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Re-branding of Sony Television

Kanupriya — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:22:32 +0000

I got the chance to catch up on television tonight after almost 3-4 weeks & when I saw the complete video “ghar aayi hai khushi” today I realized that it’s a promo video of Sony channel itself. I liked the video, have watched it earlier in bits & piece but somehow because of this line “ghar aayi hai khushi” I used to think it’s a promo campaign of yet another crappy soap from Sony. But few minutes on that channel and I think I was very pleasantly surprised.

I wasn’t aware that Sony has gone for such a major facelift in last 3-4 weeks. Yes, Sony did create a noise during IPL with its “Badal Rahe Hain Hum” campaign but it was good to see this badlaav not only in terms of just a branding campaign but overall programming too. They have launched fresh content during prime time and for a change this time they have taken themselves away from saas-bahu, typical Indian family sagas or singing-dancing reality shows. I got the chance to go through two out of their five (Rani Padmini, Palampur Express, Bhaskar Bharti, Ladies Special & Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega ) new programs and I liked both of them. They looked fresh & appealing.

I think this re-branding exercise was much needed from Sony. Once a number 1 channel, they had really lost the game to their competitors over a period of time. Not only they lacked the pull in their existing content, they were lacking innovation in their new content too. After all, for how long only Indian Idol or CID could have helped them sail through the competition? I as a viewer don’t remember when was the last time I would have watched any program with interest on Sony. And with some millions of singing reality shows I had lost complete interest in the last season of Indian Idol as well. Now let’s see if this re-launch of Sony really helps them in upping their ratings once again. The last total GRP rating which I had read was definitely not having Sony in top 3. These slots were occupied by Star, Colors & Zee as per TRP ratings for the week ending 13^th June’09. But then it was hardly 2-3 weeks since they had launched their new programs. So, would be good to observe the future ratings & fate of this re-branding campaign of Sony.

Javed Jaffrey

udaywordp — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:22:46 +0000

Javed Jaffrey is a famous comedian in Bollywood. But our directors identified him as a villain only at the starting of his career. He is son of actor Jagdeep. He started his career with a negative role in Meri Jung.

He continued his career with negative roles and supporting characters only. But his television shows changed his fate.

He became popular with MTV shows. He also got fame with the dance show Boogie-Wogie in Sony Television. After getting a huge fan following with comic T.V shows, directors started giving comedian roles to Javed.

He attracted many people with his good acting in Deepa Mehta’s first three films Sam & Me, Fire and Earth.

For the film Salaam Namaste he recieved IIFA Best Comedian Award. Recently we saw him in Singh is Kinng and Shaurya. As Mika Singh he competed with Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar) in Singh Is Kinng.

At present he is working for the films Chai Garam, City Of Life and Hello Darling. He will also be seen in 8×10 Tasveer.

Sony's IPL Adsense

achettup — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:47:35 +0000

About this time last year, everyone was in awe when they heard Sony had won the broadcasting rights for the IPL for over a whopping billion dollars over ten years. It seemed highly unlikely that they would get back their $100 million for each edition of the IPL, quite an outrageous amount for any domestic cricket tournament. Some might say it was quite a brave bid by Sony after the disastrous 2007 World Cup, others might say it was necessary.

Actually that last paragraph isn’t entirely accurate (I think) since that was a deal between the World Sports Group – a joint venture, by Nine Network and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, that is based in singapore – and the BCCI. WSG then subleased the contract to Multi Screen Media, formerly known as Sony Entertainment Television (SET), for a 5 year period.

But anyway, the gist of the matter is the BCCI terminated Sony’s contract on the basis that it had violated provisions related to the quality of the broadcast by cutting from live play and replays to commercials. This isn’t probably the real reason, more on that later, but still raises some interesting questions.

First its absolutely fantastic to know the BCCI has these provisions in place, but then that makes you wonder why they haven’t enforced this in previous shoddy broadcasts, or if they did, why nobody heard about it?
Sony was willing to pay extra (a fine maybe) for violating “the integrity of the broadcast” and wanted a non terminable deal. Does this mean that the BCCI has in the past just allowed this to happen at a higher price in effect, by levying fines?

