News Broadcasting
Strong Indian presence at Mipcom
CANNES: Things are looking up at Mipcom for Indian broadcasters, production and animation companies this year. At least if one goes by the strong presence of from Indian participants with companies such as Sony Entertainment, Star, WEG India, Land Marvel Animation choosing to take up stands.
While the Star stand is a standout in terms of size and design, the Sony stand is more compact. Sony is looking for buyers for its library of programmes right from Aayushman to its movies like Devdas while, Star has also put up its entire programme portfolio on offer.
Star’s men (or rather women and men) in the Palais are creative head Shailaja Kejriwal (who we hear is looking for the next blockbuster for Star) and Rajesh Kamath who is negotiating pricing with wannabe buyers for the Star movie and programme library.
Sony is represented in the Palais by Sunil Lulla and Tarun Katial (both are buying aggressively we are told), while UK-based international sales head Neeraj Arora is leading the sales initiative. WEG India, a veteran at the markets, is hawking its movie library while Land Marvel a provider of special effects to the south Indian film industry is looking at getting animation projects. Land Marvel is represented by chairman and CEO M Veerashekar, V Vetrivell, and Samir Bose.
Zee TV has come out in strength with Gagan Goel, Ajay Trigunayat and Sunil Khanna beating the Palais’ floors. NDTV is also putting in a lot of muscle behind MipCom and is represented by Niraj Dutt, Avinash Kaul, and journalist I M Bajpai.
This apart, one came across Biren Ghose, Moi from UTV (Ronnie Screwavala is landing here on Friday), Delhi-based igrafix’s CEO Gagan Gandhi, Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar, GreenGold Animation’s Rajiv Chilakalapudi, Escootoonz’s Prafull Gade, Discovery India’s programming head Pankaj Saxsena. (Is Discovery India finally going to get a healthy budget for programming?)
Clearly, the mood at the market is buoyant. As Star India’s Kamath says, “We believe there is a lot of potential and we are exploring it at this market.” Adds Lulla, “It’s a good market and we have been very busy.”
News Broadcasting
Book Cricket gets a digital century on News18 amid T20 fever
Nostalgic classroom game revamped in English, Hindi plus Telugu on web and app.
MUMBAI: When the T20 World Cup fever hits fever pitch, News18 decides to flip the script straight back to the classroom. The digital news platform has revived the timeless schoolyard favourite Book Cricket as an interactive online game, perfectly timed to ride the cricket wave gripping fans across the globe. The reimagined Book Cricket ditches textbooks for smartphones, blending old-school nostalgia with modern gameplay. Once a sneaky recess pastime played by flicking book pages to score runs, the digital version now offers seamless fun for anyone craving a quick cricket fix between overs.
Available in English, Hindi and Telugu (with more languages planned across News18’s network), the game sits within the platform’s fast-growing gaming portfolio of over 20 titles, all built in-house. It joins event-driven hits like ‘Kursi Catcher’ and ‘Result Rewind’ during the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections, plus festive specials such as ‘Durga’s Astras’ for Durga Puja and ‘Mouse Modak’ for Ganesh Chaturthi.
News18 Digital CEO Mitul Sangani said, “Gaming is a key pillar of our engagement strategy. At News18, we uniquely combine our newsroom agility with immersive gaming experiences. By blending credible content with interactive formats, we are creating meaningful engagement in an era defined by shrinking attention spans and evolving consumption habits.”
Select titles have expanded beyond News18.com to CNBC-TV18.com and Firstpost.com, reflecting the network’s push to deepen user interaction across platforms. The Book Cricket game is live now at https://www.news18.com/games/book-cricket/.
In a tournament where every boundary counts, News18’s digital Book Cricket proves the simplest games can still deliver the biggest smiles no syllabus required, just pure cricket joy one page-flip at a time.
