Turner expects to rake in more revenues from new media streams

Sravanthi Challapalli

Chennai, Nov. 1

Turner International India, which has been actively pursuing distribution of its content on various new media, expects revenue from these streams to grow by 30 per cent in 2010-11.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Siddharth Jain, the company's Vice-President and Deputy General Manager (Distribution & Business Operations – South Asia), said the new media (such as mobile phone, DTH, Internet and video-on-demand) business had grown by 15 per cent in 2009-10. Traditional media – analogue, digital cable and DTH TV – contributes around 95 per cent of the revenue. New media now contributes 5 per cent.

In line with Turner's “anytime, anywhere” strategy (which aims to fulfil consumers' need for watching content of their choice at a time and on a device convenient to them), the company's Indian arm has been tying up with a number of local companies such as mobile TV company Apalya Technologies (for looped service of Pogo and Cartoon Network as well as ‘near live' relay of CNNi), Jump and iXL for content creation and gaming since the last 18 months. Very recently, it tied up with Hungama Digital, to distribute its content. “As the consumer travels forward, more doors open for us to put out our content,” said Mr Jain.

Mr Troy Lobo, Director (Wireless, Interactive Content Development and Distribution - South Asia), said the tie-up with Hungama will help enhance Turner's reach on the mobile platform. Turner will leverage Hungama's relationships with mobile phone operators and makers, OEMs and memory card manufacturers, its expertise in putting pre-loaded memory chips on mobile phones and its ability to retail content through Internet stores and on DTH TV through mobile stores. “The audience is so fragmented, it's imperative we are available on these devices,” he said.

Quoting Cartoon Network's New Generations study, Mr Lobo said over 63 per cent of children in India use the mobile phone at least once a week (their parents' or older siblings'). There is “voracious consumption” of services on that medium, he says, adding that it was borne out by the fact that when Turner launched the Ben10 mobile game, there were over 1.5 million downloads and game plays. When the Chota Bheem boat racing game was put on the mobile and the Internet, there were close to 4 lakh (within two months) and seven lakh downloads (within a month). With 3G, there will be growth in the number of people who can access data/entertainment on mobile phones and the user experience will be richer, he said. Mr Jain observed that wireless applications have always had more success and grown more rapidly than their ‘wired' counterparts. He points to the spread of DTH TV in India, which, despite scepticism, has notched up 24 million subscribers already and is expected to total 44 million by 2015, making the country the largest DTH market.


Similarly, with mobile phones, where at 8 million handsets a month, the growth has outpaced that of fixed line telephones.

In the future, CN gaming channels will be available shortly on DTH operators in India. Work on VOD channels and negotiations with DTH players to launch CN in HD are in progress. Turner is also evaluating content for 3D broadcast in Atlanta and has tied up with Samsung for the global launch of its interactive TV – wherein widgets will be embedded on the TV screens and consumers can watch the content which will be served for them through the server.