Media Entertainment & Art Community

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

The news of theaters and cinemas being open is around the corner. Although with that too, there is no backlash in the OTT entertainment, as these OTT platforms might not give the same viewing screen as theaters, they do give you the comfort of your own choice, which makes it a perfect blend of entertainment and comfort. Many movies that had been keeping their release dates on hold have now announced their release dates, but there are still a lot of movies sticking to the idea of releasing on OTT platforms only. There are around seven new Bollywood movies all set to grove its viewers on several OTT platforms like Disney+Hotstar and Netflix. To be specific with the list, Sardar Udham- releasing on Amazon Prime Video on 16 October, Brahmam- releasing on Amazon Prime Video on 07 October, Shiddat- Releasing on Disney+Hotstar on 01 October, Sanak-releasing on Disney+Hotstar on 15 October, Little things S4- releasing on Netflix on date 15 October, Lift- Releasing on Disney+Hotstar on 01 October, Rashmi rocket to be released on Zee5 on 15 October. These are some of the movies and series that will glue the audience to the OTT platform in October so far with their whole package of entertainment. Source: gqindia.com

Netflix is all set 90 more Indian original productions in its pipeline, with that there are already 70 productions running on Netflix, said by founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings. As 70 original Indian Netflix have been launched already, some of them have won Emmy awards. Among this, White Tiger got a tremendous public response. Reed mentioned, “Most of the commissions that we are doing is with local productions company. Several big productions companies are working well in India, but we have no plans to acquire them. A lot of content on Netflix from India has been on the appreciation list by viewers so far. Content Indian matchmaking, Delhi Crime that won Emmy Awards and Jamtara are a few of the favourites. Source: theeconomicstimes.com

Zee has surprised everyone in the media and entertainment landscape by striking a surprising merger deal with Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India. Zee has successfully fended off a bid by its largest investor Invesco to oust Punit Goenka as the managing director of the company. If the deal goes through it will create India’s second-largest entertainment network by revenue and spawn an entity with 75 TV channels, two video streaming services (ZEE5 and Sony LIV), two film studios (Zee Studios and Sony Pictures Films India) and a digital content studio (Studio NXT). The deal will be the largest such transaction in the Indian media and entertainment space. Under the terms of the nonbinding agreement, SPN will infuse growth capital of $1.575 billion (Rs 11,615 crore) and end up with a 52.93% stake in the merged entity, while ZEE shareholders will own the remaining 47.07% The merger proposal proposes that Goenka stay as MD and CEO of the merged entity for at least five years after completion of the deal. The majority of the board will be nominated by Sony Group and NP Singh, MD and CEO of SPN, is likely to be on the board. “I am pleased to announce that Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) has entered into an exclusive, non-binding term sheet with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) to combine both companies’ linear networks, digital assets, productiion operations, and programme libraries,” Ravi Ahuja, chairman of Global Television Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment Corporate Development, wrote in an internal mail to employees that ET has seen. “The board of directors at ZEE has conducted a strategic review of the merger proposal between SPN and ZEE,” ZEE chairman R Gopalan said in a company release. “We have unanimously provided in-principle approval to the proposal and have advised the management to initiate the due diligence process.” Source: The article has been published by The Economic Times with minor edits by the ArdorComm News Network Team.