BCCI issues ITT for Pepsi IPL media rights

MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has published an Invitation To Tender (ITT) for certain media rights relating to the Pepsi Indian Premier League (Pepsi IPL), for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons.

The media rights package available (as defined in the ITT), is as follows:
(a)  Indian Subcontinent: Internet and Mobile Rights.
(b)  Rest of the World (Certain Territories): Television, Audio, Internet and Mobile rights.

BCCI hon. secretary Sanjay Patel said that the upcoming seasons of the Pepsi IPL will be broadcast across the world through every technological medium available, thus reaching out to an even larger audience. The digital medium, for instance he said is rapidly gaining in terms of popularity and usage, with more and more fans relying on digital devices to follow their favourite teams and players before, during and after the matches.

“The IPL will aim to enhance the viewing, digital and interactive experience for cricket fans across the globe, by introducing diverse consumer-friendly innovations that will bring them closer to the action in their favourite sporting league," he added.

The ITT document will be available at the BCCI Headquarters at the Cricket Centre, Wankhede Stadium, ‘D’ Road, Churchgate, Mumbai 400020, from 11 am to 5 pm (from 11 am to 2 pm on Saturdays, and excluding Sundays), from Thursday, 22 January 2015 to Monday, 2 February 2015, at a cost of Rs 2,00,000/- (non-refundable and non-adjustable), to be paid vide a demand draft drawn in favour of “ Board of Control for Cricket in India,” payable at Mumbai or Chennai (“Tender Fee”).

Bids have been asked to be submitted in person at 12 pm on Tuesday, 3 February 2015, at a meeting of the BCCI Marketing Committee, at which time it is intended that the bids will be opened, evaluated and the tender awarded in the presence of bidders.

Star Plus and Sony retain viewership in week 3

MUMBAI: It was a bad week for the Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) genre as most of the channels saw a dip in viewership. In week 3 of the TAM TV ratings, only Star Plus and Sony Entertainment Television (SET) maintained eyeballs.

Thus, Star Plus at number one continued to lead at 613 million GVTs followed by Colors at number two with 485 million GVTs (down from 510 million GVTs). At number three stood Zee TV with 417 million GVTs, down from 433 million GVTs followed by Life OK at 316 million GVTs, down from 339 million GVTs.

Sab too lost some numbers and generated 318 million GVTs, down from 328 million GVTs. Last but not the least Sony retained its numbers at 235 million GVTs.

On the other hand, Big Magic too observed a drop from 62 million GVTs to 57 million GVTs. Zindagi too saw a fall from 30 million GVTs to 24 million GVTs. Sony Pal was gained this week from 28 million GVTs to 29 million GVTs. Epic continued its winning spree with 8.3 million GVTs, up from 7.6 million GVTs.

“The market is expanding faster than expected and more brands are going digital”

As 2014 comes to an end and as the media and entertainment industry bids adieu to the year, company executives are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to listing down the achievements it has attracted throughout the year. 

On the same lines is Vdopia, a programmatic buying and selling platform for mobile and online video advertising. It tags itself as a pioneer in mobile and online video advertising, enabling major brands to engage their desired audiences in premium content environments around the world. 

Vdopia SVP-APAC Preetesh Chouhan pens down the major digital happenings in the year 2014 for Vdopia and the entire industry and also the future of digital platforms in the coming year.

Major digital happenings…

Digital Video Revolution - 

•             Video viewing on PCs has almost doubled in three years in India. (source - comScore)

•             India now has over 59 million video viewers. (source - comScore)

•             73 per cent online audience now watch digital video. (Source - eMarketer)

•             The share of video in internet data traffic is expected to rise from 41 per cent in 2011-12 to 64 per cent in 2016-17. (Source - Assocham and Deloitte)

Emergence of specialised apps -

•             App downloads in India likely to cross nine billion by 2015 (Source - Assocham -Deloitte)

•             Mobile TV registered a 400 per cent growth rate in viewership. 

m-commerce revolution India -

•             India has reached 50 million digital buyers. (eMarketer)

•             1 out of 3 customers of Flipkart arrive via mobile.

•             33 per cent of Flipkart revenue originates via mobile based transactions. (Flipkart)

•             60 per cent of all orders received by Snapdeal originate on mobile phones. (Snapdeal)

Micro-video multiplied -

•             Micro-video ads can transcend the mobile, tablet, PC and even TV gap, could eventually result in micro-video becoming the most portable video format across screens.

Television is going digital:

•             Television content is no longer being consumed only within the four walls of the viewer’s living room.

•             TV remains one of the primary modes of communication reaching out to 60 per cent of the population, online videos are witnessing a steady surge in consumption even as internet penetration in India currently stands at about 16 per cent.

