ZEE5 Launches ‘ZEE5 CLUB’ @ ₹365/Year; Democratises Access To Premium Content For Every Indian

ZEE5, India’s Entertainment Super-app today announced the launch of ‘ZEE5 Club’, a unique proposition for every Indian @₹365/year. This is in line with its commitment to democratise access to bespoke content for diverse Indian audiences across genres, languages and a spectrum of devices.

ZEE5 Club, a complete OTT television entertainment pack is set to delight the consumers with exclusive access to most popular shows before telecast on TV,   apart from select ZEE5 and Alt Balaji shows, - 1000+ blockbuster movies, ZEE Zindagi shows and over 90+ Live TV channels. With ZEE5 Club, subscribers will be able to enjoy - engaging entertainment content without any intrusive ads and across devices.

Speaking about this new offering, Rahul Maroli, Senior Vice President and Head SVOD, ZEE5 India said, “We are a customer obsessed OTT platform and the launch of ZEE5 Club is a result of the feedback we received from our consumers. Furthermore, democratising access for all Indians to their favourite entertainment content, at a value price, was brewing as an idea for the longest time. With a strong consumer value proposition, ZEE5 Club will help us to board every Indian and provide them with a hyper-personalised and a seamless content viewing experience all at ₹365/year.”

The launch of ZEE5 Club would enable millions of Indians to sample their favourite TV shows and OTT exclusives at their convenience at an affordable price. The Club Pack has been created keeping in mind the platform’s diverse user behaviour, regional preferences and viewership patterns. 

Some of Zee’s popular TV shows like Kumum Bhagya and Kundali Bhagya in Hindi, Sembaruthi in Tamil, Jothe Jotheyali in Kannada and Mazya Navryachi Bayko in Marathi and many more would be now available on ZEE5 Club before telecast on Television, making anytime a new prime time for consumers to catch up on their favourite shows.

Sir David Attenborough’s Debut with Series Zoo Quest on Sony BBC Earth from July 19

“We were rebels”, said Young David Attenborough 66 years ago as he stepped into the world of natural history to bring one of the most pioneering and groundbreaking series - Zoo Quest. First broadcasted in 1954, Zoo Quest showcased the diversity of our beautiful planet by visiting parts of the natural world, as well as remote tribal communities, that were not filmed before. Not only did it change the way viewers saw the natural world but also launched Sir David Attenborough’s career as a wildlife presenter. 6 decades later, Sony BBC Earth brings a rare opportunity for his fans to re-visit Sir David Attenborough’s early adventures with ‘Zoo Quest in Colour’, and here’s why you shouldn’t miss out:

Launched 10 years before colour television even became available, Zoo Quest was originally broadcasted in black and white. However, using extraordinary 16 mm films, the series is now available in all colours and shades of the natural world

Coupled with behind-the-scene stories from David Attenborough and cameraman Charles Lagus, this series showcases the best of Zoo Quest in stunning HD colours for the very first time. Sir David reveals how they captured the incredible sequences back then and how the advancement of technology has enhanced our understanding of the natural world now

Sir David Attenborough was only 28 years old and Lagus 26 when they began filming the series and travelling to West Africa, Guiana, and Indonesia, in search of creatures to take back to London Zoo. They faced number of challenges and nerve-wrecking situations all through their journey

While filming Komodo Dragons on a remote island in Indonesia, Attenborough and Lagus faced a fatal situation and were stuck into a whirlpool when the boat they were travelling in hit a major tropical storm

Lagus describes the dangerous situation as: “Quite honestly neither of us were sure that we would ever see each other again, it was that dicey.”

Sir David Attenborough, remembering the old days said, “They were good days and I wouldn’t change them. Looking back, I don’t think anyone would let two kids in their 20s just go off like that and nobody asked us anything about health and safety or anything else. We just disappeared, and they said, when will you be back? Oh, just before Christmas, I think. Oh right-o, goodbye. So happy days.”

Watch the early adventures of Sir David Attenborough, the Godfather of natural history, in ‘Zoo Quest in Colour’ on 19th July at 9:00 pm only on Sony BBC Earth.

Airtel XStream App to "LIVE Stream Rath Yatra 2020" on Smartphones

Airtel mobile and broadband customers can now watch the proceedings on their smartphones and tablets by simply installing the FREE Airtel Xstream app 

As India observes social distancing norms, Airtel is bringing this year’s Rath Yatra to devotees on their smartphones in partnership with Shemaroo.

Airtel Xstream app will be LIVE streaming Rath Yatra 2020 from Puri enabling users to catch the proceedings on their smartphones or tablets, wherever they are. The LIVE stream will be available on an exclusive channel on the home page of the app. Users can also rewind and replay the LIVE stream as per their convenience.

