Big FM Trivandrum is celebrating its first anniversary with an interactive and engaging on-air contest show called ‘Money Machine’. In the show, the station will reward its lucky listeners with pots of moolah, beginning January 29, 2009.
Neo Sports Broadcast Pvt Ltd and Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd have entered into a long term agreement under which the two Neo channels – Neo Sports and Neo Cricket – would be made available to subscribers of Sun Direct.
The IBN18 Broadcast Ltd Board, which met on January 28, 2009, inter alia, approved the acquisition of 43.4 per cent stake in Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd from BK Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Television Eighteen India Ltd. With this acquisition, IBN18 will own 50 per cent in Viacom18 Media.
The new venture of Aggi and Paddy that was initially christened ‘Roots India’, has undergone a revision in its name and will now be called ‘TapRoot India’. Agnello Dias aka Aggi explained that this was done on the advice of their consultants and to be safe from any possible future complications.
Grey India has announced the promotion of Jishnu Sen to Chief Operating Officer. As COO, Sen, who takes charge of his new role with immediate effect, will be in charge of the strategic and operational leadership of the agency’s business. He will report to Nirvik Singh, Chairman, Grey Group Asia Pacific.
Afternooner Mid-Day has decided to intensify its efforts to engage and connect with Young Working Professionals across India (YUMPIs) in the middle of their work day by focusing all news resources on a single (afternoon) edition of the newspaper in Mumbai. This will be accompanied by constant updates of the web product.
The third edition of Disney’s KidSense has unveiled the new tween ‘codes’ that are replacing the old tenets for tweens in India. These emerging codes are visible in the three Cs of tweens’ lives – Culture, Clan and Core. Disney’s KidSense 3, the qualitative study, attempts to ‘sense’ the truth and trends of the tweens.
Shivkumar Menon has put in his papers as Marketing Head at Zoom to set up his own brand consulting agency, called ‘Speech Blurb - the voice of your brand’. He has partnered with Razia Kunj and Vinod Kunj for this venture. Menon is currently serving his notice period at Zoom and would be released on January 31, 2009.
Mobile ad network mKhoj has entered into a strategic mobile advertising partnership with Vuclip, one of the world’s leading mobile video search and delivery providers. mKhoj is also looking to get its clients to allocate 5-10 per cent of their budgets for the application of mobile advertising in their annual plans in 2009.
Entertainment Network India Ltd (ENIL), which operated private FM stations under the Radio Mirchi brand, has reported a 39.6 per cent drop in its standalone Q3 net profit to Rs 4.86 crore as against Rs 8.05 crore in Q3 of FY08. The standalone revenues also fell 11.5 per cent from Rs 67.8 crore to Rs 60.0 crore in Q3 ended December 31, 2008.
The assets of Jagran Prakashan (MPC) Pvt Ltd, an associate of Jagran Prakashan Ltd, were taken possession of by a lender bank due to non-payment of dues. Jagran Prakashan MPC publishes the Indore edition of Dainik Jagran. Meanwhile, Jagran Prakashan Ltd has reported a 40.54 per cent drop in its net profit to Rs 15.46 crore as against Rs 25.92 crore in Q3 of FY08.
NDTV Imagine is celebrating completion of its first year of operations with a slew of new programmes. Starting with the recently announced show ‘Ghar Ki Baat Hai’, produced by SRK’s Red Chillies Idiot Box, NDTV Imagine is planning to launch more shows in the next two months.
Big Broadcasting’s 2009 deadlines don’t seem to have gone as planned. The delay in the launch of any of the channels, in the present state, is indefinite. Sources from Big had informed that the proposed movie channel, music channel and the kids’ channel were the first, followed by specialty channels. However, the movie channel team is now working on film distribution and marketing; the business head of the kids’ channels has quit the organisation, and it is understood that there is no progress on the specialty channels either.