Both Star and Sony have launched digital formats of their TV broadcasts. It is an App. Star has launched Hotstar and Sony has launched Sony Liv. They are making some exclusive content for the apps. Mostly they offer the already existing content. Some content will be shown both on air and digitally. It will be an integration of content. Star has also acquired digital rights for the IPL matches for Hotstar and Starsports.com. More and more people are watching television content on digital platform. The costs of creating content for a digital platform and for a television show are different. They are not comparable. These are the early days for monetizing the content digitally. Zee TV and Viacom 18 too have digital plans. Digital provides an opportunity to get an intimate view of the viewers watching it. There is no agency to monitor the incremental reach — TV plus digital. The gestation period will be long and it will take 5-7 years for the digital formats to break even.

Apple proposes a new version of its Apple TV set top box.Its old version was launched in 2007. It brings video and music from the Internet to a television. It wants to tap the young audience who watch video using online services such as Netflix and Google’s YouTube. Apple wants to tie up with producers who can produce exclusive shows for Apple TV. It wants to obtain premium content for a live TV service. Apple might fund programming. It has taken steps into video production. It support games and apps made by third party software developers. Developers can now write for a 40 inch screen.

Apple TV still lacks a bundle of TV programmes. TV broadcast and digital rights are incredibly complicated. It is tougher than films. There is snarl of contracts and agreements. Apple TV requires TV shows to succeed, especially live sports. In TV shows there are local affiliates with which a broadcaster will have to negotiate for rights to some shows. Digital rights could be held by multiple parties for a single show. Companies such as Apple must wait till these contracts expire. There are distributors whose agreements must expire. The deals are to be negotiated afresh in different countries. A decade ago, there were no templates available for digital deals. There were no complexities such as streaming rights and union negotiations. These templates are now available, and the rights to content can be obtained. The price tag is, however, huge. When Apple bargained for iTunes with the music companies, the bargaining position of music companies was weak. However, the bargaining position of the TV world is strong. As many in the US watch TV via broadband, there is no urgency to do contract with Apple.

Apps can be used to bypass some of these rights issues and high costs. Apple is spared the negotiations for content if a local broadcaster with rights to the shows builds an app. App-centric mobile devices may overtake traditional TV. For the time being, YouTube Stars and shopping apps are not enough for Apple TV. Traditional programming is still the holy grail.

A soap opera is a radio or television serial drama chiefly characterized by stock domestic situation or often melodramatic or sentimental treatment.

It is so called probably for the fact that it was formerly often sponsored by soap manufacturers. TV’s first soap in India was the 156-episode Hum Log which went on air on July 15, 1984.

Characteristics of a Soap Opera

The continuous serial has to work with a punishing schedule, normally appearing on TV once a week or more than once a week or daily. In order to do this, it establishes a base which becomes increasingly familiar to its audience, while maintaining sufficient flexibility to be able to present apparently different situations.

It provides us with the feeling of an unwritten future while giving us necessary access to the past . We are constantly wondering what will happen next  — occasionally with a real cliff-hanger.

It presents us with new events which are endless variations on regular patterns and provides a range of characters which is both varied and limited. This balance of change and repetition is achieved through the organization of narrative and character.

Television calls for a lot of discipline, unlike films. It is one step  ahead of theatre.

TV is such a medium that dialogues become all important factor since shots are mostly close-ups of people. When combined with the right kind of performance, good casting and good direction, we get the formula of a sure winner.

In any soap, the characters keep developing with the story. If it clicks with the audience, it can prove to be a turning point in the story.

TV serials largely depend upon certain combination of factors like good writing, good artists and good coordination.

Star’s Hotstar app has become so popular. It also aired the cricket series. The trend of watching TV and video content on the go is picking up. So far there was only YouTube. Mobile TV has now matured in terms of streaming technology. YouTube is accessed by 35 per cent of smart phone users. HOOQ and Netflix are in this field. The content is made available on smart phones, tablets and phablets. All major TV channels have their own applications. Apps are available on Google Play, Apple’s Store and Windows Store for free. Digital service providers or DTH players provide free first month apps. Later one can buy a plan. Mobile service providers have launched mobile apps for watching TV channels on the go. There are independent apps too.

There are 152 million internet users, of which 78 per cent are using the net on mobile. The average spend is around Rs. 235, as much as what one spends on cable TV. There are 70 million smart phone users. India is a huge market to consume entertainment and sports content online. Mobile TV takes TV to where people are. Yupp TV offers 200-plus Indian TV channels.

Mobile TV is good as ‘catch up ‘ TV. The favourite  shows can be enjoyed at your convenient time. TV can be integrated to social media. Over-the-top ( OTT ) services put control over the content into the user’s hands.

The VOD or video-on-demand is another service apart from the streaming service that one can enjoy. In future, TV to VOD service ratio will be 50:50. VOD service providers hold a huge library of movies and episodic content. Many new ventures appear on the scene such as #fame which offers live video entertainment app on iOS and Google Play. It proposes to bring several thousand performers on board.

The biggest concern is the infrastructure. The weak signal kills the joy. The content available should respond to the likes and dislikes of the viewers after research. It should be an affordable service.

