Multi Screen Media has had a mixed run with its entertainment television properties.
While flagship Sony Entertainment Television (SET) has been top-of-mind ever since it launched in 1995 barring some early hiccups, the channel hasn’t had a fantastic run in the audience measurement charts in the recent past. What’s kept it going is endless re-runs and newer shows of the evergreen detective series, CID. Last year’s KBC and the ambitious Yudh with Amitabh Bachchan haven’t fared well either.
However, it’s kept experimenting and a new season of KBC with Bachchan is on the anvil.
But the rest of the network has had some superlative success stories. Sab, the light-hearted entertainment channel, has been a huge hit ever since it got to back to its own original easy humour format. The channel’s business head, Anooj Kapoor, has now been entrusted with the task of setting up Pal, an all-new Hindi GEC that’s going to be female-focused.
Sony and SAB are perceived to be male-skewed and Pal, it is hoped, will change all of that.
While the line-up of channel is from the regular crop of production houses, Kapoor’s Sab success gives us the confidence that it can’t be dismissed as yet another channel.
The buzz in the trade is that the format is quite like that of Zee TV, the Zee group’s flagship channel.
In an interview some years back, Kapoor had said he would like Sab to beat Zee. While he hasn’t been able to do that yet, with Pal, he’s going to surely going to attempt to get closer.
Starting September 1, we’ll watch and wait.
Meanwhile, One Minute View makes a comeback on MxMIndia from today. Enjoy.
Multi Screen Media (MSM) announced the launch of LIV Sports, a premier digital sports entertainment destination – www.LIVSports.in. The digital destination will present one-point access to the right mix of sports and entertainment innovatively across devices. Coming from the Sony Network, LIV Sports will target the avid sports fan as well as entertainment seekers.
LIV Sports is the official mobile and internet broadcaster for the 2014 FIFA World Cup starting 12th June 2014. LIV Sports will show both live and video-on-demand match content, with rich and informative statistics and analysis.
NP Singh
NP Singh, CEO, Multi Screen Media (MSM)commented, “The idea was to create a premier digital sports entertainment destination where we will offer quality content which is mass inclusive and not designed to cater only to ardent sports fans. We have attempted to redefine the way sporting content is presented and consumed. With LIV Sports we will attempt to keep every cross section of our consumers actively engaged through high quality interactive sports content with informative data and analytics.”
Nitesh Kripalani, Executive Vice-President – New Media, Business Development and Digital/Syndication at Sony Entertainment Network, reiterated, “LIV Sports is the first and only digital destination to offer a unique mix of live Sports, live statistics and engagement, thereby catering to multiple user groups and their preferences. With LIV Sports we are aiming to create a new category of “Sports Entertainment”. You can either watch the live match, with all the deep statistics overlaying the video, or you can just click a selfie in your team’s jersey using the Jerseyfy Me application. We have also brought back the digital avatar of the Player cards, combined with educating fans about the different athletes with – Pehchaan Kaun. The objective is to empower the Sports fan with deep statistics on video; as well as engage with the fence sitters.”
Over the next few months, viewers will be able to catch up with the widest range of sporting content, including Football, NBA, UFC, Tennis and Cricket on LIV Sports. The digital destination will offer live and exclusive video content along with a complete coverage of the latest sporting content present, across devices. Considering the fact that data and statistics makes sports interesting, LIV Sports makes available to its viewers the most comprehensive and in depth world-class sporting data and info- graphics. Consumers will be able to access content like details of individual players, performances of teams, rankings, comparisons, event charts and heat maps.
Blame it on the late player auctions that were held early this year or the match-fixing allegations that keeps cropping up intermittently or the fact that the General Elections may have taken the hype away from the greatest sporting spectacle coming out of India every year – the IPL. While IPL 6 was already making waves this time last year, the scenario is a little different in Twenty Fourteen with most team-owners still making last ditch attempts in getting their act together including enticing advertisers into partnering them afresh.
But whatever the challenges being presented, the tournament does promise to provide its dose of entertainment this year as well. To begin with, there would be only 60 matches being played this year with the tournament being staged in two phases including one in the UAE from April 16 to May 1 and the India leg that will be staged from May 2nd onwards. In fact broadcaster Multi Screen Media (MSM) is already making its presence felt and has managed to get a decent number of brands to endorse the event this year as well – the same number as IPL 6.
MSM has inked deals with nine presenting and associate sponsors for the seventh season of IPL. The presenting sponsors include Vodafone and Karbonn Mobile who are estimated to have spent approximate Rs 50 crore while the associate sponsors comprise Amazon India, Havells, Perfetti, Marico and TVS all of whom fall under the Rs 25-30 crore cost bracket.