As usual there’s more to it than meets the eye. BigTV, owned by Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group, pulled out of a deal with the IPL because Sony had reached an agreement with one of their competitors. Things got worse apparently when one of Modi’s friends was forced to step down from Sony apparently, if you’re interested in all those juicy details read the cricinfo articles and google it. All this means then is that this provision to penalize a broadcaster for not adhering to quality is used only when someone in the BCCI sees an opportunity… not necessarily (and quite possibly not at all) related to whether we the common viewer are offended by it.

Which is why I was positively shocked to hear Sony would not only broadcast this year’s (and the next 8 editions after it) IPL, but had also paid double the amount the contract was worth last year. To the conspiracy theorist in me, suddenly the whole thing stank. Last year the deal was worth around $1 billion, but because the dollar was worth about Rs 40, the deal effectively came close to Rs4000 crores (for those unfamiliar with the term, a crore is 10 million.) The new deal, a partnership between MSM and WSG for 8200 crores is effectively $1.64 billion since the dollar is now worth Rs 50.

Maybe all of this is irrelevant since we don’t really have access to the BCCI’s balance sheets, but at first glance it is staggering that Sony would bid that much more (and for a year less), especially since many people suspect broadcasters hardly make much money with these deals. I wasn’t sure about that. Nobody invests that kind of money without expecting some sort of a good return. Sony has bet big on the IPL, but unlike the past when they tried the same thing with World Cups and ended up with massive losses, this time it might not be such a bad bet because:

The IPL guarantees around 60 matches a year which will be followed by roughly the entire country unlike the gambles that one team would make the final
The IPL will always be shown on prime time
It is realistic to expect it’s popularity to grow
Its not just about cricket, it combines cricket and bollywood and will arguably draw more than just the tradional cricket crazy fans

So I took off my tin foil hat and sat down with a pen and piece of paper. I decided to compare the amount bid directly with amount Sony would have to charge advertisers to break even on the deal:

The bid is 8200 crores over 9 years, or roughyl 911.11 crores for every edition of the IPL.

There will roughly be 60 IPL matches a year, so that equates to around or over 15 crores per match. (you can probably adjust it to 60 anyway considering some matches like the finals, knockouts are worth more than others).

They usually try to squeeze a minute of ads between overs, a minute or two for the fall of a wicket and other delays, so roughly 19 x 2 + 15 (assuming a minute for 15 wickets on average) + 5 (other delays) = 58 minutes of Ads, over 3 hours, not bad huh. It could well be a lot lower, but I’m deliberately trying to give them the best case. Lets also assume that in half hour preview and conclusion shows, they show ten minutes each worth of ads (I don’t know if these are charged at lower rates than “live” or “in-match” play).

So we can take this to roughly 80 minutes of ads in a 4 hour show. So they have to make 15 crores over 80 minutes of ads, or roughly need to charge close to Rs 19 lakhs per minute (1 lakh = 100,000) , or $37,500 per minute. Sounds like a lot right? Well, I’ve seen reports in the past which said something to the effect that broadcasters took rates to Rs 16 lakhs/minute when India got to the finals of the world cup. Obviously, rates will be different for different types of matches. But standard rates I think are closer to 3lakhs/minute (please do correct me if I’m wrong). While this might sound a bit high today it could end up being a bargain 5 years from now, who knows?

It depends on a lot of things of course and no one can really predict what’s going to happen, but the IPL certainly does seem to be as certain a commercial success as almost anything else going around. Note also that I have only compared the bid to the amount it is worth in advertisements per minute… I have not considered Sony’s operational, labor, promotional and other costs nor have I considered the revenue they will earn from all those new channels who want to show parts of the matches (they do charge for that, right?), their stupid segments about sixes, man of the match, partnerships etc which will be named after some title sponsors etc.