1st July 2020 (8:00AM to 6:00PM) - Bahuda Yatra & Hari Sayana Ekadasi

2nd July 2020 (3:00PM – 11:00PM) - Sunabesa

3rd July 2020 (7:00PM – 10:00PM) - Adharpana Ritual

4th July 2020 (2:00PM – 10:00PM) - Niladri Bije 

Airtel Xstream, an india-first video network for premium digital content, is available to all Airtel customers as a FREE download on Playstore and App store.

The app offers over 10,000 movie and shows from India and across the world along with over 400 TV channels. Airtel Thanks customers can also access premium content from top content producers on Airtel Xstream app.        

Major slice of Web ads goes to social networking sites

About one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is viewed on a social networking Web site like MySpace and Facebook, according to a new report.

The report by analytics firm comScore underscores the increasing prominence of social media sites in the Internet landscape and broadening acceptance of the sites by brand advertisers.

It also illustrates the increasing competition between social media sites and established Internet companies like Yahoo Inc and Time Warner Inc's AOL which have long billed themselves as the top online destinations for brand advertisers.

The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 per cent of US Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 per cent of those ads.

"Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle," said Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore.

According to comScore, AT&T Inc, Experian Interactive and IAC/Interactive Corp's Ask Network were the top three advertisers on social networking sites in July.

While social media sites have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years -- Facebook is now the world's fourth-most visited Web site -- some observers have questioned whether the sites can be effectively monetized.

Because the content on social media sites is created by users, and could therefore prove racy or offensive, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content.

"They are sensitive to some extent, but nowhere near to the extent you might think," Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay said of advertisers.

The price of placing ads on social networking sites is significantly less than on a Web portal like Yahoo or AOL, said Lindsay. The vast amount of Web pages available on social networks means that advertisers can purchase a massive volume of ad impressions at bargain prices.

The strategy may not be ideally suited to smaller marketers, or advertisers seeking a direct response from their ads, said Lindsay.

"For big, national brands it works just fine, just like TV," said Lindsay. "It's a huge, huge volume game."

Agencies

Self rechargeable battery from Nokia soon

Nokia is in the process of developing a battery which can recharge itself when the phone has been kept on the standby mode. This technology will end the worries of the people, as the standby mode is always referred as a curse to the planet, reports the Guardian.

"A new prototype charging system from the company is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radio waves- the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us. The power harvested is small but it is almost enough to power a mobile in standby mode indefinitely without ever needing to plug it into the mains," said Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who have developed the device at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, U.K.

The Oyster cards used by the commuters in London are of the same phenomenon, powering themselves from radio waves emitted by the reader devices as they are swiped. And similarly old crystal radio sets and more recently modern radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which are increasingly used in shipping and as antitheft devices, are powered wholly by radio waves.

"The Nokia's prototype instead of harvesting tiny amounts of power (a few microwatts) from dedicated transmitters, it is able to collect relatively large amounts of discarded power around a thousand times more, even from miles away. Individually the energy available in each of these signals is miniscule. But by harvesting radio waves across a wide range of frequencies it all adds up," said Rouvala.

Similar kind of wireless transfer of energy was first demonstrated by Nikola Tesla in 1893, who was so taken up with the idea that he had attempted to build an intercontinental transmission tower to send power through wireless across the Atlantic. The antenna and the receiver circuit of Nokia are designed to pick up a wide range of frequencies - from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz - and convert the electromagnetic waves into an electrical current, as the second circuit is designed to feed this current to the battery to recharge it.

This will ensure that these circuits use less power than the amount that is being received,. Till now, the researchers have been able to harvest up to five milliwatts. Nokia's short-term goal is to get in excess of 20 milliwatts, which is enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely without having to recharge it. But this would not be enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call. The hope is to be able to get as much as 50 milliwatts, which would be sufficient to slowly recharge the battery.

"Radio frequency power falls off exponentially with distance," said Steve Beeby, an expert in harvesting ambient energy at the University of Southampton. "It would be a remarkable achievement," Beeby added.

Agencies

Is Ad spend moving into internet from TV, radio?

Global economic slowdown has led to cut in media advertisement spending for sure, but internet company Yahoo is seeing a silver-lining.

And in some sense, recession in advance markets may be a blessing in disguise for such companies as advertisers shift ad spend from television and radio to internet.

Yahoo's Co-Founder and Chief David Filo confirmed the trend. "Advertising. while there may be slow-down....it's not going away", he told reporters on the sidelines of Yahoo India R & D-organised second Open Hack Day in India here.

There are other factors, he said. "People consume increasingly more and more internet", as opposed to television and radio, he argued. "People are moving that attention (from television and radio) to internet; that shift is going to increase (further)".

Particularly in times of economic slowdown, advertisers are shifting their ad spend to internet, Filo said. Internet advertising is "measurable" and, so, advertisers are "much more amenable" (to put more dollars into internet advertising)".

CEO of Yahoo India R & D, Sharad Sharma, said broadband access in India needs to improve, while PC penetration needs to be much faster. "Internet growth is modest (in India)", he said.

Agencies