incremental rights expense,” Disney Senior EVP and CFO Christine McCarthy said.

Despite the initial challenges, Disney CEO Bob Iger highlighted the benefits of the deal such as the addition of Star and Hotstar to the Disney portfolio giving a significant presence in India. He added that it is a huge market with interesting dynamics notably, a rapidly rising middle class with a strong and growing appetite for media, especially sports. He also noted that Hotstar’s broad array of premium sports rights will serve it well over the next five years especially as it expands the service into markets across Southeast Asia.

“It was the quadrennial Cricket World Cup, of course. They have their Indian Premier League, which is ongoing, but this is once every four years for the World Cup. There were a couple of significant games that were rained out. They have insurance coverage for some of those, but any proceeds would be in future periods. And there was also some weakness in advertising revenue that was related to the local advertising market,” Iger commented on Star’s performance in India.

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company has disclosed that Star India posted an operating loss of $60 million in the third quarter of FY19 due to increase in rights costs related to the Indian Premier League (IPL) and ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

The company noted that the revenue growth at Star was offset by the incremental increase in rights expense. In the same quarter of the previous fiscal, Star had posted an operating profit of $150 million.

Disney’s segment operating loss increased to $553 million due to the consolidation of Hulu ’s operations, ramp-up of investment in ESPN+ and costs associated with the upcoming launch of Disney+.

Results for the quarter also reflected a benefit from the consolidation of 21st Century Fox’s operations due to income at the Fox and National Geographic international channels, partially offset by a loss at Star India.

Disney Senior EVP & CFO Christine McCarthy noted that Star India’s Q3 result was significantly lower than the expectations. She also noted that the 21st Century Fox (21CF) film studio performance was also not up to the expectations.

Mumbai: QYOU Media announced it has launched its flagship network The Q India on ZEE5, India’s fastest growing OTT platform.  ZEE5 marks the sixth major platform launch for The Q India and the second distribution agreement in India’s fast-growing OTT marketplace.

The Q India is among the fastest growing youth focused networks in Asia and its library includes over 5,000 hours of content featuring everything from eSports, fitness, cooking and comedy which will be made available to all the ZEE5 consumers globally. The Q India becomes the latest addition to the list of entertainment channels part of the LIVE TV segment on the ZEE5 platform.

 

Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head, ZEE5 India commented, “ZEE5 is quickly becoming the most talked about OTT service in India and with our growing offering of live channels, originals and regional content across 12 languages unlocking the best of Indian entertainment.  The Q India, with its focus on the best digital content for Young India represents exactly the kind of content partnerships we are focused on bringing to our subscribers.  Content that is fresh, unique and speaks to a new and fast-growing audience of OTT consumers.”

 

Curt Marvis, CEO and co-founder of QYOU Media and The Q India remarked,“In a short time, ZEE5 has established itself as a company to watch in the growing OTT marketplace.  Their unique approach to content that is relevant and authentic is right in line with our goal of developing a leading global content brand for Young India.  We are thrilled to be a new partner for their service and as we continue to develop our own offering of vernacular leading digital series we expect to experience great success with this new partnership.”