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Walt Disney Co on Wednesday reported the littlest rise in Disney+ subscriptions since it launched the streaming video service to take on Netflix Inc, missing Wall Street targets and driving shares down nearly 5% after hours. Profits from Disney’s theme park division fell well in need of analyst projections, despite the quarter being the first time all parks were open since various pandemic closures. Capacity limits remain in place. The stumble in both the theme parks and streaming divisions highlights the challenges Disney faces in the pandemic. Questions remain about how and when customers will return to public entertainment and whether that limits watching at home. Disney is banking on new programming next year to increase streaming subscribers. Theme parks will have the benefit of the US opening its borders to several vaccinated international travelers and more U.S. children getting the COVID-19 vaccine. During the just-ended quarter, Disney+ picked up 2.1 million customers, less than half the subscribers Netflix added in roughly an equivalent period. Analysts had projected Disney+ would add 10.2 million, according to Factset estimates. Speaking on a call with analysts, Chief Executive Bob Chapek stuck by the company’s previous forecast of 230 million to 260 million Disney+ subscribers by the end of fiscal 2024. Some investors aren’t convinced Disney will meet that projection, said Haris Anwar, an analyst at Investing.com. “The company seems to be hitting a roadblock when it involves subscriber growth for its streaming service,” Anwar said. “Investors feel the company could miss its target of reaching 260 million subscribers by 2024, creating doubts that its service can create a significant challenge for the market leader, Netflix.” The company previewed a wide-ranging slate of streaming programming in development. Chapek said most of the marquee titles from the Disney, Marvel and Star Wars brands would arrive on Disney+ from July to September next year. “This represents the beginning of the surge of new content shared last December,” he said. Disney also sees a chance to usher in more subscribers with new programming for preschoolers and is investing in this area, Chapek said. Disney’s streaming media division, referred to as direct to consumer, continued to lose money because the company purchased new TV shows and films, marketing and other costs. The unit reported an operating loss of $630 million in the quarter. Overall, the media company posted diluted earnings per share of 37 cents, below analyst projections of 51 cents, in line with IBES data from Refinitiv. Theme park division income reached $640 million, short of Wall Street projections of $942 million. This week, Disney is offering the first month of Disney+ for $2, down from the standard $8, and other promotions. On Friday, Disney will debut adventure movie “Jungle Cruise,” Marvel film “Shang-Chi and therefore the Legend of the Ten Rings,” a new “Home Alone” movie and a batch of other programming on streaming. Disney also missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue, which rose to $18.53 billion within the fourth quarter from $14.71 billion a year earlier. Net income was $159 million, or 9 cents per share, compared with a loss of $710 million, or 39 cents per share, a year earlier. Source: Reuters

According to reports, actor Rajkummar Rao who has delivered many superhits in Bollywood is all set to marry his partner of 10 years. The actor has been in a relationship with actress Patralekha throughout his career. Based on reports, they will marry each other in an intimate ceremony in Chandigarh on Wednesday. According to the news published by Wion, a source spoke to a daily saying that the two will tie the knot in a small ceremony on November 10, 2021, with a few people as guests from the film industry. There has been no official announcement or confirmation from Rajkummar Rao or Patralekha so far. In an interview dated back to 2018, the actress was asked about her wedding plans to which she replied that the actors had a lot to achieve career-wise and will not likely marry one another for another 6-7 years. Rajkummar has had a stellar career in Bollywood. He has delivered many great hits and won the hearts of a global audience with his out-of-the-box acting skills. He also won the Best Actor National Award in 2014 for his performance in ‘Shahid’. The couple had featured together in Hansal Mehta’s ‘Citylights’ the same year. His recent work is ‘Hum Do Humare Do’ starring Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal and Ratna Pathak Shah.

Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif-starrer Sooryavanshi gave Bollywood a noteworthy rebound in the cinema world by gathering ₹77 crore on its initial end of the week. The Rohit Shetty directorial became the first big-budget film to release after theatres reopened in Maharastra post the second Covid-19 lockdown. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to Twitter and wrote, “#Sooryavanshi brings joy, hope, confidence, optimism back… Emerges a #Diwali gift for the industry… RUNS RIOT at #BO on Day 3… Proves *yet again*: Well-made entertainers will NEVER go out of fashion… Fri 26.29 cr, Sat 23.85 cr, Sun 26.94 cr. Total: ₹77.08 cr. #India biz.” According to a Box Office India report, Sooryavanshi has recorded good collections overseas as well. The box office collection is expected to be around $3 million (₹22.50 crore) with the US and Canada contributing $1.35m gross. The international collections, however, are lower than his previous releases such as Good Newwz ($1.49 million) or Mission Mangal at ($1.36 million). Earlier this year, films such as BellBottom, Roohi, Mumbai Saga and Thalaivii were released. Marvel also rolled out Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. However, they couldn’t surpass the ₹15 crore mark on its opening weekend. Sooryanshi clashed with Marvel Studios’ latest MCU film Eternals. The film, directed by Chloé Zhao, collected ₹23 crore in its opening weekend. “#Eternals STAYS STRONG, despite two major opponents [#Sooryavanshi, #Annaatthe]… The hugely popular #Marvel brand cements its status in #India with this one… Fri 7.35 cr, Sat 5.75 cr, Sun 6.05 cr. Total: ₹19.15 cr Nett BOC. #India biz. ALL versions. Gross BOC: ₹22.80 cr,” Taran tweeted earlier in the day.

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui will quit working in productions made for the OTT platforms. He called the online platforms ‘a dumping ground for redundant shows’. In the past few years, there has been a surge in content on streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Netflix. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who was recently nominated in the Best Actor category at the International Emmy Awards for his role in Netflix’s Serious Men, has quit OTT platforms. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, the actor revealed the same and said, “The platform has become a dumping ground for redundant shows. We either have shows that don’t deserve to be seen in the first place. Or sequels to shows that have nothing more to say.” Nawazuddin further talked about why he decided to not work in shows on digital platforms and what changed post he starred in Netflix’s Sacred Games. “When I did Sacred Games for Netflix, there was an excitement and challenge around the digital medium. New talent was being given a chance Now that freshness is gone,” said the actor. He added, “It’s become dhanda (racket) for big production houses and actors who are now so-called stars on the OTT platform. Major film producers in Bollywood have cut lucrative deals with all the big players in the OTT field. Producers get whopping amounts to create unlimited content. Quantity has killed quality.” Nawazuddin Siddiqui now finds shows on OTT platforms ‘unbearable’. “When I can’t bear to watch them how can I bear to be in them? Yeh star system bade parde ko kha gaya (this star system killed the big screen). Now we have so-called stars on OTT claiming big money and throwing tantrums like Bollywood A-listers. They forget content is king. Woh zamana chala gaya when stars ruled. Before this lockdown and the digital domination, A-listers would release their films in 3,000 theatres across the country. People had no choice but to see them. Now they have unlimited choices,” concluded the actor. Source: India Today

Facebook is now called Meta, the corporate said on Thursday, during a rebrand that focuses on building the “metaverse,” a shared virtual environment that it bets are going to be the successor to the mobile internet. The name change comes because the world’s largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power, algorithmic decisions and therefore the policing of abuses on its services. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, speaking at the company’s live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference, said the new name reflected its work investing within the metaverse, instead of its namesake social media service, which can still be called Facebook. “Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to at least one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, including within the future,” said Zuckerberg. The company, which has invested heavily in augmented and computer game said the change would compile its different apps and technologies under one new brand. It said it might not change its corporate structure. The tech giant, which reports about 2.9 billion monthly users, has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years from global lawmakers and regulators. Zuckerberg said the new name ‘Meta,’ coming from the Greek word for “beyond,” symbolized there was always more to create. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday tweeted out a special definition “referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.” Zuckerberg also added that the new name also reflects that over time, users won’t got to use Facebook to use the company’s other services. Source: Reuters

Shares of multiplex giants like PVR Ltd and Inox Ltd have been under observation since the reopening of theaters in Maharashtra. At the same time, Maharashtra is one of the key income generators for these companies, with around 25 to 30 percent revenue from contribution through the Hindi Content. It is not to be denied that states such as Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Telangana are operating at an occupancy rate of 100%. Even after a positive performance of these multiplex companies, a loss of Rupees 64 crore was noticed in the last quarter for Inox’s Ind-AS adjusted Ebitda and Rupees 110 Crore loss for PVR. Ebitda is short for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. However, several production houses have announced the release of their content in theaters soon, the rising competition from Over-The-Top media platforms remains a challenge. As per the analysts, a strong movie pipeline and fully operational networks shall be applied to revive the theater industry despite some restrictions. Source: livemint.com