 

Ever since the beginning of the century, we find that the LCD TVs have picked up. Still, technology-wise these TVs are not efficient. Liquid crystals can pattern themselves in different ways depending on current. However, they cannot produce their own light. Thus every LCD screen requires back up light. They do need filters too. Ultimately, there is a loss of 80 per cent energy through light switches and colour filters. The other problems are the slow responsiveness and low contrasts. The advantage is that the technology is mature and scaled up so much that it is cost efficient. It is difficult to dislodge it fast.

The alternative technology is being tried is OLED. It entered the market 15 years back. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diodes. It is an organic material that is soft. It can be spread thin. If a TV screen is made of OLED, it can be as thin as a wall-paper. These screen offer superior colour quality. The picture can be viewed from  any angle. It has high contrast. As OLEDs are soft, these can be made to bend. In future, there could be foldable and flexible screens.

Still, these are early days for this technology. It is expensive. Its manufacturing process is being researched. The cost will come down. The present technology uses glass substrate. It is being tried to replace it with silicon substrate. That integrates it well to the electronics. It will take a few years to commercialise the research.

Already OLGD TVs are available from LG and Samsung. They have mastered the art making flexible substrates to remove rigidness of glass substrate.

Other competing technology is that of quantum dots. These are organic materials which emit light superbly. They provide better colour purity than OLEDs. Still the technology is on the drawing board stage. It is not ready for commercial use. The search for better light emitters is continuously on. One mineral perovskite has shown potential. Technologies mature over a period of 15 -20 years. Such future technologies are still far off.

Television actors charge on a per-day basis. Top actors draw a fee of Rs. 60000 -1 lac per day. Some of them shoot for 25 days in a month. There is no gender bias in the industry. In fact, women dominate this industry. TV actors too are getting endorsement assignments. They are more visible, and yet cost a fraction of the remuneration of film stars. New comers in TV start with Rs. 2500 per day, and as per the agreement they get 10 per cent rise every year. It all depends upon the popularity of the serial. If both the serial and the character are appreciated, the remunerations are doubled. The production and direction department are, however, dominated by men.

The 4K TV set is ultra-high definition with unbelievable clarity. It packs twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of full HD TVs, the 1080p ones. It has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, compared with the 1920 x 1080p of a full HD set.A HD TV packs in 2 million pixels, whereas an ultra-high definition TV packs in 8 million pixels. These TVs had the sizes of 82 inches plus to accommodate high pixel density.It is now available in size 55-65 too. They are too large for most households.Broadcasters are still stuggling with full HD channels. It is not possible for them to beam 4K content, which is four times heavier right now.The content is supported by a pre-loaded 4K media player.There is also 8K in the offing, which is 16 times the number of pixels of full HD.Ultra-high TV has a frame rate too.The TV gives sharper images, has better detailing and superior texture. High frame rate makes moving images more natural.

DTH providers like Tata Sky and Videocon D2H offer 4K set top boxes.Internet is another source of 4K content.The data consumption is four times more, and there must be YouTube application supporting 4K content. Ther are services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and these offer 4K content, but these are not available in India. Apple TV and Google Chromecast media players too do not support 4K. The downloaded content is to be stored on hard disk.

In future, 4K may become mainstream, and it is prudent to invest in a 4K TV.The HD content too looks much better on 4K.

TV channels can sell the rights to their content to foreign channels. Pakistan TV networks are the big buyers of Indian TV content. All the Pak channels are free-to-air, and so the revenue generated is only from-advertising. The advantage in buying Indian content is that whatever works in India works there too, as the sensibilities are more or less similar. Indian content forms 15-20 per cent, while the rest is local or sourced from other sources like Turkey and Egypt. Indian content is ready to be telecast as there is no need to translate, dub or sub-title it. Most content is thus shown simultaneously, but if logistical problems exist, there are exceptions and content is shown after sometime. The regulatory authorities in Pakistan restrict the number or percentage of Indian content. All channels such as Colors, Zee, Star and Sony contribute content to Pakistan TV networks. The total syndication market for India is Rs. 170-Rs. 180 crore across 125 markets. Of this, the share of Pakistan TV networks is Rs.40 crore across 7 to 8 channels per annum. It is growing at 10 per cent per annum.

As of now, India has hundreds of TV channels, with a large TV viewing audience. TV advertising revenues have touched Rs 18ooo crore.Indians are high on news. A channel requires a capital expenditure of Rs 50 crore, and operational expenditure of another Rs 100 crore to keep it running.It bleeds for three to four years, and then breaks even. It is later that it starts earning.

Mile Sur’s original version was conceived by Suresh Mullick of Ogilvy and Surendranath in 1988. Prior to Mile Sur, Mullick and Surendranath had worked on Freedom Torch film where athletes run with a flaming torch in their hand. Mullick and Bhaskar Ghose, the then Director DD were classmates at St Stephen’s. They exploited the common raga to both Hindustani and Carnatic classical music — Bhairavi using singers from different parts of the country. The lyrics were contributed by Piyush Pandey and Mile Sur version I was set to music by Louis Banks. Mile Sur’s version II has been launched in 2010. It isone milestone in India to have such an inspiring song for national integration.