English Entertainment
AXN to continue moving along the pay route post CAS
NEW DELHI: Reiterating that AXN will continue to be a pay channel even after conditional access system is introduced in India, whenever that is, V-P marketing AXN Asia Gregory Ho said that in the initial phase of CAS most pay channels’ viewership will get “impacted.”
“CAS will usher in an era in India which will be similar to any other market in Asia like Japan where there will be an ala carte menu and also premium fare.” Ho made these remarks while addressing journalists concerning the channel’s plans for the show Alias which will premiere on the channel next month. Pointing out that Indians are “very fortunate” as they hardly have to pay anything for a whole gamut of channels, Ho said that in Singapore, for example, the basic tier costs as much as Singapore $30 per month.
Over and above that for every other channel the subscribers have to pay extra and all movie channels were part of the pay package and charged a premium. Terming India as the “rising star” in the scheme of AXN, Ho said: “India has the potential and if we get it right, this market will become a cash cow.” At the moment, the most lucrative market for AXN is Taiwan where cable penetration is as high as 95 per cent. Though Ho was a bit cagey about revealing revenue figures, he did admit that AXN’s Indian operation garnered more revenue out of advertising as ”subscription revenue in India is quite low”.
Pointing out that India could have become the cash cow last year itself but for the economic slowdown which hit the global economy, Ho said now as per their expectation, the Indian market will take another couple of years to become the proverbial cash cow. “The market is slowly picking up but there is a guarded optimism (amongst advertisers),” he added.
To build up the brand further the channel is extending its roadshows involving screening of movies, as part of on-ground marketing initiatives this year to 10 cities which also include non-metro centres like Chandigarh and Cochin. The 28 movies that AXN will screen over seven days include Gladiator, Nighthawk, the two Mission Impossible films with Tom Cruise and some Jackie Chan movies. Efforts are also on to get some action-oriented Hindi films like Aawara Paagal Deewana also to be screened as part of the festival.
Assistant V-P (marketing and sales-AXN) of SET India Rohit Bhandari said SET distributed and took care of marketing and sales of AXN in India.
A brand evaluation, which took place sometime last year, highlighted that though the popularity of AXN channel is high, the perception and clarity about the channel’s image was a “bit fudgy”, Ho said.
See related report:
AXN looking to cement brand loyalty with critically acclaimed ‘Alias’
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