And also, I honestly don’t know if they will be able to squeeze in 80 minutes of prime time advertisements, although many of you might even think they get a lot more. You’re probably beginning to appreciate why you miss the first ball and last ball of every over, something the BCCI thought was a good enough reason to terminate the contract. Actually you can never appreciate that.

But still, do you think they’ll actually make money on it, even an obscene amount? I’m not sure, but the deal certainly doesn’t reek as much as I thought it would when I first heard about it. Still, smart move to get them to renegotiate when quite possibly your own calculations project that you may not have gotten the best deal last year. Opportunistic nitpicking might actually have had more to do with it than all those conspiracy theories.

VATICAN TO BOYCOTT TOM HANKS

digitaldreamkidcom — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:41:30 +0000

Tom Hank’s latest flick, Angels & Demons, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, is receiving strong opposition from the Vatican.

According to Avvenire, the Vatican’s official newspaper, the church “cannot approve” the film. Another Italian newspaper claims the Vatican will soon call for Catholics worldwide to boycott the flick.

However, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis is worried that boycotting the movie will create a “boomerang effect” by giving it more publicity.

Guess the Pope and his posse are still bothered by the fact that the book and movie suggested Jesus had secretly married that “whore”, Mary Magdalene.

Jesus loves all – some more than others!

Even last year, while filming, the Vatican banned filmmakers from entering the Holy City or any church in Rome really. So one of the movie’s key scenes, set inside church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, had to be filmed on a soundstage.

According to a Vatican spokesman, Father Marco Fibbi, he said, “Usually we read the script but in this case it wasn’t necessary. Just the name Dan Brown was enough.”

The flick hits theaters worldwide this May 15th.

We bet the Vatican will be watching it in secret!

Just $24.99 a month can change your life

emilyallvoitester — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:45:37 +0000

ALLVOI

Here is ALLVOI, a broadband calling service with Internet & VOIP facility, which offers free long distance and international calling service and free 1300 minutes call to India for just $24.99 a month.

It must be a great news for all the NRIs, especially the 1300 minutes free offer. Its amazing trust me. Not only for the NRIs but also for the Americans. It also offers unlimited US local, long distance and international calling to 65 different destinations.

This World Discount Telecommunications (WDT) expedites long distance and international calling service. I am sure you have seen the ads on Zee TV, Sony Television, Star Plus and Sahara One. Trust me guys, its awesome!!!

So stop paying 10, 15 or 20 cents per minute, and start enjoying all the money you will save with ALL INDIA 1300 International Unlimited!

To know more about ALLVOI, log on to www.allvoi.com/india or call 1-888-576-7033 and find out more.

ALLVOI INTRODUCES NEW CALLING PLAN WITH 1300 FREE MINUTES TO INDIA

emilyallvoitester — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:11:25 +0000

ALLVOI

This new plan is really a commendable plan by

ALLVOI. It offers 1300 free minutes to India just for $24.99 a month.

It is the plan of choice for South Asian callers who want a huge comfort zone when they pick up the phone to call India and I am one of them. 1300 minutes per month is a lot of talk time for only $24.99 for the life of the plan. That’s 43 minutes to Indian landlines and cell phones every day of the month. It offer is simply awesome.

This offer translates into an effective rate of 1.9 cents per minute when you calculate 1.9 cents per minute . If you want to talk more, go right ahead, additional minutes after your first 1300 minutes are only 2.2 cents.

Ads are shown on ZeeTV, Sony Television, Star Plus and Sahara One. It has given exclusive customer service, technical service, and strong telecom in business since 1997.

For more information on making high-quality calls to India, go to: www.allvoi.com/india or call the ALLVOI customer service center at 1-888-576-7033.

ALLVOI

Clearance Sony KDL-46W3000 and Sony BDP-S500.

pacificsalesman — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:31:49 +0000

Sony KDL-46W3000
$1294. +tax

Sony BDP-S500
$174. +tax (Sold Out)

While supplies last. Limited to stock on the floor. We have 4 units of the television and 3 of the Blu-ray player. No rainchecks or special orders. Call Erno Mabini at (702)435-2378 for inquiries.

