MUMBAI: With a rich line-up of content and advanced solution for advertisers, Viacom18’s OTT arm, VOOT, has pledged to reach 100 million monthly active users within the fiscal year on its third anniversary. The advertising-based video on-demand (AVOD) platform is now looking at the introduction of a freemium model in the second half of the year, VOOT Kids, which is at the beta testing stage, further expansion of international business followed by an entry in the UK. More interestingly, the streaming platform may introduce interactive opportunities for consumers around fiction content.

BENGALURU: Two Hindi GECs entered Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) maiden list after the new tariff regime of top 10 channels across genres list for week 13 of 2019 (Saturday, 23 March 2019 to Friday, 29 March 2019). Dangal TV headed the across genres list for week 13 of 2019 with 1,164.432 million weekly impressions. Another Hindi GEC – Big Magic, which also entered the list was ranked fourth with 675.106 million weekly impressions.

After receiving a great response across India for its recently launched OTT platform ShemarooMe, Shemaroo Entertainment Limited has announced the launch of its Marathi category. The Marathi category will host content ranging from plays, movies to original web-series. ShemarooMe app currently hosts video content across Bollywood, Gujarati, Devotion, Punjabi and Kids category for the Indian audience across all age groups. This will be the 6th content offering by ShemarooMe for its consumers. To the consumers delight, the Marathi category will be exclusively available on Vodafone PLAY and Idea Movies & TV App for a period of 30 days. 

MUMBAI: Digital payments company PhonePe wants to reach as many people as possible came through its broadcast sponsorship of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Star Sports network. PhonePe will spend Rs. 500 crores for marketing and brand building initiatives this year.

“As the official co-presenting sponsor for the TV broadcast of IPL 2019, we are very well placed to create awareness about the benefits of digital payments as well as the PhonePe app. We have launched a series of new TV ads featuring Aamir Khan to promote the brand as part of our marketing exercise for this year’s IPL season,” a PhonePe spokesperson said.

MUMBAI: Digital entertainment platform The Viral Fever (TVF) is planning to launch 20 original shows across different genres. The platform is also looking to debut its first feature film apart from entering the regional space. TVF is planning to launch original content in Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and Kannada.

TVF Originals CCO and Head Sameer Saxena said, “We plan to launch shows in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. We might do something in Gujarati as well. Our focus in terms of age has been 18-35 years, in terms of regions – across the country. We definitely want more audience based down South, so we are planning to do regional shows as well. The idea is to expand our audience base and get as many areas of the country to become our audience.”

MUMBAI: Direct-to-home (DTH) operator Independent TV has clarified to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that it has taken several measures in order to ensure that its current tariff plans are in conformity with the regulator’s new framework for the broadcast sector.

As the leading social media and other internet platforms battle to attract more political ad spends in the on-going poll season, latest data shows that Facebook is way ahead of its competitors such as Twitter and Google in this pursuit.

According to Facebook’s latest Ad Library Report, there were 51,810 political ads with a total spending of more than Rs 10.32 crore between February and March 30 this year. If we compare this with the week ending March 23, 2019, the number of such ads was 41,974, while the total spending was Rs 8.58 crore.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has refused to grant any relief to Wavelength Entertainment (formerly Big Magic) and rejected its petition against Next Radio Ltd (NRL) seeking injunction on the termination of the non-binding term sheet by NRL.

MUMBAI: Indian broadcasters will be heading to content marketplace MIP TV 2019 with a diverse content slate. Some of the key participants include Star India, ZEEL, and IndiaCast Media Distribution, the content monetisation arm of TV18/Viacom18. MIP TV, the international market for content development and distribution, will be held from 8 – 11 April 2019 at Cannes, France.

Viacom18's digital video-on-demand streaming service, AVOD (Advertising video-on-demand) OTT platform - VOOT -celebrated its third anniversary with a bundle of announcements. Among the announcements made was that the platform, in the last three years, managed to fetch 100+ billion minutes of watch-time which, according to the network's assessment, makes VOOT the second largest OTT platform in India. VOOT now aims to reach 100 million monthly active users by March 31, 2020. Currently, the streaming platform has around 50-55 million monthly active users.