Media Entertainment & Art Community

The Government of India has issued an order to ban 54 Chinese apps mentioning that these applications pose a threat to national security. The 54 Chinese apps include Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Chess, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock, Dual Space Lite, Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera – Selfie Camera, Equalizer & Bass Booster, CamCard for SalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite and Viva Video Editor among others. Last year in the month of June, India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including TikTok, WeChat, and Helo. Most of apps banned in the June 29 order were red-flagged by intelligence agencies over concerns that they were collecting user data. The decision was taken after 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers were killed during violent clashes in Galwan Valley in Eastern Ladakh amid border tensions with China. The government in September again blocked 118 Chinese mobile apps. India was opposed by China for the decision to continue the ban on Chinese mobile apps and said the action was in violation of the World Trade Organisation’s non-discriminatory principles. Source: ANI

Airtel has announced the launch of a brand-new video streaming service, Airtel Xstream Premium on February 10. The telecom operator plans to offer up to fifteen popular over the top (OTT) video streaming services. Airtel said that as a part of the launch, the single subscription plan is launched at an introductory price of Rs 149 a month. In a statement, the company said that Airtel Xstream Premium offers aggregates content from 15 Indian and global video OTTs in one app. Customers will get access to OTT platforms like SonyLIV, ErosNow, Lionsgate Play, Hoichoi, ManoramaMax, Shemaroo, Ultra, HungamaPlay, EPICon, Docubay, DivoTV, Klikk, Nammaflix, Dollywood, Shorts TV on Airtel Xstream Premium. Customers are going to be able to access a large catalogue of over 10,500 movies and shows as well as live channels. Notably, Xstream was Airtel’s free online video streaming service. On the other hand, Xstream Premium is paid and is totally revamped version of its previous content offering. Airtel said that customers can Airtel Xstream Premium across devices, including mobiles, tablets, laptops through the app or web, and on the TV through the Xstream set-top box. However, only Airtel users are going to be able to use the service as of now. CEO of Airtel Digital identified that the company is eyeing 20 million new users for this paid offering. “All of this content is available exclusively to Airtel customers at… Price of just Rs 149 per month,” the statement said. “Airtel Xstream Premium could be a game-changing innovation to democratise OTT content in India by solving the key challenges of content discovery, affordability and distribution. As a unified digital platform, it is a win-win proposition for customers and OTT players alike as we begin an exciting journey to make digital entertainment mainstream in India,” Nair said.

Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), has announced that it is resuming publishing of individual news channels ratings from week 10, 2022 data, to be released on March 17. The I&B has sent out a directive to resume the release of data for individual news channels. “BARC India and the industry at large, welcomes the Ministry of I&B’s directive to resume the release of data for individual News channels. The data are going to be released as per the Augmented Data Reporting Standards for News and Special Interest genres,” a BARC statement said. “BARC India is currently working towards ensuring the seamless release of individual news channel data and intends to commence release with effect from our reporting Week 10, 2022. As per our reporting cycle, this data will be released to the market on Thursday, 17th March 2022. We have communicated the same to our clients and stakeholders.” The augmented standards entail the reporting of audience estimates for news and special interest genre channels on a four-week rolling average basis. It would be released regularly each week together with the estimates for all other channels. In the weeks leading up to the resumption of news channels ratings, BARC India will be reaching out to its constituents to tell and educate them about the main points of the Augmented Data Reporting Standards. All viewership data are going to be published on YUMI platform. Source: Economic Times

T-Series, Asia’s largest music label, publisher and India’s largest film studio ventures into producing web-series on OTT platforms. Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series will focus on creating content for all mediums which shall appeal to all sectors of the audience, with gripping shows across genres. Expressing his delight on the announcement, Bhushan Kumar, the Chairman & Managing Director of T-Series said, “We at T-Series have always believed in the power of stories, be it through the music we make or the films we produce. Taking forward this very ideology, we are ecstatic to now foray into producing web-shows with powerhouse content makers such as Aanand L Rai, Anubhav Sinha, Nikhil Advani, Hansal Mehta, Sanjay Gupta, Bejoy Nambiar, Suparn S Varma (The Family Man), Mikhil Musale (Made In China), Soumendra Padhi (Jamtara) among several more stalwarts. Through this we aim at offering fresh, original and exclusive stories tailored for our viewers across the globe.” He further adds, “With this expansion, we aim at creating ‘binge-worthy’ content that will cater to new audiences and will include tapping new markets. We are thrilled to diversify and become a creative hub for producing music, films and web shows. With the recent budget announcement by our Financial Minister, there is great progress in the pipeline with the 5G spectrum expansion. It has been projected that Rural India will be connected via optic fibres by the year 2025 and this essentially means that the internet will be easily and cost effectively available which surely is a great boost to the world of OTT and content creators all over. The OTT audience will expand exponentially.” Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series has seen an exponential growth over the last decade due to the diverse genre of films produced across theatres and OTT platforms and chartbuster tracks released on their YouTube channel. Now, T-Series shall once again captivate the world with a wide range of movies and web shows spanning over the genres of action thrillers, biopics, murder mysteries, jailbreak dramas and more in 2022 and beyond in the digital world.    

