English Entertainment
HCL Corporation & The Habitats Trust tie-up with Animal Planet to create awareness about the need to save species and their habitats with ‘On the Brink’
MUMBAI: HCL Corporation, a global technology conglomerate, & The Habitats Trust, a recently launched foundation working towards protecting habitats and their indigenous species, have tied-up with India’s number 1 wildlife channel Animal Planet to showcase a new TV series ‘On The Brink’ to create awareness about Animal Conservation in India. The show, which will be aired on Animal Planet every Monday at 21:00 hrs, starting August 20, will unravel mysteries of the natural world and help understand why species that once lived in large populations, are now literally on the brink.
‘On The Brink’ will explore species and habitats rarely seen on Indian television and will witness the trials and tribulations of the endangered species as they are confronted with myriad threats to their survival. The species to be covered in Season 1 of the series include Red Panda, Fishing Cats, Slender Loris and Bengal Tiger. The show will also share stories of hope, of solutions and of the courageous men and women at the forefront of the battle to save these species from extinction.
The series has been directed by National Film Awards winner – Akanksha Sood Singh and adventurer, explorer and wildlife presenter – Malaika Vaz- is the presenter of the show. In the 8-part series shot across the country, Malaika Vaz journeys through India, immersing herself in the most incredible landscapes and habitats and coming eye-to-eye with the rarely spotted animals that live there. Each episode highlights a story which is important to tell right now, or else it might get too late.
“Wildlife and habitats conservation is essential to maintaining the natural ecological balance of our planet; however, it is under serious threat largely due to human induced factors such as habitat destruction, overhunting, pollution and climate change. The earth is as much ours, as it is of the flora and fauna that inhabit it and there is a lot we can achieve if all of us pool in effort with an aim to save the endangered indigenous species,” said, Roshni Nadar Malhotra, CEO of HCL Corporation & Founder and Trustee of The Habitats Trust. “On The Brink is a concerted attempt to raise awareness about the importance and the urgency of animal conservation.”
“There is a dire need to create awareness about specie conservation as almost half of the 177-mammal species surveyed lost more than 80% of their distribution between 1900 and 2015. We are delighted to enter into this tie-up with HCL Corporation & The Habitats Trust to showcase a one of its kind series ‘On The Brink’. This is in line with our enhanced focus on conservation as a part of our philosophy ‘Humans Like Us’,” said, Zulfia Waris, Vice President – Premium & Digital networks, Discovery Communications India. “On The Brink is about nature programming that inspires wonder and curiosity. It goes beyond the megafauna to showcase India’s incredible diversity and importantly creates awareness about the need to save species and their habitat.”
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.
