English Entertainment
Movies Now gets ready with a ‘Rush’ of adrenaline
MUMBAI: Movies Now is treating its viewers to a rush of adrenaline -literally! The channel will soon launch a new drama series aptly titled ‘Rush’ staring Welsh actor Tom Ellis as Dr William Rush.
Dr Rush is a “medical fixer” hooked onto pills, working from his Mercedes and tending to the cr?me da la creme of Los Angeles on the quiet. Rush is a bad boy with a good heart who has lost his position as an ER doctor after an impulsive decision taken earlier went wrong.
Entertainment Weekly after the telecast of the first episode of the series in the US said, “Rush might be USA’s darkest — and most interesting – show. Rush is the guy you want to call if you’re a famous athlete and your girlfriend needs stitches after you’ve physically abused her, for instance. Or he’s the guy you want to call if you’re a famous movie producer who just broke his penis and you don’t want the paparazzi to catch you on the way to the hospital. Rush makes up his own fees on the spot—and they’re high—and asks for cash payments upfront.”
And USA Networks, the network that airs the show in the US, has this to say on IMDb, the popular movie and television reference portal – “Dr. William Rush is not your average on-call doctor. He’s not attached to any hospital, he’s highly discreet no matter what the ailment as long as the client can pay his cash-only premium and the doctor can party with the best of them. He has no desire to change his life or how he lives it, until an old flame and his conscience begin to stir things up.” USA Networks ‘Rush’ logo currently includes the tagline ‘Lifestyles of LA’.
Rush premiers in India on 7 August at 11:00 pm with a repeat scheduled over the weekend. The maiden season will consist of 10-12 episodes which according to some planners could cost anywhere between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per episode.
Informs Movies Now content head Mansi Shrivastav, “Rush is not an average medical drama. There is a sense of glamour, style and suspense attached to the show. There is a new twist to every episode which will provide our viewers a new perspective”. The channel decided to air it later in India as it needed more time to establish and market it well, considering the fact that it is a new season.
Since the series had already been broadcast in the US, www.indiantelevision,com queried – Would downloading of the new series by Indian fans be a problem? Shrivastav avers, “Downloading is a major problem, but it is often more of an access problem as everyone can’t download a new show, but people do share it via their hard disks. And since it is a new season the problems may begin once the viewer starts consuming it and it gains popularity.”
To leverage its viewers who view the 9:00 pm prime time movie and ensure stickiness, Movies Now has decided to air the show during the 11:00 pm slot. The channel believes that once the prime time movie ends, its viewers would continue to watch Rush and not switch to some other channel.
Movies Now marketing head Shantanu Gangane reveals that Rush will be marketed through a three week long marketing plan. “The promotions will run on all of our five channels. We will also have print ads. We also plan to initiate a Rush helpline and an ambulance service to promote the series” he adds.
The marketing of the show will be focused mainly in the eight metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmadabad and tier II cities. About the best performing market for Movies Now, Gangane further reveals, “Pune has contributed significantly at the category level which has seen a jump from five or six per cent to 18 per cent. Mumbai and Delhi meanwhile continue to rule the roost alternately. Ahmadabad has seen a dip from four per cent to two per cent.”
In a category where channels are aggressively trying to position themselves differently, Shrivastav says that the channel sees opportunity in commoditisation. “Promotions earlier were seen for ‘Movie of the Month’ but today promos are being created even for the day’s movie. We believe in investing in good content”
Marathon is a strong property for which there has been a great advertising response, she adds. According to some media planners the advertising plus subscription revenues for the English genre category is around Rs 950 to 1000 crore, of which Rs 450 to 500 crore is the advertising revenue alone of the English genre.
Gangane, while spelling out the channels future plans says, “In three months from now promotions will focus on Hollywood iconography. If it is an IMAX movie we will promote the visual element of it.” Just before the festive period (Diwali and Christmas) the channel plans a revamp during which it will go big on promotions for a better viewing experience for audiences.” The channel is currently in talks with different agencies for the same.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
