MirriAd announce strategic investment including new funding from Asia Today Ltd and ZEE

28 March 2013: Digital brand integration specialist MirriAd today announced a strategic investment from Asia Today Ltd (ATL) and ZEE, a deal led by Indian media entrepreneur Subhash Chandra and brokered by David Glick, CEO of entertainment and media business fund manager, and existing shareholder Edge Investment Management (Edge).

Chandra is one of Asia’s most successful entrepreneurs with interests encompassing media, telecoms, theme parks, online gaming, packaging and commodities among others. The ZEE network he founded, now operates across all five continents and is one of the largest media businesses in Asia today.

This strategic investment between ATL and ZEE will see MirriAd deployed across India and other markets in the Asia region on broadcast, cable and satellite, and follows the success of campaigns by Zee TV in the UK, which used MirriAd technology to seamlessly integrate UK brands into the Indian-produced popular daily soap Pavitra Rishta. ZEE has 400,000 hours of programming available in six languages across the world and it aims to double its current reach of 670 million viewers in the 169 countries, to which it broadcasts.

Product placement has historically been realised at the point of production. MirriAd’s digital solution means brands can be integrated into programming remotely and independently of production schedules. This MirriAd platform offers brands the opportunity to target huge audiences across many countries with ease and across a wide variety of content locally, regionally and globally.

Edge founder David Glick said, “The results of MirriAd’s technology have to be seen to be believed, and with deregulation of product placement taking place around the world, the potential is enormous. We are delighted to welcome a businessman of the calibre of Subhash Chandra on board as a co-investor.”

MirriAd CEO Mark Popkiewicz said, “This is an exciting and important development for MirriAd. Asia and in particular India represents an incredibly important growth market with enormous potential for our bespoke technology for both media owners and brands. With a high GDP growth rate and a population of over 1.21 billion, India is a must have market for brands. Edge is an active and supportive investor with immense entertainment industry knowledge, and to have Subhash Chandra together with ZEE and ATL commit to our future is a significant endorsement of our vision.”

ZEE Chairman Subhash Chandra adds, “MirriAd’s technology offers ZEE and ATL a great opportunity to integrate locally relevant brands across all our territories, who knows, we might even be able to create an ad-free channel before long “.

About MirriAd Limited | www.mirriad.com
Launched in early 2008 by CEO Mark Popkiewicz, previously a director of BBC Ventures, MirriAd aims to revolutionize product placement for the digital era. MirriAd has developed an end-to-end platform able to digitally integrate brands into professionally produced video content at scale. MirriAd’s platform analyses content, creates inventory and delivers campaigns together with audience engagement and supporting analytics. MirriAd’s digital integrations have been extensively researched and proven to achieve excellent results for brands whilst positively impacting production values and the viewer experience on line and on TV.

Headquartered in London with offices in Mumbai, MirriAd is privately owned with institutional investors including Edge Investment Management, Edge Group, Oxford Technology Management, Oxford Capital Partners, STV Group PLC, Seraphim Capital and South East Growth Fund and notable angel investors Bruce Smith and Stephen Bullock.

About Asia Today Limited (ATL)
Asia Today Limited (ATL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEE). ATL is an owner of television signals being distributed to the South Asian community across various countries through local agents. Its registered headquarters is at Ebene House, 33, Second Floor, Cybercity Ebene, Mauritius.

About Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (“ZEE”) | www.zeetelevision.com
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEE) is one of India’s leading television media and entertainment companies. It is amongst the largest producers and aggregators of Hindi programming in the world, with an extensive library housing over 100,000+ hours of original television content. With rights to more than 3,000 movie titles from foremost studios and of iconic film stars, ZEE houses the world’s largest Hindi film library. Through its strong presence worldwide, ZEE entertains over 670+ million viewers across 169 countries. ZEE was selected Business Superbrands 2010-11, Industry Validated.

Pioneer of television entertainment industry in India, ZEE’s well known brands include Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Premier, Zee Action, Zee Classic, Zee Smile, 9X, Ten Sports, Ten Cricket, Ten Action, Ten Golf, Zee Cafe, Zee Studio, Zee Trendz, Zee Jagran, Zee Salaam, Zing, ETC Music and Zee Khana Khazana. The company also has a strong offering in the regional language domain with channels such as Zee Marathi, Zee Talkies, Zee Bangla, Zee Bangla Cinema, Zee Telugu, Zee Kannada, Zee Tamizh and ETC Punjabi. The company’s recently launched HD offerings include Zee TV HD, Zee Cinema HD, Zee Studio HD and Ten HD.

ZEE and its affiliate companies have leading presence across the media value chain including television broadcasting, cable distribution, direct-to-home satellite services, digital media, multiplexes, amusement parks and print media amongst others.