Dear Craigs List, Je t'adore! Love, CWG

curlywurlygurly — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:55:02 +0000

I positively adore Craigs List, but admit to being a bit nervous about the lack of apostrophe in Craigs.

Husban-dito and I have been playing our new Wii on a teeny-tiny television up in ‘his’ room for the last few days. I really wanted to bring the Wii downstairs into the den, but the tv we have in there (for karaoke purposes only) is a relic from 1996 and the picture is going green around the perimeter.

In an moment of inspiration, I checked out Craigs List figuring that people bought new televisions for Christmas and were looking to unload their old ones. It was a TV bonanza and in 24 hours, Husban-dito and I became the proud owners of a 32″ Sony for cheapy-cheap!

The caveat–the television weighs about 170 pounds and my arm may have been dislocated while straining to carry it the ten feet from the car into the den. ( I pulled the car up on the lawn like Sanford and Son–it was hilarious.)

Have you ever used Craigs List?!?!

BEHOLD, our new television (pic taken on a funny angle so you wouldn’t be treated to an image of my pajama-clad self in the reflection):

Nokia 6220 Classic – Too Classic & Catchy

goodluckgoodtime — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:18:04 +0000

The Nokia 6220 Classic has classified a distinct niche for itself in the mobile market. This is one of the triumph cards of Nokia from its classic range to evidently speak why Nokia has remained at the peak of the popularity in the mobile market. The 6220 proves that light weight structure of the phone should not be mistaken to be regarded as a phone with little features. Its super light body structure is loaded with massive ranges of specifications that hardly allow its users to miss any of the specifications that other bulky phones are designed with. Though plastic casing that its exterior dons have failed to claim appreciations from mobile critics and consumers. This is the reason why, this phone has lost one or a couple of stars in the mobile phone reviews. However, due to its features and functionalities, this ‘Classic’ collection of Nokia has been able to compensated losses and convinced phone critics and customers to remark that this is truly a smart and classic phone to grab.

So what do you expect from this Classic range of mobile phone from Nokia? You name it and be glad to find it integrated with the phone. Today’s discerning mobile customers are no more satisfied with a mobile phone with just camera, music player, radio, gaming options or so. They look for specifications to make the phone excel as a camera to take the best still and video shots, play all kinds of music, features to guide them locating their numbers as easily as geographical locations to steer their cars toward right directions and many more. Well, Nokia knows what their customers well and what they want. And they have applied their knowledge thoroughly while designing its devices. The Nokia 6220 Classic is evidently a classic example of this fact. Therefore, let us begin highlighting the points those have made it a completely compatible to the wish list of contemporary mobile customers. This 3G enabled mobile phone is integrated with GPS navigational ability. Inclusion of Nokia Maps 2.0 GPS software helps the users in collecting precise data about the traffic condition of all the highways, urban streets, rural paths to come on your way.

The camera configuration of this Nokia 6220 Classic incorporates CMOS 5 megapixels with high resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels, 20x digital zoom plus Carl Zeiss Optics, Auto Focus, Xenon Flash, Self Timer, Red-Eye Reduction. With all these features loaded, no wonder why and how this handset is excellent in taking and producing still images. For shooting video images, the phone has a resolution of 640 x 480 pixel and 10x video zoom which are equally sufficient. The phone supports myriad formats of videos too from 3GPP formats, Flash Video, H.264/AVC, MPEG-4, RealVideo. Likewise, the music player with this phone is able to play all formats including AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+, AMR-NB and AMR-WB, MIDI Tones and SP-MIDI, MP3, MP4 and M4A, Mobile XMF, RealAudio, True tones, WMA and WAV.