Coke Studio, for example. While the latest season of the show on MTV received lukewarm response on TV, it went on to garner more than 54 million views on YouTube and across social media platforms.

•             By 2018-end, India’s internet user base is expected to touch 494 million as against 938 million TV viewers.

Marketers in India are leveraging digital marketing -

•    96 per cent of the Indian marketers have high confidence in the ability of digital marketing to drive competitive advantage. It is among the highest in Asia-Pacific APAC with only Australia leading with 97 per cent.

•    Indian marketers believe that the key driver to adopting digital is a growing internet population (70 per cent in India against 59 per cent in APAC).

The big achievements for Vdopia…

•    Launched Chocolate, a global programmatic buying and selling platform exclusively for mobile video advertising. 

•    After major metros and cities, Vdopia’s reach has expanded to tier 2 cities, tier 3 cities and small towns.

Lessons learnt…

•    The market is expanding faster than expected and more brands are going digital. The demand has grown for new category of content and rich media video ad formats for better engagement. Like, travel, auto, humour, lifestytle, how-to videos etc.

•    With 70 per cent growth in Asia Pacific, programmatic is the future. 

Future of digital platforms in 2015…

Digital India program - The Indian government’s $17 billion ambitious Digital India programme has the potential to be a game changer for the country. (Source - Forrester)

P.S. - Currently, nearly 74 per cent of the population has mobile phones, most of which though is in the hands of urban India. 

Focus on mobile content - In 2014 out of 885million mobile users, 185 million are mobile internet users. (IDC and India Digital Review). It's a changing world, and businesses absolutely need to focus on ways they can give their marketing efforts a mobile component.

Focus on Content - Content has been an integral part of digital marketing strategies for a few years now, but with so much of it out there, your content needs to be better and smarter. Content that's relevant and interesting isn't just a good idea, it's a requirement. 

Programmatic advertising will be understood by the majority of marketers – More than two-thirds of marketers are now using programmatic in one form or other shows programmatic might have become mainstream over the course of 2014. It's a safe bet that this trend will continue in 2015 as more marketers realise the benefits of programmatic in their paid media programmes (Media Week).

Clients will dictate the future of programmatic - Fundamentally, we believe the future of programmatic market landscape will be driven by the clients’ diverse characteristics and needs. Clients are either transactional or not, large or small, international or local, e-merchants or brick and mortar, large media spenders or not.

Spending on RTB display advertising will accelerate - Spending on real time-bidded display advertising will accelerate at a 59 per cent compound annual growth rate through 2016, making in the fastest growing segment of digital advertising over the next few years. (IDC)

Government to issue advisory over usage of social media

NEW DELHI: The government is expected to issue an advisory/circular with respect to government usage of social media over the internet.
 
This was indicated by additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain in the Delhi High Court during the hearing of a public interest litigation by former Bharatiya Janata Party leader K N Govindacharya challenging the use of private American-based sites such as Yahoo and Gmail for sending out government information.  
 
Jain said, "Service categorised as sale of time and space for advertisements over Internet was earlier in negative list but with effect from 1 October 2014, it has been put back on the positive list and is now a taxable service."

He said that he would on the next date of hearing on 28 November  make a categorical statement with respect to taxation issue raised in the petition.
 
Meanwhile, the Court has asked why the use of private email accounts like Yahoo and Gmail by government officials should not be stopped as it would lead to public/official records being taken outside the country which is a violation of the law.

Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul said, "Public records are going outside India. Are you (Centre) willing to say there is no difficulty in government documents going to US servers? You should stop usage of non-NIC email accounts by government officers.

"On the one hand we are complaining against National Security Agency (of US) snooping and on the other hand, we are allowing it (public records) to go out."
 
The court, however, took on record the submission of additional solicitor general (ASG) Sanjay Jain that "immediate steps will be taken to ensure there is no violation of Public Records Act with a view that all electronic official communication is not taken out of India, insofar as email communication of public records is concerned".

The ASG also submitted in court that a draft email policy of the government has been finalised for presentation before the Cabinet in two to three weeks, and it only needs approval of the minister concerned.

The submissions were made in response to the query regarding the status of the government's email policy and what would be the interim measures that would be put in place to prevent official records from going outside India till all the government departments are provided accounts in servers run by National Informatics Centre.

The ASG also said that they have increased capacity of NIC servers to handle one million accounts from the earlier limit of five lakhs and would be further expanding the same.

The Court agreed with contention of advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for Govindacharya that the Public Records Act does apply in the present case. "You cannot have it (public records going outside India), its against the law," the bench said to the ASG.

