To celebrate two years since the repeal of Section 377, contemporary music channel MTV Beats from Viacom18 has presented MTV Beats Love Duet, India’s first gender atypical love duet album.

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Created by artists from the LGBTQIA+ community, this album embraces love that goes beyond the ‘boy-girl’ ka pyaar. The genres to be covered in the album are Indie-pop, Indo-western and Rap.

To normalise conversations on love that goes beyond the stereotypes of gender in the Hindi music space, MTV Beats Love Duet, in association with Kitty Su, brings together some of the greatest musicians from the community to spread love through the power of music. 

Telugu entertainment channel Star Maa from Star Network, which has been curated by the love and acceptance of its viewers over last four years, has refreshed its identity, which is reflected in the new visual motif that has been unleashed. Star Maa holds together three important aspects — pride in our Samskruthi (culture), Sampradayam (tradition) and weaving stories towards Purogati (progress). Star Maa aims to celebrate the blend of these three aspects in every story we tell. The signature of its new identity comes from this. It believes that there is a little bit of Star Maa in every one of us.

The Star Maa cluster of channels operates in three genres of general entertainment, movies and music. It has distinct leadership in all three genres it operates, commanding a combined market share of 25% these channels own the largest share of Telugu television viewership. In the GEC category, Star Maa enjoys a 30%+ market share and is a dominant leader with the widest variety of programming.  Star Maa Movies is the biggest movie channel and Star Maa Music the most vibrant and distinct youth destination.

MUMBAI: BBC Studios South Asia distribution VP Stanley Fernandes is currently working across affiliate sales, digital sales, and content sales, in an integrated and geographically focused approach to grow distribution business in these territories. Previously, Stanley led content sales for south and southeast Asia. He now oversees new revenue opportunities for the distribution business in a more holistic offering to the client in south Asia.

Stanley who initially started off as a journalist has over 24 years of experience in the content business. He has produced content for UTV, he has also played an important role in Disney’s distribution team. In a candid conversation with indiantelevision.com Stanley Fernandes spoke at length about his interests, plans going forward for BBC studios and much more.

Telugu movie channel Zee Cinemalu has completed four years of its journey of entertainment.

Launched by the Chiranjeevi, who unveiled the logo, Zee Cinemalu began its journey on September 4, 2016, with ‘Dil Pai Super Hit’ as its brand tagline and became the first movie channel to introduce the concept of World Television Premieres in Telugu market, giving a unique offering to movie lovers.

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Zee Cinemalu reaches out to 55 million viewers, week on week, in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Hindi news channel TV9 Bharatvarsh from TV9 Network has picked up key sponsorship in Kolkata Knight Riders for the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) and in Trinbago Knight Riders, a Caribbean Premier League (CPL) franchisee owned by Kolkata Knight Riders.

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TV9 Bharatvarsh is the lead arm sponsor of Kolkata Knight Riders and the upper chest sponsor of Trinbago Knight Riders.

Barun Das, CEO, TV9 Network, said, “Cricket is not just a sport in India. It’s a religion. That’s why the TV9 Network, India’s largest news network, has partnered with one of the most exciting teams, Kolkata Knight Riders, for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL). With this tie-up, we intend to offer exclusive IPL experience to our viewers. The meteoric rise of our national Hindi news channel TV9 Bharatvarsh to the No. 2 position is proof that viewers value innovation in their daily news experience.”

With its Hindi news channel Republic Bharat winning the ratings game, Republic Media Network has made a strategic decision of increasing the channel’s ad rates by more than 50%.

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With the upcoming festive season, R Bharat has announced special offers, promising advertisers across genres a seamless execution experience with the best platform in the Hindi News Market.

Hersh Bhandari, COO of Republic Bharat, said, “The belief that news is back has been our biggest win. We have demonstrated with our performance that we have been consistently delivering for our partners. Clients today are ready to reward performances if they are convinced about their investment and smart enough to understand their returns. With over 200 weekly active brands showing their faith in the brand, we are in a position to ask the deserving ad rate in the market, and we are confident that the market will respond positively.”

Mumbai: TV9 Network is betting big on Cricket, with TV9 Bharatvarsh, the Hindi news channel from the network, picking up key sponsorship in Kolkata Knight Riders for Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) and in Trinbago Knight Riders, a Caribbean Premier League (CPL) franchisee owned by Kolkata Knight Riders.

TV9 Bharatvarsh, Hindi News Channel, is the Lead Arm Sponsor of Kolkata Knight Riders and the Upper Chest Sponsor of Trinbago Knight Riders. With these sponsorships, TV9 Bharatvarsh is set to bat on a new pitch as the channel races towards the final frontier in the Hindi news genre.

Mumbai: With the aspiration of bringing news back to a genre which had forgotten how to break news, R Bharat has quickly established a strong position in the fragmented Hindi news market by becoming the Number 1 Hindi News Channel in less than 19 months of existence reaching 19.53% market share this week with Prime Time at 19.95% Market Share (NCCS 15+ HSM Week: – 34’20). The average time spent per viewer has grown by 100% since its launch at a staggering 27 mins whereas the total time spent of the Hindi News genre is 17 mins. The channel has uniquely positioned itself as 100% news, consciously moving away from placing entertainment shows in the news wheel as the other counterparts in the genre.

R Bharat continues to maintain no.2 position in terms of reach, delivering more weekly reach than some of the leading paid Hindi GEC and Hindi Movie channels in the country. The channel is also owning prime time, delivering an average market share of 18% (NCCS 15+ HSM Week: – 32’20 to 34’20), with its marquee showPuchata Hai Bharat taking the biggest bite of the market share this week at26.65% and other Primetime shows such as Mahabharat at 24.41% and Yeh Bharat Ki Baat Hai at 18.17%. (NCCS 15+ HSM Week: – 34’20)

On 3 September, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India introduced algorithms into its data validation method to mitigate the impact of landing pages on viewership data across all genres of channels. The new initiative has been reflected in the data for week 34, starting August 22. According to BARC, this is part of its ongoing ‘Data Validation Quality Initiative’ aimed at improving measurement science and mitigating impact of extraneous factors on viewership data.

While this move has been welcomed by most broadcasters, some have also expressed concerns over its implementation, transparency and effectiveness. As per industry experts, this will primarily impact news channels or whoever invests in landing pages. The experts believe that it may or may not impact the revenues for the channels in the beginning but will definitely offset revenues for the Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) as it's counted as one of the major sources of revenue for them.

KOLKATA: Maharashtra Cable Operators’ Foundation (MCOF) has flagged off several unethical practices in the television distribution segment. In a letter written to the Telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI), it has alleged that some multi system operators (MSOs) are violating rules and taking the unethical route of business. 

MCOF has expressed concern about Den Networks and Hathway for imposing replacement of existing STBs by STBs under Jio brand in the last six months. The federation has claimed that the two MSOs have not replaced the expired standard interconnection agreement (SIA) with the model interconnection agreement (MIA) without offering any explanation for the rebranding.

“The LCOs who resist the imposition are made to toe the line by disabling their access to the Prepaid Portal resulting in service interruptions ton the subscribers. In addition to the arm-twisting, the MSOs have lined up numerous dummy operators to replace the existing LCOs who usurp their business and assets,” the letter added.