Mumbai: Zee Entertainment Enterprise Limited (Zeel) is all set to launch a Bengali movie channel Zee Bangla Cinema, its second offering in the Bengali language space after general entertainment channel (GEC) Zee Bangla.

Zee Bangla Cinema will be launched on 23 September and it will be a pay channel. The Bengali movie channel space currently has only one player in Sony Picture Television?s Sony Aath (Sony Eight), which runs a mix of Bengali movies and international movies dubbed in Bengali.

With over 400 exclusive titles under its belt, Zee Bangla Cinema promises to offer a mixed bag of blockbusters from the golden era to commercial blockbuster and alternative cinema. Outside of movies, the channel will also cover film news, music release, and muhuraats.

Zee Bangla Cinema will telecast Jeet and Nusrat starrer ?Shatru?. Some of the other movie titles which would be aired on Zee Bangla Cinema are Bhooter Bhobishyot, Teen Yaari Kotha, Elar Char Adhyay, Aparajita Tumi, Ajob Prem Ebong, Dutta vs Dutta, Uro Chiti, Fighter, Mouchak, Chaplin, Kagojer Bou, Tokhon Teish, Trishna, Chander Bari, Gorosthane Sabdhan, Patalghar and Banshiwala.

The broadcaster has signed up with most of the leading multi-system operators in West Bengal including WWIL, Den Networks, and Manthan. The channel will also be available on Dish TV, the direct-to-home (DTH) arm of Zeel.

Targeted at Bengalis across all socio economic strata and age groups, the movie channel will focus on the West Bengal market in the initial phase. Outside West Bengal, the channel will also be distributed in New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Jharkhand besides New York.

Zeel MD and CEO Punit Goenka said, "With a strong Bengali audience in India and abroad, the Bangla film market has expanded exponentially. Zee Bangla Cinema?s entry is to tap this growing potential. We are sure that Zee?s pioneering presence in the regional space would be further strengthened with the addition of this new movie channel."

According to Zee Bangla Cinema Business Head Sujay Kutty, Zee Bangla Cinema will act as a one-stop channel for Bangla Cinema.

"There are a huge number of Bengali GEC viewers moving to Hindi movie channel because they do not have a 24 x 7 platform where they can find a cinema in their own language. Top two channels in the Bengali GEC space run cinema only on weekends," Kutty tells Indiantelevision.com.

Kutty believes the launch of Zee Bangla Cinema will spur Bengali movie channel market and will fill in a need gap.

Every year more than 100 movies are produced by the Bengali film industry, says Kutty, out of which only 20 are big ticket movies. The cost of acquiring a movie starts at Rs 2 million.

The unveiling of the channel will be supported by 360 degree marketing campaign. Hand painted larger than life cutouts will be placed in prominent crowded areas of city, urging people to go home and tune into the Zee Bangla Cinema.

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Zee plans to launch Bengali movie channel

MUMBAI: Factual entertainment channel History TV18 is launching a new show titled ?Around the World in 80 Ways?.

Starting 18 September, the show will air every Tuesday at 9 pm.

In the show Rob Boston and Dennis Anderson will take a challenging voyage to go around the globe by uncovering 80 unique modes of transportation, without repeating any vehicle.

The 10 part series explores new countries across the globe. The hosts navigate through Brazil, Peru, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Dubai, India, Thailand, and the United States.

The show is produced by Original Productions, a Fremantle Media Company. Thom Beers and Philip D. Segal are executive producers and Jeff Conroy is co-executive producer for Original Productions. Julian P. Hobbs is executive producer for History.

Boston and Anderson?s expedition will also bring them to India. In Mumbai, the two hosts are greeted with "swarming" and "busy" lanes. They score some Tuk Tuks and race their way out on the busy streets. Elephants, ox-carts and other new forms of transportation will eventually take them to their destination - the beautiful Lake Pichola, the statement read.

Mumbai: Media and entertainment research firm Ormax Media has launched First-Day Box Office (FBO), a scientific box office forecasting model.

The model forecasts the opening day net collections at domestic box office for unreleased films up to seven weeks before release.

FBO is being targeted at film studios and producers, as well as media agencies and advertisers who associate with films through co-branded promotions and in-film placement. Existing subscribers of Cinematix will be upgraded to an FBO-enabled version of the product at an incremental cost.

It takes into account a series of input parameters. These include inputs from Ormax Media?s film campaign tracking product Cinematix, which tracks the Buzz, Reach and Appeal of unreleased Bollywood films for almost three years now.Cinematix covers 19 cities across India, accounting for more than 95 per cent of domestic box office coverage.

Other FBO model inputs include release scale, holiday and festival factors, audience profile and other such variables on which normative data has been built by Ormax Media over the last four years.

FBO forecast will be available to subscribers everyday from seven weeks before the release of a film till the day of the release. The model has been tested to accurately forecast the first-day box office collections of at least 85 per cent films with less than 10 per cent error margin, the company said.

Ormax Media CEO Shailesh Kapoor said, "The model is extremely valuable as the box office estimate will be available seven weeks in advance. That will give the stakeholders enough time to take corrective action. Also, it is not a back-of-the-envelope prediction of the box office. It is a statistically tested forecast model that has self-learning built into it, guaranteeing progressively better results with time."

MUMBAI: Sony Pictures Television will join PricewaterhouseCoopers at the television trade event Mipcom 2012 to discuss the future of media, entertainment and broadcasting.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) global leader entertainment, media practice Marcel Fenez will present the annual PwC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook at Mipcom on 8 October, outlining forecasts in the media and leisure industries. This industry report will be followed by interviews conducted by Fenez with Sony Pictures Television president of International Production and Sony Pictures Entertainment president of international Andrea Wong.

In her Mipcom keynote interview, Wong will discuss the PwC Outlook findings and how they are reflected in the production activity that SPT International Production undertakes around the world, as well as international production and commissioning trends.

Wong heads the studio?s international television production business, overseeing the creative teams outside the US as well as the 18 owned and joint venture international production companies around the world.

Organised by Reed Midem, Mipcom will take place in Cannes, France from 8-11 October.