Gearing up for the release of Bond's next flick Quantum of Solace's in India, Excel Home Video has launched a Bond extravaganza DVD collection.
The offering includes a DVD box set collection of all the 21 Bond films on to two-disc edition set along with bonus features. This is the first time that all the 21 Bond movies will be seen together in one collection, priced at Rs 12,000.
Presented on two-disc special (ultimate) edition DVDs spanning 42 discs, this will also grant access to "Bond archives, 40 hours of documentaries, featurettes, commentary by directors, interviews of the cast and crew." In addition, the box also offers exclusive 'collectables' that include poker chips and playing cards as seen in the last Daniel Craig starrer Casino Royale.
In addition to the box set, the vanilla one-disc DVDs will also be available individually at Rs 299 each as part of the bond bonanza. The offer is valid till 31 December ony. The films in this offer include Dr No, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia With Love, You Only Live Twice, For Your Eyes Only, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, Goldeneye, Thunder Ball, License To Kill, Live And Let Die, Octopussy, Die Another Day, Moonraker, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale
HC declines to stay termination notice on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, will end its over eight-year run on Star Plus after the Bombay High Court rejected its producer's plea for a stay halting the serial's cancellation. Content production house Balaji Telefilms had moved the Court challenging Star Group's decision to terminate its prime time daily soap.
Flagging ratings and a premium charge for the content had fuelled Star to send a termination notice. Balaji Telefilms's contention was that their show, the longest running soap on Star Plus, wasn't promoted by the channel. But the bench refused to accept Balaji's argument. Star's counsel stated that the programme has outlived its life and had no motive to hurt Balaji.
Kyunki...gained popularity with its 'saas-bahu' theme centred around daughter-in-law Tulsi played by Smriti Irani and stretched over more than 1500 episodes. Star Plus, which established its market supremacy with Amitabh Bachchan-hosted game show Kaun Banega Crorepati? and the three Balaji-created 'K' soaps (Kahani Ghar Ghar Kii, Kasautii Zindagi Kay, and Kyunki...) since July 2000, is now moving into a more varied content mix of soaps, reality and infotainment programming.As part of this, Star Plus will now bank on Aap Ki Kachehri, a reality-based infotainment show which has Kiran Bedi in anchor role
Growing with technological advancements, the public had moved from print and radio media to the visual mode, he added, pointing out that several states were attempting to copy the free CTV programme due to its immense success.
Raj TV Q2 net slips to Rs 3 million
Raj TV Network has posted a net profit of Rs 3 million for the quarter ended 30 September 2008, a slide from Rs 44 million in the corresponding quarter previous year.
Net sales from operations has slowed down to Rs 122.59 million compared to Rs 137.6 million a year ago. Raj TV has earned Rs 119.63 million from broadcasting operations.Expenditure increased to Rs 113.39 million, from Rs 70.09 million in last fiscal.
Raj Television Network has said that against the total projected utilisation of Rs 528.1 million from the initial public offering (IPO) funds, an amount of Rs 350.9 million has been utilised towards acquisition of content, strengthening facilities, purchase of new equipment, upgradation of existing equipment, production of movies, construction of studio and general corporate purpose.
India, China will reshape the world says Murdoch
News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has said that the ongoing metamorphosis of China and India from historic backwaters into economic powers will help reshape the world in the next few decades.
The media baron stated that the rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness. China and India are great countries whose people are emerging from histories of being "incarcerated by communism or caste.He chided fellow Australians for laziness, saying they should beware that the "bludger" did not become the national icon. "At a time when the world's most competitive nations are moving their people off government subsidy, Australians seem to be headed in the wrong direction," Murdoch said. He also warned that a win by Democratic hopeful Barack Obama in the US election could worsen the world financial crisis.
Amritraj, UAE firm ink $250 mn movie production deal
Imagenation Abu Dhabi, wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media Company, has signed a $250 million financing deal with Ashok Amritraj's Hollywood-based Hyde Park Entertainment.
As per the deal, Hyde Park Entertainment will get the financial support to develop, produce and distribute feature films. The agreement aims to create up to 20 films over seven years and will include additional financing for the production of local language and cross-cultural films.Hyde Park Entertainment will also establish its regional headquarters at 'Two Four 54,' the recently unveiled free media zone in Abu Dhabi.
TV viewing, online video streaming are complementary
US media research company Nielsen's new TV/Internet Convergence Panel, which electronically measures both television and Internet usage in the same homes, has found that television viewing and online video streaming are complementary activities.
According to the convergence panel, the heaviest users of the Internet are also among the heaviest viewers of television: the top fifth of Internet users spend more than 250 minutes per day watching television, compared to 220 minutes of television viewing by people who do not use the Internet at all.Nielsen found that the reverse is true as well -- the lowest consumers of television have the lowest usage levels for the Internet. Nielsen also found that nearly 31 per cent of in-home Internet activity takes place while the user is watching television, demonstrating that there is a significant amount of simultaneous Internet and television usage. Conversely, about four per cent of television viewing occurs when the consumer is also using the Internet.
The Nielsen TV/Internet Convergence Panel, which launched last month, is the first panel to use Nielsen technology and methodology to directly measure the interaction between TV and Internet by the same people in the same household.The sample consists of nearly 3000 people in more than 1000 households who were either previously part of Nielsen's live national TV sample and have agreed to continue to be monitored by Nielsen, or new homes installed specifically for convergence research.
Other findings
- Roughly 50 per cent of the Convergence Panel panelists had viewed some streaming content online. The demos streaming the most included Female Teens (82 per cent), Male Teens (64 per cent), Men 18-34 (57 per cent) and Men 35-54 (55 per cent).
- Nearly 60 per cent of panelists and more than 80 per cent of people who watched TV and used the Internet that month had simultaneous sessions -- watching TV and being online at the same minute. This group tends to be very heavy users of both TV and Internet.
- Teens are the most likely demographic to have simultaneous TV/Internet usage, but Adults 35-54 have the most simultaneous usage minutes.
MTV partners MySpace to monetise on pirated content
MTV Networks has partnered with social networking platform MySpace to replace pirate footage of MTV shows with a series of revenue-generating ads.
MySpace is launching an ad platform with third-party Auditude, which will identify content from MTV Networks and add a series of ads relevant to the clip. It will also display an overlay that shows where the clip originally came from, its original air-date, and links to online stores where users can purchase the entire episode. Each ad will run for approximately 15 seconds and revenue that it generates will be split between MySpace, Auditude and the creator of the content.
YouTube had launched a similar strategy last year, which offers copyright holders a choice between removing pirated material or letting YouTube place ads on the content and sharing the revenue.
