The news genre in South Indian languages has witnessed a growth of 14-32 per cent in terms of viewership in the past one year, according to a data released by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India. The news genre contributes 7 per cent to the total TV viewership in South Indian regional channels, making it the third largest genre after entertainment and movie. Entertainment comprise 61 per cent and movies 17 per cent of the total TV viewership.

MUMBAI: Star India has elevated Varun Narang as the chief executive officer (CEO) of its video on demand (VoD) platform Hotstar. Narang was earlier the chief product officer of Hotstar.

As the chief product officer, Narang is leading the team at Hotstar to build mobile solutions for the app and is helping to innovate content discovery, quality of video playbacks as well as build native advertising platforms for the app.

MUMBAI: Content powerhouse Balaji Telefilms’ over the top (OTT) ALTBalaji might fall short of its projected revenue of Rs 60 crore for FY19, a top company official has said.

For 9M FY19, ALT Balaji has posted revenue of Rs 28.1 crore. The platform’s revenue for Q3 FY19 was Rs 8 crore. The revenue stood at Rs 14.3 crore in Q2 and Rs 5.8 crore in Q1.

Having spent a few months in soft launch mode, Times Internet-owned over the top (OTT) platform MX Player has officially launched with five original shows. The platform is planning to launch 20+ original web shows in 2019. The platform has the brand philosophy of ‘Everytainment’. It hosts a library of over 100,000 hours of licensed content that caters to 70 million users every day.

MUMBAI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has set aside the ministry of information and broadcasting’s (MIB) order revoking the licence of VS Broadcasting’s non-news channels OK Music and Tora TV.

BENGALURU: Month-on-month (MOM) broadband internet subscriber growth in December 2018 (Dec-18) was the second lowest in 2018 at just 66.5 lakh (6.65 million, 0.665 crore) subscriber additions or 1.3 percent as compared to the immediate trailing month – Nov-18. The lowest growth was in the month of Aug-18 at just 34.1 lakh (3.41 million or 0.341 crore)  or 0.7 percent as compared to the previous month based on Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) monthly telecom data reports.Bharti Airtel has lost wireless broadband internet subscribers in the month of Dec-18.

MUMBAI: Star India is all set to cater to the Bengali audience's craving for sports action. Star Sports 1 Bangla will launch or before 31 March 2019.The broadcaster released its rate card after amendments on 21 February 2019 and added the regional sports channel in several bouquets. Star Sports 1 Bangla has been added in the Bengali Value pack priced at Rs 49, Bengali Premium pack for Rs 79, Bengali HD Value pack at Rs 85, Bengali HD Premium priced at Rs 120.

BENGALURU: Eros International Plc (Eros International) reported its strongest quarterly performance ever over two year for the three months ended 31 December 2018 (Q3 2019). The company in its investor release says that it closed Q3 2019 with a paying subscriber base of 15.9 million or 1.59 crore. The company says that it is targeting 50 million (5 crore) paying subscribers in the next three years.

MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) gave licenses to six new channels in the month of January and February. The channels are Skystar Bangla, Skystar Telugu, PTC Music, PTC Punjabi, PTC Simran and Zee Classic. All the six channels are under non-news category.

MUMBAI: Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the national public broadcaster of South Korea has signed an agreement with its counterpart Prasar Bharati to enter the Indian market with KBS World TV channel.