Media Contact:
Jayshree Kumar – Mumbai / Abhishek Agrawal – Delhi
Corporate Brand – ZEE
Mobile: 97692 86661 / 98114 38591

(April 2, 2013) LONDON: ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) has inked a slew of deals involving more than 500 hours of content with broadcasters in Australia and New Zealand.

Foxtel went for 360 hours of lifestyle programming for such Australian networks as The LifeStyle Channel, LifeStyle FOOD, LifeStyle HOME and LifeStyle YOU. The deals include the seventh season of the U.K.’s Come Dine with Me (ITV Studios), as well as the second seasons of the show’s Canadian and South African versions, which are produced by Proper TV and Rapid Blue, respectively. There is also the 11th season of Hell’s Kitchen USA (ITV Studios America), season four of Four Weddings UK (ITV Studios), May the Best House Win: UK season 5 (ITV Studios), UK Abroad (ITV Studios) and Four Houses USA (ITV Studios America).

Read more at World Screen

(April 3, 2013) The campaign to promote the launch of two channels – HBO Defined and HBO Hits – by HBO Asia and Eros International Media has started. The premium advertising-free movie channels plan to redefine the pay TV movie space in the country.

The channels available on DTH operators – Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV – bring the best of Hollywood and Bollywood together. The channels are currently on air and are available for a free preview in the initial phase of the launch.

HBO Defined and HBO Hits will showcase content through HD and SD feeds on Dish TV and SD feed on Airtel Digital TV. These will be offered at a special introductory price of Rs 49 and Rs 69 for SD and HD services, respectively.

Read more at MxM India

Asia Broadcast Satellite Appoints Felix Damiba as the Managing Director of Africa.

Hong Kong, 1ST April 2013 – Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) announced the appointment of Felix Damiba as the Managing Director of Africa. In this newly created position, Felix will be responsible for business development, managing sales and operations for the African market.

Tom Choi, Chief Executive Officer of ABS said, “We are delighted to have Felix join us at ABS. Felix brings more than 30 years of experience in the industry and will demonstrate strong leadership skills in various disciplines to bring ABS’s presence in Africa to another level. He will be responsible for business development, sales, and project and service management. We are confident that Felix’s experience in sales and customer relations as well as his high standard of service delivery will help our future expansion for this growing region.”

Mr Damiba was the Sales Director at Comtech EF Data with a strong track record for both commercial and government clients for the African region. He also held various positions in Sales and Engineering with Intelsat and was the CTO of National Telecommunications of Burkina Faso. Felix holds an MBA from Loyola College in Maryland, and a Master of Science in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest.

About Asia Broadcast Satellite

Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) is one of the fastest growing premium satellite operators in the world. ABS offers a complete range of tailored solutions including broadcasting, cellular backhaul, VSAT and Internet backbone services with diverse IP transit through its Asian, African, European and the Middle East internet gateways. ABS’ satellite fleet includes four satellites (ABS-1, ABS-1A, ABS-3 and ABS-7) with its fifth satellite (ABS-2) scheduled to launch 2H 2013. The ABS-2 satellite will be located in geostationary orbit at 75˚East. Fitted with up to 89 active C, Ku, and Ka-band transponders, it will provide optimized direct TV broadcast, multimedia applications, telecommunications and data transmission services for Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Russia/CIS countries.

ABS has also ordered two new Boeing 720SP satellites with the options to add more satellites over the next 2-3 years to its growing satellite fleet

(March 23, 2013) The strong infrastructure system and the experience in market development of telecom groups will make them the redoubtable rivals to the existing cable TV service providers, including the national VTV.

The biggest advantage of the existing TV enterprises lies in the content production. Meanwhile, this proves to be the biggest disadvantage of telecom groups once their join the TV market.

However, telcos have a great advantage in transmission, which is the biggest disadvantage of the current TV enterprises. It’s obviously an impossible mission for TV enterprises to build up the transmission lines to provide services to every household in communes and villages.

Therefore, TV enterprises anticipate that they would be inferior to telcos when the telcos join the pay-TV market. As soon as telcos expressed their intention to jump into the market, TV enterprises raised a campaign to prevent telcos from entering their land.

In a document sent to competent agencies, the alliance of TV enterprises, headed by VTV, accused Viettel, VNPT and FPT, the big telcos planning to jump into the pay-TV market, of making investment in non-core business fields, thus coming contrary to the government’s policy which says that state owned enterprises need to gather their strength on the main business fields.

Read more at Business Times

(26-03-2013) Online video cloud content services provider Brightcove has announced the availability of its Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service designed to remove the barriers to multiscreen live streaming.

The service is delivered in the form of an open API designed to allow content providers to scale live encoding resources and produce adaptive bitrate streams without significant investments in on-premise hardware.

