Scrabble's unique business model gives a new direction to India's digital cinema market.
The Union Budget backs skilling across animation, gaming and comics. But creators and studios confront a hard question: who owns what comes next?
The Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) has resolved to implement a revenue-sharing model for big-budget films, requiring actors and technicians to share profits and losses. The move aims to address financial pressures from declining theatrical and OTT revenues. The TFPC also mandated staggered OTT release windows and formed a committee to ensure access to theaters for smaller films.
Taming the animal called AI in its many avatars will clearly remain a work in progress.
Asrani may have never been a marquee name up in sparkling lights or on outsized posters but the sheer proficiency with which he realised his characters has unleashed gales of laughter over five decades and made a significant contribution to several landmark films. Dinesh Raheja salutes the iconic actor.
Jio Platforms' quietly sustained investments in building its "non-connectivity" service business - which included a bevy of acquisitions of companies and platforms in media, entertainment, and technology startups - are slowly generating revenues. Non-connectivity revenues of Jio Platforms have now risen 36 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024-25 (FY25) to about Rs 3,968 crore, compared with Rs 2,912 crore in the same quarter the previous year.
'The largest listenership for Vividh Bharati outside the country is in Spain.' 'The labourers who go there for the tomato-picking season feel cut off from their country and listen to Vividh Bharati to overcome their loneliness.'
The new entity will continue to work on technologies in areas like healthcare and education, while also looking at next-gen competencies like artificial intelligence, Blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, among others.
Busy daters will use AI tools to save time and avoid awkward conversations. Two in 10 daters turn to AI for unbiased relationship advice, predicts rediffGURU Ravi Mittal, CEO, Quack Quack, an online dating Web site.
Competition Commission of India on Wednesday said it has approved the merger of the media assets of Reliance Industries and Walt Disney Co to create the country's largest media empire. The deal, announced six months ago, has been cleared by the CCI with certain modifications proposed by the two parties.
'After Om's untimely demise, he would call us every Sunday for the next two years to ask, "How are you doing my dear? How's the young fella?"'
Walt Disney Co and Reliance Industries on Wednesday announced signing of binding pacts to merge their media operations in India to create a Rs 70,000 crore behemoth. Reliance and its affiliates will hold 63.16 per cent in the combined entity while Disney will hold the remaining 36.84 per cent, the companies said in a statement.
Both sports and digital will drag down the healthy operating margins that entertainment television continues to make.
'OTT is the present of the entertainment industry and it can be the future as well.'
'In our business, every time a seat goes empty, it is a perishable good.' 'We have lost the opportunity of earning revenue out of it.' 'It's impossible to recover what we have lost.'
'Advertising this season will help IPL surpass $550 million in ad revenues, across digital and pay TV.' 'It should still represent a steep loss against annualised 2023-2027 IPL rights fees of $1.2 billion.'
'Since God was being shown in live action on such a large scale, Prasanth was initially sceptical about going with an animated character.'
'If the South starts shooting on IMAX more, it will be beneficial. And likewise, it will benefit Bollywood directors.'
'Laapataa Ladies opened a lot of doors for me.' 'I have gotten so much love from audiences and seniors in the industry that it's overwhelming.' 'I get calls from superstars. I'm holding my heart and it's like, "Oh my God, they are calling me? I am their fan and they love my work!"'
The 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will see Disney-Star and Viacom18 competing to sell their ad space with an eye on the estimated Rs 4,000-crore advertising money.
Disney-Star is positioning IPL as a "big-screen experience" where families and friends can come together over a game of cricket, much the way football is consumed in Europe and other parts of the world.
'Professors can teach even when they are 90 because they don't lose their skill with words. Go deeper and there's spirituality in it.'
Ajit Balakrishnan offers lessons from another tech revolution not so long ago.
'Gullak feels like your story or the story of someone you know.' 'The stories are heart-warming, joyful. You laugh at them.' 'It's like a drug that gives you happiness.'
And the reason has everything to do with box office collections, says Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'If am in a plane with a superstar and a screenwriter, I would rather sit next to the writer.'
Move over 3D, 4D and 5D. Cinema is now eyeing the metaverse experience. On February 15, Bollywood producer Vashu Bhagnani's production company, Pooja Entertainment, forayed into the metaverse and bought its first piece of virtual land. The space, called Poojaverse, will be a virtual area where the company will create an immersive experience for moviegoers, starting with BadeMiyan ChoteMiyan, starring Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff. Promotional events for the film, slated for release on Christmas 2023, will be held in the metaverse, says the company. The metaverse might still be in its infancy, but producers like Deepshikha Deshmukh say, "The ecosystem will only grow from here. "Metaverse will soon be the go-to place for everything virtual related to films."
The service will initially offer digital content from, Hotstar, Sun NXT, Eros NOW, Hungama Play via a single subscription fee of Rs 249 a month
Movie theatres may reopen around the second week of July.
'She was going through a low time and didn't know where her career was going.'
A neutral Budget for media and entertainment sector.
Shoojit Sircar picks two Oscar-winning, slice-of-life films which say a lot with the minimum of fuss.
Reviewers rated it high, but still, these films unfortunately flopped.
From Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan to Chiranjeevi and Prabhas, India's film stars are stepping forward to do their bit for migrants, daily wage workers and those from their own film industry facing joblessness and near starvation in an unprecedented pan-India lockdown.
Ambassador T P Sreenivasan salutes India Abroad, the leading Indian-American newspaper for half a century, which ceased publication on March 30.
Raja clarified that he had only watched clips of the movie on his mobile phone and said he did not have the patience to sit through a two-and-a-half hour film.
'If we don't wake up and try all out to give audiences good content, they will move towards a new kind of cinema. We will become like Europe.'
Biju Menon tells Divya Nair/Rediff.com how he transformed himself to play a 73 year old character, one of his most challenging and satisfying roles as an actor.
'Acting is the toughest job in the world.'
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