While MSM does seem to have made sufficient inroads with brands, what will eventually decide the success of the tournament is the average viewership ratings that it will throw at the end of the tournament. According to data shared last year, IPL managed to generate an average cumulative TVR of 3.1 in HSM markets and a rating of 3 in C&S 4+ all India. This was much lower than the 3.45 HSM average TVR it reported in 2012.
Ashish Bhasin
Anita Nayyar
Sharing his opinion on whether the tournament will live up to its hype or not, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman Posterscope & psLive Asia Pacific, said: “I think the seventh season of the IPL will build up as the tournament progresses and be near normal towards the final stages. But it will have a slow start, compared to past years,” he affirmed.
Putting forth her views, Anita Nayyar, CEO- India & South Asia, Havas Media Group said, “IPL has always been an interesting event irrespective of the reasons. Across seasons it has delivered well whether in India or South Africa. Especially the last leg towards the finals has always been an advertiser’s delight with ratings upwards of 10.”
On what the current season will hold for the tournament, Ms Nayyar said, “The seventh season is generating a lot of interest inspite of the shift between UAE and India amongst advertisers who do view IPL as a mass reach medium. Moreover, while it is election time the interest in IPL still stands. This is further vindicated by an analysis of viewership of various genres during elections, which indicates that it does not have any major impact on sports (cricket) or GECs, however the Hindi news genre gains share. Given the situation, IPL holds its own and should continue to deliver viewership and hence interest and acceptability from advertisers.”
Perhaps the right indicator of how viewership could be bought back to the sport could be assessed from what Vinit Karnik, National Director, Sports & Live Events, GroupM ESP had to state in the SportzPower-GroupM joint report on the Sports Sponsorship report. Karnik had stated thus: “Even though the IPL is off to a rough start this year, in the long run accountability, better corporate governance, more transparency, are all good for not just the IPL, but the BCCI too.”
Another factor that will decide whether the tournament receives a positive response this year is the buzz that it will create from the online medium. This year, starsports.com has licensed the digital distribution rights for IPL 2014 from Times Internet. Starsports.com thus will be streaming video on demand on its portal and would not be played on Youtube like last year. With an aim to attract 20 million more users onto the digital platform, starsports.com will be looking at bettering the 2013 viewership numbers that were reported to be in the region of 200 million video views.
Thus, with the countdown to the greatest cricket spectacle only a few hours away, one can look forward to an average outing from the team and brands at the IPL this year. One only hopes that the match-fixing allegations do not make their presence felt yet again or the organisers will have to face additional bottlenecks next year as well. And possibly no ‘bulawa’ as well.
It’s been in the work as per the grapevine. Multi-Screen Media Private Limited (MSM) has announced that Sneha Rajani, will assume the position of Deputy President and Head, MSM Motion Pictures. Nachiket Pantvaidya, who has recently joined the network, takes over as Senior. Executive VP & Business Head, Sony Entertainment Television (SET). Anooj Kapoor, will assume additional responsibilities as Senior Executive VP and Business Head, SAB, and also a new initiative in the Hindi entertainment space.
NP Singh
Said N P Singh, CEO, MSM on the announcement, “I am certain that Sneha, Nachiket and Anooj will revitalize and provide fresh perspective to their respective areas of responsibility. Each brings unique strengths to grow the business and we wish them the best in their new roles. I am confident that 2014 will be a year of innovation and growth for MSM.”
Ms Rajani, who has been Business Head, Sony Entertainment Television, will have end-to-end responsibility for MSM Motion Pictures and will chart the success and future of that business as a key force in movie production. She has been associated with MSM for over 15 years and has previously been Business Head, Max, which she launched and led for 10 years before assuming responsibility of the flagship GEC.
Mr Pantvaidya who was the Business Head of Star Plus and also held several roles in the Star India network, including being the Head of Star Pravah and MD of FOX Television Studios will now head SET. An IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, Nachiket has had stints with BBC and Disney in the past. He has also held several positions in MSM from 1996 to 2004.
Meanwhile, Mr Kapoor will With the success of SAB, Anooj has demonstrated capability for building differentiated audiences for the network. Anooj has been with MSM since 2007. Prior to joining MSM, Anooj worked with Colgate Palmolive as product manager, Lowe Lintas as Creative Director and also ran his own production advertising company. He has a Masters in English Literature and a MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management Studies.
Multi-Screen Media Private Limited (MSM), has announced Sneha Rajani, will assume the position of Deputy. President and Head, MSM Motion Pictures. Meanwhile, Nachiket Pantvaidya, who recently joined the network, takes over as Senior Executive Vice President & Business Head, Sony Entertainment Television (SET). Anooj Kapoor, will assume additional responsibilities as Sr. EVP and Business Head, SAB TV, and also a new initiative in the Hindi entertainment space.