Read more at Rapid TV News 

HBO GAME OF THRONES ART EXHIBITION IN SINGAPORE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Featuring Art Pieces By Singapore-Based Artists And Mondo’s World Renowned Artists

Inspired By The Award-Winning HBO Original Series GAME OF THRONES

SINGAPORE, MARCH 26, 2013 – In conjunction with the premiere of the highly-anticipated third season of the HBO Original Series, GAME OF THRONES, HBO Asia is proud to present the HBO Game Of Thrones Art Exhibition for the first time in Asia. Featuring art pieces by Singapore-based artists and a range of poster art from Mondo’s GAME OF THRONES collection, the exhibition will be open for public viewing from April 6 to 13 at The Luxe Art Museum, Singapore.

Three local designers, kittozutto, PHUNK and Roy Poh, Beautiful have each been commissioned by HBO Asia to produce a GAME OF THRONES series-inspired poster art exclusively for this exhibition, which will also showcase Mondo’s poster series collection for the acclaimed HBO series by world renowned artists – Craig Drake, Daniel Danger, JC Richard, Jock, Ken Taylor, Kilian Eng, Phantom City Creative, Richey Beckett, and Vania Zouravliov.

As part of a charity initiative, the full range of art pieces at the HBO Game Of Thrones Art Exhibition will be auctioned, with bids collected at the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition. Limited edition prints of the local artists’ art will also be on sale at S$50 each. Proceeds from the silent auction and sale of the limited edition posters will be donated to The Design Society scholarship for design students.

“As part of our efforts to promote the critically-acclaimed, award-winning series, we are thrilled to bring the HBO Game Of Thrones Art Exhibition to Singapore, the first time Mondo’s GAME OF THRONES collection is being exhibited in Asia,” said Magdalene Ew, Head of Marketing, Creative and Content, HBO Asia. “Fans of the hit HBO Original series GAME OF THRONES now have the chance to take home a bit of Westeros, and for a good cause – by bidding for their favorite art pieces, with proceeds from the auction going to charity.

Event name: HBO Game of Thrones Art Exhibition
Where: The Luxe Art Museum, 6 Handy Road, #02-01, The Luxe, Singapore 229234
When: April 6 to 13, 11am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free

Based in Austin, TX, Mondo is the collectible art division of Alamo Drafthouse championed for bringing art back to movie poster design. They produce limited edition, screen printed posters based on all things film, television and comic properties including Star Wars, The Avengers, DC Comics, Back to the Future and Universal Monsters.

GAME OF THRONES is an epic Emmy® award winning HBO drama series set in the grounded fantasy continent of Westeros, where ambitious men and women of both honor and ill-repute live in a land where summers and winters can last years. Based on the bestselling book series by George R.R. Martin, the GAME OF THRONES cast is led by Emmy® winner Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, and Emilia Clarke, among other returning regulars.

The new season of GAME OF THRONES premieres on Asian television on Saturday, April 20, at 9pm exclusively on HBO (StarHub TV Ch 601) / HBO HD (StarHub TV Ch 655). Brand new episodes air weekly at the same time. From April 8, viewers can catch up on past seasons of the series on HBO On Demand (StarHub TV Ch 602), free to subscribers of THE HBO PAK. The new season of GAME OF THRONES can also be viewed on HBO GO, currently available to subscribers in Hong Kong, 12 hours after its March 31, 2013 US debut. For more playtimes, log on to hboasia.com.

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About HBO ASIA

Singapore-based HBO Asia is able to bring the best of Hollywood to Asia first because of its exclusive licensing deals with major Hollywood studios – Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros., as well as a large number of major independent studios. HBO Asia has proprietary and award-winning HBO Original programs that are produced exclusively for HBO viewers. HBO Asia offers a bouquet of channels and services including 24-hour commercial-free subscription movie channels in standard-definition and high-definition – HBO, HBO SIGNATURE, HBO FAMILY and HBO HITS – as well as HBO GO, HBO ON DEMAND, CINEMAX and RED. HBO Asia is the exclusive distributor of BabyFirst and WarnerTV in Asia and a joint venture of HBO (a Time Warner company) and Paramount. Log on to www.hboasia.com for more information.

Game of Thrones, HBO and Home Box Office are service marks of Home Box Office, Inc. Used with permission.