The Facebook-owned chat platform WhatsApp is working on a new feature to be launched shortly. Which are expected to be interesting, and a few of the best and most exciting features among them are as follows: Done and Undo buttons while editing media: A media feature that doesn’t have a roll-out date yet. WhatsApp is all set to test its undo and Done buttons while editing a particular media content on the platform. This feature will apply to the video as well as the image-based content. While editing an image or video on WhatsApp, an option to undo the work will be given if you don’t like the editing. This simple feature will speed up your process. Control bar for video in Picture: This feature will allow you to watch a video on the floating window inside the chat to carry open chatting on WhatsApp while watching the video. With redesigning this feature,WhatsApp also adds a control bar to let pause, play or close the video. Reaction Notification: WhatsApp has already been in the news for working on reactions seen on Facebook and Twitter in the messages. This feature will let you react to a message using emoji, stickers and GIFs. WhatsApp is also working on a feature that let you know when a person reacts to your statement and what kind of reaction it will be

While raising the concern against the unregulated content on the OTT platforms and the uncontrolled Bitcoin currency that can destabilize the economy of almost all the countries, and the consumption of narcotics drugs by every class of the society, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat urged the government to address these issues on a serious note. He mentioned that the kind of content shown on the OTT content during the lockdown period was uncontrolled and without any boundaries. Meanwhile, kids have access to mobile phones and the internet, exposed to unregulated content. As education went online, OTT has approached a variety of unregulated content accessible to all without any boundaries. We do not know what severe impacts it can create on viewers’ minds in the coming time. Source: www.economicstimes.com

Now that the theatres have received a green signal to be functional and open after the COVID-19 pandemic. There are still a lot of challenges being faced by the multiplexes. As OTT platforms have opened new entertainment customs for the audience, it has become quite a task to attract people again towards multiplexes. Keeping these challenges in mind, theatres have decided to demand a doubling of the gap between the theatrical release of movies and its release on the Over-the-Top platform for four to eight weeks from April 2022. This move can bring multiplexes on a loggerhead with the OTT players who have been shrinking the gap between the release of a movie in theatres and on OTT platforms within two to four weeks right after taking off the restrictions of COVID-19 in cinema halls. Source: business-standard.com

In the coming time, we will be all set to witness advertising taking the hybrid approach, which will comprise mass marketing and utilize traditional channels and hyper-localized and targeted marketing through digital mediums like OTT. While lockdown approached, there was a sudden shutdown of productions of TV shows keeping the social distancing norms in mind and cinemas were shut down too. On the one hand, where there was a steep decline seen for the Indian media and entertainment sector, on the other hand, digital media and online gaming saw tremendous growth. The spending on digital media went more than print, and online gaming overtook cinemas in terms of total spending; this directed the advertisers towards OTT platforms. However, television remained the largest segment, advertising on television went down fast during the lockdown. Whereas the digital advertising market remained stable, traditional advertisers are more inclined towards online or digital channels. Few trends have led advertisers to go towards OTT platforms more and more: • Content: The OTT players brought a plethora of creative and realistic content on their platter that allured the audience more than ever. As a cherry on top, many traditional Media and Entertainment channels came up with a simultaneous OTT channel to deliver their content online. As users and viewers got the ocean of choices, the viewership line between rational, national, and international became blurred with the increased inclination towards a wide variety and quality content. No doubt, the advertisers saw more potential in the online or OTT market, and they have believed so far that OTT and online platforms are the best platforms to reach out to audiences, and they will provide the maximum reach. • Digital technology has it all: The speed with which new technologies are approaching the OTT media and entertainments platform. The advertisers have a plethora of choices through geography, demography, behavioral and another first and third party for selective market approach. This opportunity gives advertisers the freedom to customize and personalize the advertisement as per the niche customer market. By using technology and customer profiling, an advertiser can get the perfect blend of customized data to deliver ads that can reach directly to the niche audience. Source: thefinacialexpress.com