Govindacharya in his PIL has sought that the government be directed to use only NIC servers for sending official emails, instead of using the services of foreign sites like Google and Yahoo.

The petition has contended that government departments like Delhi Police and the Indian Railways are not entitled to create accounts on social networking sites.
 
It has also sought recovery of taxes from the websites on their income from operations in India.

The petition has also alleged that the sites have no mechanism for protection of children from online abuse, claiming that children below 18 years are entering into an agreement with the social networking sites to open accounts, which is against the Indian Majority Act, the Indian Contract Act and also the Information and Technology Act.

Facebook and Google had earlier submitted affidavits in the court detailing the protective measures available on their sites to ensure their product is not misused. They had said their statement of rights and other terms and conditions prohibit children below 13 years of age from registering an account and creating more than one personal account.

They had said they also have strict policies in place to delete any objectionable or misleading content they come across on their sites.
 
The petition has alleged that due to non-verification of users, more than eight crore of Facebook users across the world were found to be "fake", which the website admitted before a US authority. 
 

131 MSOs get ten year licences under DAS for specified areas

131 MSOs get ten year licences under DAS for specified areas

NEW DELHI: A total of 131 multi-system operators (MSO) all over the country have been granted permanent registration for ten years to operate the digital addressable system (DAS).
 
The MSOs had been given provisional permission earlier. The latest list is as on 7 November.
 
The MSOs who have received permission after the last list released as on 21 August include Skynet Digital Services for the state of Uttar Pradesh except the cities of Agra, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut and Varanasi; Crystal Transmission for Chennai Metropolitan area, Sanghvi Digital Network for Bokaro district in Jharkhand; Vortex Digital Network for Delhi; Yerraguntla Cable Network for Kadapa District Andhra Pradesh under Phase III and IV; and Royal Services Diginet Vision for Hamirpur District, Mandi District and Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh.
 
Others include Silverline Entertainment the state of Uttar Pradesh except Agra, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut and Varanasi; Hathway New Concept Cable and Datacom for Delhi; ACN Digital for the state of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra under under Phase III and IV; Koduri Satyanarayana, Sri Sai Star for Khammam District of Telengana; Abhilash Communications for  Notified Areas of Phase  II and Phase  III cities pan India; JPR Channel Mumbai (Phase I) and Phase II areas in Maharashtra and Gujarat; Operator Digital Tamil Nadu for all the cities, towns and villages of Phase II,III and  IV in Tamil Nadu; V K Digital Network for Cities/Towns/Areas occurring against Phase I, Phase II, Phase III, Phase IV; Saga Entertainment Network In Tamil Nadu; Talacher TV Home Cable Network for  Angul District and Dhenkanal District, Odissa; Voice and Vision Club for Phase III and  IV of Madhya Pradesh and Sonebhadra Districts of Uttar Pradesh; Den Satellite Network in Maharashtra; and Venkata Sai Media for district of Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram, Visakhapatanam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam and Nellore in the state of Andhra Pradesh and in the district of Greater Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medak, Nizamabad, Mehaboob Nagar, Warangal, Sangareddy and Khammam in the state of Telangana.
 
The list of MSOs who have been refused permission has gone up from 16 to 22.
 
MSO sources, however, said that the approved list was in addition to the 140 whose names had been approved earlier in March last year.
 
The Ministry website mib.nic.in has listed the areas and the date from which the MSOs have been given permission.

SET explores human relationships with ‘Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar’

SET explores human relationships with ‘Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar’

MUMBAI: Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is all set to present yet another modern and mature take on love and marriage with the launch of its new series - Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar.
Exploring the intricacies of human relationships, it features Ronit Roy and Pallavi Kulkarni Nerurkar in lead roles. Produced by Balaji Telefilms, the show aims at reinstilling faith in the institution of marriage.

Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar is the story of a couple, Nachiket Khanna (Neil) and Ragini Patel, who are driven apart, ironically because of the intense love they shared. Neil, a doctor and Ragini, a nurse have four kids together but their marriage breaks due to a misunderstanding. Post the divorce, Neil moves to America with two of their kids and Ragini stays back in India with two kids.

Over a period of time, staying away from each other has made Neil an indifferent man, whereas Ragini is still trying to run away from the ghosts of her past relationship. They are constantly reminded of their broken marriage because of the children who are a sign of their past love for each other. However, fate has different plans sketched out for them and their children become the pivotal reason for them to start a new chapter in life. The story is now taken forward by the children, who attempt to bring together their separated parents and rediscover love after 15 years.