Sony Six has acquired the broadcast rights to the New Zealand (NZ) vs India cricket series. The series will be held in NZ from January 19 to February 18, 2014. The 30-day tour starts with five ODIs followed by two Test Matches. Given the time difference, the coverage start timings are 6.30am for ODIs and 3.30am for Tests.
Commenting on this acquisition, N P Singh, CEO, MSM said, “We are delighted to partner New Zealand Cricket as the official broadcaster to this series. With this acquisition, we are staying true to our objective of delivering high octane sporting events.”
Prasana Krishnan, Business Head, Sony Six, said‎, “Both New Zealand and India play exciting brand of cricket and we are thrilled to be the exclusive partner to this promising series.”
The ODIs are scheduled on Jan 19, 22, 25, 28 and 31 and the Test start dates are Feb 6 and 14. While the coverage for all the ODIs starts at 6.30am, each day of the two Tests starts at 3.30am.
We were told that another announcement was coming on Monday. And we thought it could possibly concern the elevation of someone to the position of COO, now that NP Singh has been elevated.
But that hasn’t happened, not yet. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced that Man Jit Singh has been named President of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE), reporting to Michael Lynton, CEO, Sony Entertainment, Inc and Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Man Jit Singh
Mr Man Jit Singh, who was previously Chief Executive Officer, Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd. (MSM), the operating company that manages Sony Pictures Television’s TV networks in India, will continue as Non-Executive Chairman at MSM while transitioning from his role in the television division to his new role in Home Entertainment.
As reported earlier, Mr NP Singh, formerly Chief Operating Officer at MSM, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, managing Sony Pictures Television’s Indian TV networks. Mr NP Singh will report to Andy Kaplan, President, Worldwide Networks, Sony Pictures Television.
“Man Jit is a savvy global executive with a long track record of success at Sony Pictures, having built our Indian TV channels into high-performance, high-margin businesses. I am confident in his vision for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and his ability to provide strong leadership for the division as the marketplace continues to evolve,” said Mr Lynton.
Man Jit Singh has a strong background in technology, entertainment, and consumer products, with over 20 years of experience in global operations. He has worked in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Since 2009, he has overseen Sony Pictures Television’s Networks business in India where he was previously Chairman of the Board of Directors of MSM. He spent much of his early career in general management consulting, and he held senior positions at firms including Sibson & Co., LLP in Los Angeles, The Cast Group AG in Zurich, Switzerland and Los Angeles, and Cresap in Los Angeles. Man Jit began his career at Nestle India.
Sony Six has added the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament to its kitty, winning the exclusive broadcast rights for it across the Indian subcontinent. The channel will telecast live all 51 matches of the tournament.
Man Jit Singh
Expressing his joy at the acquisition, Man Jit Singh CEO, MSM, said, “Football has grown immensely in India over the past few years and has found great interest amongst the youth. With the successful acquisition of the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament broadcasting rights, we look forward to attracting viewership to Sony Six by leveraging on the growing popularity of European football in the country.”
European football’s premier international competition will be Sony Six’s first entry into international football. Having broadcast the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, this will be the first successful acquisition of a major professional football competition by the channel.
NP Singh
N P Singh COO, MSM, said, “We are delighted to bring one of football’s elite tournaments to the Indian viewers exclusively on Sony Six. As a broadcaster we are always in pursuit of the best of International Sport and through our latest acquisition we will take the fans closer to the high impact action that the UEFA Euro 2016 promises to deliver.
Guy-Laurent Epstein, UEFA’s Marketing Director, said, “We are pleased to welcome Sony Six to the family of broadcasters for the UEFA Euro 2016. UEFA believes that the Sony Six channel and its commitment to high quality programming and sport is an excellent home for UEFA’s flagship national team competition.”
The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship will be held in France with provisional dates of June 10 to July 10 2016.
Smart media company Affle Group has announced its partnership with Multi Screen Media (MSM) to exclusively power all advertising during the Sony LIV launch phase through its ‘Ripple’ rich media and video ad network. Sony LIV is MSM’s recently launched Video On Demand (VOD) brand. As a part of this partnership, MSM will employ Affle’s Ripple ad network to serve all video and mobile advertising on Sony LIV across all screens (Mobiles, Tablets & PCs).
Commenting on this partnership, Anuj Kumar, Co-founder and CEO, Affle, said, “We launched Ripple with the philosophy of delivering engaging ad experiences to the digitally connected consumers of today across all screens. In MSM we have found a truly like-minded partner, as with Sony LIV they have created a best in class VOD platform, which works seamlessly across devices to give their fans an unlimited and on-the-go access to premium content. This, coupled with our technology innovations around seamless cross-screen ad experiences, creates a solid proposition for top advertisers to leverage. We remain confident that several leading brands who are targeting digitally savvy audiences will find this exciting mix of user-centric product, sticky content and engaging advertising very meaningful.”