You may control sound output through Audio Equaliser. Hence, whatsoever be the type of your favourite track, download and save it to play on your handy music player in Nokia 6220 Classic. The microSD memory allocation of up to 8 GB will enable you store numerous songs in this music player or mobile phone. When you will be wanting to check out latest music through radio, switch on FM radio which is integrated with RDS data providing capability. This handset is packed with connectivity features to make this phone compatible to various devices. These features include Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR and Bluetooth Stereo headset, high speed USB 2.0 and USB mass storage etc.

[CEDIA 2008] Sony Debutes LCD Television With 240HZ Frame Rate

claudiomeira — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:15:29 +0000

Also Introduces Super-Slim 40-inch LCD Monitor With a Depth of a Blu-ray Disc Jewel Case Sony contin

Sony's 1,000,000:1 contrast BRAVIAs launch in Japan October 10

claudiomeira — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:12:19 +0000

Sony’s XBR6 / XBR7 / XBR8 models are still waiting in the wings for their U.S. debut, but alon

Sony, Samsung to Spend US $1.8B on New LCD Line

claudiomeira — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:10:50 +0000

Sony and Samsung are reaffirming their alliance in LCD (liquid crystal display) panel manufacturing

Margarita Henriquez is the new Latin American Idol!!!

kalengirl — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:44:10 +0000

YEAH!! THE BEST SINGER EVER! MARGARITA HENRIQUEZ FROM PANAMA (LOS SANTOS) WON LATIN AMERICAN IDOL!!

Comic-book mastermind Ed Brubaker to pen series for Crackle.com

Gary Sundt — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:43:36 +0000

AWARD-WINNING COMICS MASTERMIND ED BRUBAKER AND CRACKLE.COM TEAM UP FOR LIVE ACTION SERIES Zoë Bel

Sony’s Stringer Shows Next Generation OLED Screen: 0.3 MM Thick, Thinner Than A Credit Card

claudiomeira — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:01:35 +0000

All Things Digital conference, Sony (SNE) CEO Howard Stringer, who comes out to the opening notes of

Sony Redfines LCD Picture Quality with New XBR HDTV Line

claudiomeira — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:00:36 +0000

Sony today introduced seven new BRAVIA® XBR flat-panel LCD high-definition televisions including mo

Sony Set Max Still Sucks

Vijay — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:25:21 +0000

I had bleated about this one before (Can someone tell SET Max that their timing sucks)

SET Max are the official channel of the IPL…. AND THEY STILL SUCK at cricket broadcasting.

Looks like they want to milk ad revenues so much so that they still cut off the commentators mid way.Looks like the “Einstien” in charge has told his guys that the IPL has 5 ball overs. So many times we don’t see the last ball.

Plus I think SET Max has hired ex-Doordarshan camera folk. The camera swings to the boundary even when the batsman has played a defensive shot.

Last time I had ranted about the dancing tiger who came and did a jig everytime there was a boundary. This times theres an Ad from Vodafone that appears as a ticker and some loud Bhangra music…RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF PLAY… I can understand the ticker (need to milk airtime revenue)…. BUT WHY MUSIC ????? !!!!!

Learn from ESPN/Star Sports $%^&**$###

UPDATE: Someone else has similar views on the advertising.

Enquete: Na sua opinião qual emissora de tv tem o melhor site?

Revista Online ;-) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:10:24 +0000

Na sua opinião entre as emissoras mais conhecidas do brasil qual delas tem o melhor site e por que??

Sony Invests $203.5M in OLED

claudiomeira — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:29:04 +0000

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese consumer electronics maker Sony Corp said on Tuesday it will spend

Sony Dumps Rear Projection TV

claudiomeira — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:45:26 +0000

Sony will exit the rear projection TV category to focus on flat-panel LCD TV after current inventori

HDDVD: Get a shovel and a Pine box now!

claudiomeira — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:40:08 +0000

Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD-DVD following Warner Brothers’ recent backing of

Plasma and LCD TVs getting thinner

claudiomeira — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:43:37 +0000

Ultra-thin flat panel displays were the highlight of this year’s International Consumer Electr