Speaking about the show, SET chief creative director Ajay Bhalwankar said: “It is always a pleasure to work with Balaji Telefilms as its concepts are unique, innovative and extremely relatable. Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar is bound to appeal to all our viewers with its engaging storyline and creative content. We are sure the audience will appreciate this unique take on love. Sony has been a pioneer in presenting mature love stories like Bade Acche Lagte Hain which have been immensely appreciated by the audience and Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar is another such show.”

Balaji Telefilms producer Ekta Kapoor said: “We at Balaji are really excited about our latest offering which explores the intricacies of human relationship. Through this show we are attempting to bring alive a unique love story between an estranged husband and wife. I am extremely delighted to extend our relationship with SET and I am sure the series will create magic on Indian television.”  

 The show not only marks Roy’s return to daily soap after three years but also Kulkarni’s comeback to television after seven years. The other cast members include Darshan Pandya, Avinash Mukherjee, Induben Mehta, Kirti Sualy, Jyoti Joshi, Falguni Desai, Aarav Patel, Rhea Sharma, Rohan Shah and Shilpa among others.

According to SET SVP head - marketing Gaurav Seth it is the biggest fiction show for the channel, not only in terms of casting but also with the storyline.

When asked the reason behind putting the show at 10.30 pm, Seth replied: “Our previous show Bade Ache Lagte Hai had done wonders for us at this slot. Moreover, as per the research, compared to other slots, a lot of audiences are available especially in the bigger towns.” Also, with 10 pm airing Maharana Veer Pratap which is doing decently well for Sony, it wants to create a strong 10 - 11 pm band with the new offering.

On the marketing front, the channel is aggressively promoting the new offering on all the platforms. According to Seth, at every platform the treatment is very different but the main highlight is the chemistry between the lead couples. “It is not a traditional but a classical love story,” adds Seth.

The promotions are designed and customised depending on the medium. On digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it has created a special motion video designed exclusively for the digital audiences. Moreover, there are emotion posters and apps running on the family.

On radio, being the audio medium, the channel has tried to capture on the thoughts of the two individuals. On the advertisers front, the call to have brands on-board will be taken very soon.

The series starts from 18 November and will air every Monday-Thursday at 10.30 pm.
 

ASCI upholds complaints against 79 out of 100 ads in September

MUMBAI: In September 2014, Advertising Standards Council of India’s (ASCI) Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) upheld complaints against 79 out of 100 advertisements.
 
Out of the 79 advertisements against which complaints were upheld, 49 belonged to personal and healthcare category, followed by the education category with 18 advertisements.
 
In the personal and healthcare category, the CCC found the claims in advertisements of 48 advertisers to be either misleading or false or not adequately/scientifically substantiated and hence, violating ASCI’s code. Some of the health care products or services advertisements also contravened provisions of the Drug & Magic Remedies Act and Chapter 1.1 and III.4 of the ASCI code.
 
Complaints were upheld against advertisers like Vini Cosmetics’ advertisement of White Tone Face Powder that shows instant fairness of the skin on using the product which is misleading by exaggeration. The advertisement of Perfect Clinic claims to give hope for childless couples, helps to get sex life back and enjoy married life.
 
Agro Tech Foods’ advertisement of Sundrop Heart claims that research conducted on consumers proves the product has worked in 100 per cent of the people tested on. The duration of the supers in the advertisement does not stay for 6 seconds and contravened ASCI’s guidelines for supers.
 
The advertisement of Richfeel Trichology Centre claims to provide the Best Hair Transplant at Rs 55,000. It further claims to have “Full time Aliesbury Certified Surgeons and staff perform the procedure”.
 
In the education category, complaints were upheld against 18 advertisements. For instance, the advertisement claims that RKDF College of Engineering is the best engineering college in Central India. Sri Venkateswara Institute Of Technology claims that it provides guaranteed placement or else refund of fees.
 
In the other categories, Hindustan Unilever Ltd advertisement claims that “various powders were tested, and in machines, Surf Excel Matic provided the most effective cleanliness”, qualified with a disclaimer “based on lab test on select fabrics versus ordinary powders” is misleading as the comparison is made versus ordinary powders not meant for machine wash. The subject matter of comparison was not considered as a like to like comparison.
 
Star India’s TVC promo of Gumraah season 3 presents criminality and directly or indirectly encourages people – particularly minors- to emulate it or conveys the modus operandi of any crime.
 
In the Food & Beverages category, Red Bull India advertisement without justifiable reason shows dangerous practices and manifests a disregard for safety. Similarly, Bacardi India is promoting its liquor product – Bacardi Breezer through the radio advertisement. The advertiser had violated the brand extension advertising code. The radio spot contravened Chapter III.6 (a) (b) of the ASCI Code and the guidelines for brand extension products or services.