Celestial Tiger Entertainment Licenses Over 1700 Hours of Lionsgate’s TV Series and Feature Films to Asian Broadcasters and Platforms

Licensing Deals Reflect Increased Demand For Lionsgate Content In Growing Asian Marketplace

Hong Kong (March 26, 2013) – Celestial Tiger Entertainment (CTE), one of Asia’s largest vertically integrated independent entertainment companies, announced today that it closed licensing deals for over 1700 hours of Lionsgate’s ( NYSE: LGF) TV series and feature films with broadcasters and entertainment platforms in Southeast Asia and Greater China in calendar 2012. Highlights of these licensing deals include the sale of Mad Men Season 5 to FOX International Channels (FIC), Anger Management to Comedy Central Asia, Boss to HBO Asia and Nashville to beTV and Sony Entertainment Television (SET) as well as a slate of current and upcoming feature films to HBO Asia and FIC.

“The scope of our recent licensing deals reflects the tremendous appetite for Lionsgate content in the Asian marketplace,” said Wendy Reeds, CTE’s Executive Vice President, Content Sales and Distribution. “It’s exciting to represent some of the most-talked about series and movies of the past year and I’m pleased we have found ideal homes for them in Asia. Comedy Central is perfect for Anger Management’s irreverent humor, HBO Asia will add to their critically-acclaimed series with Boss, Nashville will appeal to beTV’s and SET’s targeted female audience, and Mad Men will continue to air first on FX.”

Mad Men Season 5 will air first and exclusively on FIC’s FX channel in Asia. Mad Men, the Emmy®-winner for ‘Outstanding Drama Series’ four years in a row, follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising in New York in the 1960s.

Anger Management, starring Charlie Sheen, airs first and exclusively on Comedy Central Asia. It was one of the most-talked about TV series in 2012 and broke cable TV records when it premiered. Based on the hit comedy movie of the same name, the series tells the story of a non-traditional therapist specializing in anger management who has as many problems as his patients.

Nashville airs first and exclusively on Sony Pictures Television’s beTV and SET channels. Set against the backdrop of Nashville’s famous music scene, Nashville is a contemporary musical drama series following three iconic women (played by Connie Britton, Hayden Panettiere and Clare Bowen) and the men in their lives.

Boss airs first and exclusively on HBO Asia. Boss is the critically-acclaimed political drama starring multiple Emmy©-Award winner Kelsey Grammer and executive produced and directed by Gus Van Sant. Set in the no-holds-barred political circle of Chicago, Boss centers on the Machiavellian machinations of Mayor Thomas Kane (played by Grammer).

CTE has also licensed the pay TV rights to a number of the Hollywood studio’s recently released and upcoming films to HBO Asia and FIC. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, the fifth installment of a franchise that has grossed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office, the second installment of the global blockbuster Hunger Games franchise, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the international hit The Impossible, inspired by real events during the 2004 tsunami, and Silent Hill: Revelation 3D will premiere on FOX Movies Premium in Asia.

Meanwhile, HBO Asia will air, first and exclusively, such films as the hit dance movie Step Up Revolution, the thriller Man On A Ledge, and the zombie romance movie Warm Bodies. HBO Asia will also premiere on TV several highly-anticipated movies being theatrically released this year including Red 2, the sequel to the hit action comedy starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, and John Malkovich, The Tomb, a futuristic prison break movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and the sci-fi thriller Transcendence, executive produced by Inception and The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, and starring Johnny Depp.

CTE is the exclusive sales agent for Lionsgate’s content in Greater China and South East Asia and represents the studio’s television content and film library in Japan and Korea.

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Media Contact:
Pauline Poon
Celestial Tiger Entertainment
T: 852 2239 6131
E: pauline.poon@celestialtiger.com

About Celestial Tiger Entertainment
CELESTIAL TIGER ENTERTAINMENT (CTE) is a diversified media company dedicated to entertaining audiences in Asia and beyond. The company focuses on the operation of branded pay television channels, content creation and content distribution targeted at Asian consumers.

CTE operates a powerful bouquet of distinct pay television channels including: CELESTIAL MOVIES, the most broadly distributed 24-hour Chinese and Asian movies channel in the world; CELESTIAL CLASSIC MOVIES, the gateway to an unparalleled array of Chinese movie masterpieces; CELESTIAL MOVIES HD, the latest Chinese movies in high definition; KIX, the ultimate in action entertainment; Thrill, Asia’s only horror and suspense movie channel; and KIX HD, featuring the best of action with a late-night dose of thrillers in high definition.

As one of Asia’s largest vertically integrated independent entertainment companies, CTE produces original content which complements its channels business. CTE is also the exclusive sales agent for Hollywood studio Lionsgate in Greater China and Southeast Asia, and represents Lionsgate’s television content and vast feature film library in Japan and Korea as well.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, CTE is a joint venture among Saban Capital Group, a leading private investment firm specializing in the media, entertainment and communications industries; Astro, the owner and operator of the leading DTH platform in Malaysia; and Lionsgate, the world’s largest independent filmed entertainment studio.