iWorld
EPIC ON partners with CloudWalker
MUMBAI: EPIC ON, the premium OTT platform known for its diverse India-centric content by IN10 Media Network, today announced a significant partnership with leading online smart TV brand CloudWalker. This partnership enables EPIC ON to be pre-embedded into CloudWalker smart screens and smart TVs, allowing users quick and easy access to the platform’s exceptional content library.
EPIC ON hosts a wide array of series focused on the premise of ‘India’s Storytellers’, and will be soon adding a mixed bag of content formats for its new and revamped avatar. Apart from the existing premium library of EPIC ON, Cloudwalker users will have access to live stream the network’s linear broadcast channels: EPIC TV – India Ka Apna Infotainment, ShowBox – Apna Music, Apna Swag and newly launched Filamchi – Filman Ka Laalchi. With this partnership, EPIC ON further strengthens its penetration in the smart TV market with CloudWalker’s 4K LED Smart Screens, thus accelerating its progress towards reaching a new set of viewers.
Along with CloudWalker Smart TVs, EPIC ON will also be part of Cloud TV OS, a certified AOSP operating system for Android-based smart TVs. EPIC ON is now a built-in app for all Cloud TV OS powered Smart TVs like Daiwa, Shinco, Videotex, Telefunken, Hyundai, Lloyd amongst the others.
EPIC ON COO Sourjya Mohanty said, “The Indian market has seen a rapid growth in the demand for Smart TVs and eventually the new offering of Smart Screens from CloudWalker. This shift in the consumption pattern enables us to partner and provide our high-quality content across various screens. Our association with the smart technology driven company CloudWalker, is a step forward in providing a seamless viewing experience along with further expanding our reach within Smart TV users.”
CloudWalker president Jagdish Rajpurohit said, “In this age of digitization, consumers’ TV consumption patterns are rapidly evolving. They are now constantly looking for intelligent entertainment solutions that can allow them to easily stream a wide variety of entertainment content. We are delighted to partner with EPIC ON that offers an incredible collection of entertaining and informative India-centric TV shows, short videos, documentaries, and specials across multiple content genres. Our users will now be able to subscribe to EPIC ON as well as the ShowBox Music channel along with thousands of hours of entertaining digital content available on CloudWalker’s Smart Screens and TVs. By bringing this vast gamut of uninterrupted immersive content, we are looking forward to an affirmative response from our users.”
Arjun Bajaaj, director – Videotex International, CEO and founder – Daiwa and Shinco, said, “We at Videotex, want to bring the ultimate end to end experience for our OEM customers as well as our brands Daiwa, Shinco and Telefunken in India. In sync, we are glad to partner with EPIC ON which has very detailed and enriched content across genres especially for the Indian audience – Hindi language TV shows, Sports, Mythology etc. Our partnership shall strengthen the Home entertainment eco-system, with the wide base of OTT content curated for our varied demographics."
Along with being available on the CloudWalker Smart TVs, EPIC ON smartphone app is also available across iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV and others.
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
