iWorld
ALT Balaji working with OTT specialists Diagnal and Xstream
MUMBAI: ALTBalaji, the digital platform from Balalji Telefilms, marks its entry into the world of global OTT entertainment space. Launched with the aim to reach out to individual audiences directly, ALTBalaji provides differentiated content with original shows spanning some 300 hours in the first year itself. This subscription based platform will be commercially available from mid-April 2017.
ALTBalaji is developed, designed, and integrated by OTT specialists – Diagnal; the platform is powered by Xstream’s cloud based video management system, Xstream MediaMaker™. The multiscreen platform is available on iOS, Android, Windows, Roku, AppleTV, and many more operating systems.
Created to provide an alternative to mainstream Indian entertainment & TV content, ALTBalaji brings fresh & interesting stories to audience. Offering unparalleled high quality shows featuring popular artists, acclaimed writers, and award winning directors, the platform fills in the existing void in the entertainment space and provide a real, exciting alternative to regular television based options.
Unlike similar premium Subscription Video on Demand OTT service providers in the market, ALTBalaji allows users to watch select content and previews without requiring an active subscription. Content accessibility provides users with the opportunity to explore service features before choosing a subscription package that suits their content needs and budget. Premium subscribers to the service will have full-access to content and features like parental control and download to watch offline.
Commenting on this association ALT Digital Media Entertainment CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya said, “Consumers across the world are evolving aided by growing mobile reach; their requirements are becoming niche, rather than one formula fits all and this is where ALTBalaji belongs. We are excited to be associated with Diagnal and Xstream to bring in the best of technology and scalability together. ALTBalaji will offer extensive range of languages and genres to all age group and regions, both in India and abroad.”
ALTBalaji is fully cloud based, using Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to deliver incomparable performance and durability, ensuring high performance video delivery to all subscribers. ALTBalaji’s highlights include:
● A subscription based Video-on-Demand service with original and exclusive premium content at competitive prices to customers
● Pre-subscription access to selective content and previews
● Service across multiply connected devices with a seamless cross device user experience
● Parental control allowing kids to watch kids content while preventing them full access to all content
● Full scale analytics backbone with an inference engine and knowledge data store
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