The Indian OTT market is generating a revenue of around $1.9 billion now and it is expected to grow to a whopping $4.5 billion by 2026. With such a humongous prospect in the offing, OTT giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar have been extensively focusing on beefing up their subscriber base. But as it appears, the Indian OTT audiences are not too satisfied with what these paid OTT platforms are offering them. As per a survey report from Accenture, the vast majority of the Indian OTT crowd opine that the content served up by these OTT platforms are irrelevant to them. The survey states that 74% of the OTT users opine that the content they are paying for is too expensive. What is more worrisome to these OTT giants is that 46% of the users are planning to move away from digital media entertainment in the next one year. Another strong point that is being raised by Indian OTT users is that the OTT platforms are not offering them personalized recommendations. They are “frustrated” with recommendations that are so very irrelevant to 81% of them that they are ready to switch media platforms to get better recommendations. Ease of use is another key criterion here. 69% of the users feel that navigating through OTT platforms to find content suitable for them is a frustrating experience. “As the video streaming segment has matured, consumers are increasingly finding the experience to be complicated, expensive and hard to use. Evolving consumer preferences and tough economics will create challenges for video streaming platforms,” said Saurabh Kumar Sahu, Accenture India’s Managing Director for Communications, Media and Technology practice. He also added that the ecosystem needs a “major reset and the consumers will need greater control over their viewing experience.” In terms of market share, Netflix leads the pack with 29% of the market followed by Disney+Hotstar which slightly lags behind with 25% of shareholding. Another contender, Prime Video also comes a close third with 22% market share. All in all, the leading OTT platforms in India should work towards providing their paid subscribers with better personalized recommendations. Solely focusing gaining more subscribers will not help the cause and considerable effort should go into providing users with a seamless experience.    

Tata Sky, one of the largest Direct to Home (DTH) platform has rebranded itself with a new name and identity and will now be called as Tata Play. The DTH company has joined hands with Netflix to offer new OTT centric channel packs as well. The new name of the company will be visible to the viewers from January 27. With the OTT combo packs, Tata Play users will be able to get a subscription to both the OTT platforms in the Binge service as well as the normal TV channels. Tata Play Binge will host content from 13 leading OTT apps through a single User Interface while offering the flexibility of single subscription and payment. The new combo pack will list OTT services which include Amazon Prime Video and Disney+Hotstar. Meanwhile, the subscription cost of the pack is yet to be announced. “We also welcome Netflix to our family. Plus, we are making service visits free for all customers starting today, and our de-active DTH customers can continue to recharge and get restarted on the platform with no re-connection charges. The name Tata Play thus signifies our expanded range of product and services. The new identity is an outcome of our desire to be future-ready while making tomorrow better than today for homes and families,” said Harit Nagpal, MD & CEO – Tata Play Ltd. The company also announced that it has renamed its broadband network to Tata Play Fiber. “I firmly believe that it’s one thing to own content, quite another to make it accessible. Distribution is what makes content easily discoverable for the masses, consumed, and talked about. Our DTH business has a sizeable market share and we’ll continue our endeavour to expand the TV viewing universe. Our Broadband business with 100 per cent fiber network provides impressive speeds, and that’s why we renamed it to Tata Play Fiber,” Nagpal added. Tata Play is a joint venture between Tata Sons and The Walt Disney Company, which over the years has expanded to 23 million households in India.

Schools in Maharashtra, including Mumbai, are reopening today, January 24, for offline classes for the students of pre-primary and classes 1-12. The announcement was made last week by Maharashtra School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad and she said that parents’ consent will be important for attendance. The minister also said that local authorities have been empowered to assess the Covid situation and take the decision regarding safe reopening of schools. However, schools will remain closed in Pune and Aurangabad. Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said no decision has been taken regarding resumption of physical classes at schools in Pune district as COVID-19 cases are on the rise. Ms Gaikwad, announcing the decision of reopening schools said parents and teachers of the state wanted resumption of physical classes. “During our continued dialogue with parents & teachers we received consistent feedback about restarting physical classes along with online education for better learning outcomes. During my recent interaction with Collectors/CEOs, a similar view was expressed,” the minister said last week. A recent survey of cities across Maharashtra suggests otherwise. According to the survey conducted by the online community platform LocalCircle across tier 1, 2-3 and 4 cities of the state that received 4,976 responses, 62 per cent of the total surveyed parents are not willing to send their children to schools from Monday. To ensure health and safety of students, schools will ensure strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols and SOPs. Students and teachers will wear masks at all times and only one student will sit on a bench. Vaccination drives for older students to be ramped up. Source: Careers360

‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, became the sixth-highest grossing movie in history with $1.69 billion at the global box office. It passed “Jurassic World” ($1.67 billion) and “The Lion King” ($1.66 billion) to secure that spot. The only films ahead of it in terms of worldwide box office takes are “Avatar,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Titanic,” “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” The Spider-Man movie returned to the No. 1 slot in North America, adding $14.1 million between Friday and Sunday, along with $27.7 million overseas. Starring Tom Holland and Zendaya, the movie released in December has generated $721 million at the US domestic box office and $970.1 million internationally. Spider-Man’s latest adventure has done exceptionally well in the UK which is also Holland’s birthplace collecting $116 million to date. Mexico contributed $73.4 million, South Korea with $60.6 million and France with $59.9 million to the movie collection. In addition, the movie managed to draw big numbers without being released in China, which is the world’s biggest moviegoing market. The achievement is more notable because the movie came during the coronavirus pandemic, when theatregoers have been skeptical about returning to auditoriums amid an Omicron-fueled surge in the number of cases. The Marvel-backed film, directed by Jon Watts, stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Zendaya as Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson, Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr Strange, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds and Jon Favreau as Harold “Happy Hogan”. It also stars actors like Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Tony Revolori and Marisa Tomei in pivotal roles.

In an attempt to take control of divisive and anti-India content online, the Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday warned that the government will continue to take such action against those “hatching conspiracy” against the country. This come days after 20 YouTube channels and two websites were blocked for spreading anti-India propaganda and fake news. “I had ordered for action against them.… I am happy that many big countries across the world took cognisance of it. YouTube also came forward and took action to block them,” Thakur said. In a “closely coordinated” effort with intelligence agencies, the I&B ministry had in December last year ordered the blocking of 20 YouTube channels and two websites as they were spreading anti-India propaganda and fake news. “And in future also, action will be taken to block any such account hatching conspiracy against India, spreading lies and dividing the society,” the minister asserted. In a statement in December, the ministry had said that these 20 YouTube channels and the websites belonged to “a coordinated disinformation network” operating from Pakistan and spreading fake news about various sensitive subjects related to India”. The channels were used to post “divisive content in a coordinated manner on topics like Kashmir, Indian army, minority communities in India, Ram Mandir, General Bipin Rawat, etc”, it had said.

Padma Vibhushan awardee Pandit Birju Maharaj, who took the traditional Indian dance form to the world, left for his heavenly abode on Monday. The legendary Kathak dancer passed away at the age of 83 in Delhi after suffering a heart attack. As soon as the news of his death was shared on his social media platform by his granddaughter Ragini Maharaj, several Bollywood celebrities and his fans mourned the loss. Maharaj-ji, as he was popularly known, died surrounded by his family and disciples. His granddaughter Ragini Maharaj told PTI, “He was with us when this happened. He had his dinner and we were playing antakshari because he loved old music. He was lying down and suddenly his breathing became uneven. We think it was cardiac arrest as he was also a heart patient. This happened between 12.15 and 12.30 am. It must have been just a minute or so. We rushed to the hospital but unfortunately, we could not save him. He died before reaching the hospital.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his death is an “irreparable loss” to the entire art world. “Deeply saddened by the demise of Pandit Birju Maharaj ji, who gave Indian dance a special recognition world over. His passing is an irreparable loss to the entire art world. My condolences to his family and fans in this hour of grief,” the prime minister said. Actor-politician Hema Malini was one of the firsts to pay tribute to the late dancer. “The nation mourns the passing of a true legend, Shri Birju Maharaj, Kathak exponent par excellence. His ghungroos were on his ankles till he breathed his last. I always admired and respected him as a giant of the medium of Kathak & will miss his presence on the firmament of dance,” the actor, who herself is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer, shared on Twitter. Madhuri Dixit, who collaborated with him in three films wrote, “He was a legend but had a child like innocence. He was my guru but also my friend. He taught me the intricacies of dance and Abhinay but never failed to make me laugh at his funny anecdotes.” Kamal Haasan shared a throwback picture of himself when he was trained by the legendary Birju Maharaj. He called him “the unparalleled dancer.” Sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan shared a throwback picture with Birju Maharaj. He said his passing away “marks the end of an era for Indian dance and Kathak.” “For me it’s been a personal loss. He was loved immensely by my family and his memories live in our hearts forever. The heavens will dance for him today and everyday,” he shared. Choreographer-turned-filmmaker Farah Khan was also among the firsts to react to Maharaj’s passing away. “The world loses a genuine stalwart,” she mentioned via Twitter. Source: PTI