Team Nokia at Maxus has been beefed up with the induction of Ajay Gupte as the head on the business. Gupte has joined Maxus from Monday, April 3, 2006, moving from TVS Motor Company.
TV18 has picked up 50 per cent stake in Malaysia-headquartered recruitment website JobStreet.com. Formed in 1995, JobStreet.com’s operations extend across Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and India, where it has offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.
For almost a year now, international production houses and format houses like FBC and FreMantle Media have been looking at India very closely. More on these lines was seen when Endemol launched its Indian subsidiary in January 2006. With some of the major shows on TV coming from the Endemol stable, the production house has raised expectations in the content arena.
In a new twist to the row over sending cricket updates through SMS, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has questioned the authority of the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) as the governing body controlling the game of cricket in India.
Swiss watch maker Omega has decided to make a vital shift in its advertising by experimenting with brand ambassadors that are not famous faces but pack in a message, an experiment slated to kick off in India in three to four weeks.
In keeping with the burgeoning entertainment economy, the Times Group, through Times Infotainment Media Ltd, has ventured into movie production to further strengthen its presence in media and entertainment industry. The first production of TIML, ‘Being Cyrus’, was released nationally on March 24 to rave reviews.
Sports lifestyle company Puma has announced the launch of its 2006 range in India through its newly founded subsidiary, Puma Sports India Pvt, which is headquartered in Bangalore and has been operational since January 1, 2006. The expansion plans of Puma Sports India are ambitious – to establish Puma in India at parity with the brand’s global position.
Work for AAAI’s GoaFest is on full swing and the association has recently roped in the STAR Network and Hindustan Times as principal partners. Red FM and Xerox come in as associate partners. In addition, exchange4media, Indya.com, Star 7827 and Showtime Events are the official promotional partners. The festival will be held on April 29-30.
Common sense wrapped in convincing text – that’s how Ramanujam Sridhar’s book ‘One Man – One Billion Minds – Insights on branding in India’ can be aptly described. The book’s claim to bring out peculiarities of the Indian market and the Indian consumer is justified as it is enriched with many case studies and examples that show what works in India.
Kanta Advani, who recently quit SAB TV, has joined India TV as President, Ad Sales. She will be based in Mumbai and will report to India TV CEO, Chintamani Rao.
Vijay Chacko, former VP-South, Clea PR, started his own shop, Brand Wave Communications, in January 2006. Since then, the agency has managed to line up an impressive tally of clients in its first three months, including TVS Motor Company (South).
Global Broadcast News has appointed Mukund Setlur as Head of Sales for the Northern and Eastern regions of IBN 7. Setlur will also handle the sales for Hindi business news channel, Awaaz, for the Eastern region.
The Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) has proposed to the I&B Ministry a framework to monitor the content of the over 300 FM radio stations in 91 cities that are expected to be operational within a year’s time.
As options to access TV content grow, the inevitable further fragmentation of audience is going to provide new challenges as well as opportunities for the Indian media industry. To help the industry understand the emerging Indian television landscape better, TAM, in its continuing series of 'Blink' educate sessions, has organised a industry seminar to hear and discuss the new scenario on April 4 in Mumbai. The industry seminar will feature L V Krishnan (CEO TAM India); Prasar Bharti's K S Sarma; Sunil Khanna (Dish TV); Vikram Sakhuja (Group M); Sudip Contractor (Scat); Jagjit Singh Kohli (WIN Cable) and Vikram Kaushik (Tata-Star DTH). The panel will be moderated by Amit Agnihotri, Co-founder and Director, exchange4media. IMRB International and TAM will also unveil findings of their DTH study.
The Times of India group has launched its supplement, Education Times, as a free add-on with The Economic Times in Chennai, from April 1. The fortnightly follows the launch of Auto Mania. Soon to follow is ET Realty, which will also be a fortnightly circulated with The Economic Times.
It’s celebration time for Bhaskar Group of Publications. The National Readership Survey (NRS 2005) had given the Bhaskar group a total readership figure of 2.25 crore for its publications Dainik Bhaskar and Divya Bhaskar. And Bhaskar Group has gone all out to celebrate this mark with its team and readers.
Ad Club Bombay’s 39th Abby Awards were held in Mumbai on March 31. The awards were mostly along expected lines with O&M being awarded the ‘Agency of the Year’ for the seventh consecutive year. But there was one surprise – JWT bagged the most golds.
<p align=justify>“FM is a local medium and it has to have a local flavor. It’s really not a good thing for the largest networks to go in for similar content across the country. It may sound like a cheaper option in the short run, but if you don’t address local issues in the local idiom, you can’t engage your listeners and you’ll lose their loyalty. You will end up with bland, mass-market cookie cutter programming, which turns people off FM altogether.”