Nitesh Kripalani, Senior Vice President, New Media, Business Development & Digital/Syndication, MSM, said, “Sony LIV has debuted with a big bang. Within a few days of the launch, over a million Sony LIV mobile apps have been downloaded and the portal has received millions of video views. We are confident that the platform will gain greater traction amongst consumers and that a launch partnership with a leading industry innovator like Affle will give us the edge to drive greater ad experiences, partnerships and monetization on Sony LIV.”
Multi Screen Media (MSM) has announced a new product for digital entertainment, Sony Liv. Sony Liv is MSM’s new Video-on-Demand service, which will provide viewers a world-class viewing experience of their favourite shows from the Sony stable – Sony, Sab and Max. Viewers can watch ACP Pradyuman solve the most interesting cases on CID, revisit the most hilarious episodes of Comedy Circus and watch the 1st ever episode of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, online, on their personal mobile handsets and tablets, on the go, at their convenience.
Apart from current shows, Sony Liv also gives viewers a chance to watch past episodes of their favourite shows on Liv Classics. In addition to episodes of all-time favourites like Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, Kkusum, Heena, Boogie Woogie, Movers & Shakers and Office Office, Liv will also showcase a large archive going back 17 years of movies and special events like Stardust and Filmfare Awards.
The Sony Liv application is available globally for free, online on www.SonyLIV.com, for download on major app stores iTunes and Google Play (Android).
Man Jit Sigh
Commenting on the new initiative, Man Jit Sigh CEO, MSM said, “Liv is aimed at providing entertainment on the go for young India on the move. With the launch of this user-friendly and highly interactive application, Sony is slated to change the way this nation consumes entertainment. It is a great platform for brands to enhance their engagement and interactivity with today’s young consumers.”
NP Singh
NP Singh, COO, MSM, said, “Innovation is the bedrock of business at Sony and our latest offering, Sony Liv reiterates our commitment to engage and interact with our audience in a whole new way. Sony’s shows like Bade Achhe Lagte Hai, Comedy Circus, CID and Sab’s shows – Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah and FIR have very high repeat value and have been rated amongst the most viewed shows online. Through Liv, we want to strengthen our viewership in the digital space and provide the best entertainment preferences to our audience.”
This year, the cricketing extravaganza that is the Pepsi Indian Premier League 2013 (IPL) will be simulcast on both Max and premium entertainment sports channel Six, Multi Screen Media (MSM) has announced.
Viewers have the choice of watching the IPL on a Standard Definition (SD) feed on Max and a High Definition (HD) feed in English and a SD feed in Hindi on Six.
MSM COO N P Singh said, “With the simulcast of The Pepsi Indian Premier League 2013 on Max and Six, we aim to reach out to millions of more viewers spanning the nation. Through this, we hope to take the popularity of the Pepsi IPL 2013 to the next level. We look forward to another exciting IPL season full of last ball finishes!”
The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Multi Screen Media (MSM) today announced a new multiyear television partnership that makes Sony Six the NBA’s exclusive broadcast partner in India.
The comprehensive partnership will include live NBA games, original programming, and a joint commitment to host grassroots basketball events on the ground. The two companies will create customized local programming and will focus on engaging Indian youth by bringing together talent from the NBA, Sony Entertainment and Bollywood.
Man Jit singh
“We are thrilled to associate with the NBA as its exclusive broadcast partner in India,” said Man Jit Singh, CEO, Multi Screen Media. “The NBA is the largest professional basketball league in the world and we at SONY SIX plan to tap into the youth segment that already has a passion and love for the game and grow new fans. Our channels’ focus on India’s youth fits very well with the audience that wants to watch basketball.”
“Sony Six has a great track record of engaging Indian youth through sports and entertainment which makes them an ideal partner to bring high-quality NBA broadcasts to our fans,” said Matt Brabants, Senior Vice President, International Media Distribution. “Through live games, increased local programming and comprehensive league recaps we will deliver more ways for fans in India to experience the NBA than ever before.”
Sony Six will air live NBA games each week on Thursday, Friday and Sunday with replays in prime-time. The Sunday game will be the “Game of the Week” featuring the NBA game airing at noon or 1:00 pm ET in the U.S. In total, fans in India will have access to 72 NBA regular season games, up to 18 NBA Playoff games, the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, the NBA Finals and NBA All-Star events including the All-Star Game, All-Star Saturday Night, and the Rising Stars competition.
The NBA and MSM first announced a partnership during the 2010-11 NBA season. This announcement represents a substantial expansion of the NBA’s previous partnership with MSM.
Multi Screen Media has had a mixed run with its entertainment television properties.
