English Entertainment
Eros International-Central Partnership step into content distribution
MUMBAI: Eros International PLC, a leading global company in the Indian film entertainment industry, has announced a strategic partnership with leading Russian distribution and production company Central Partnership (CP), affiliate of Gazprom Media Holding, to promote and distribute Indian and Russian content across multiple platforms in both countries.
This association includes exploitation via licensing of intellectual property rights owned by each party in their respective markets and distribution of film projects for both India and Russia, opening up the market for the two companies to explore new geographies. CP will dub films from Eros’ extensive film library in Russian language which will enable the company to cater to a much larger audience in Russia and CIS. Eros can further utilize the dubbed content on its digital platform, Eros Now, to reach out to a wider audience in Russia.
With the rapid growth of satellite pay TV in Russia, there is an increased demand for premium digital and television content. This alliance will pave the way for CP to showcase extensive repository of Bollywood films from the Eros library on pay TV. Furthermore, CP will also approach free TV channels to explore showcasing of Indian titles. Similarly, Eros will endeavor to distribute CP media assets on Indian television.
This collaboration will also enable the launch of Eros Now, the on-demand OTT digital platform of EROS, in Russia and CIS. CP will endeavor to showcase Eros Now’s VOD content on the leading digital distribution network RUFORM through Rutube (web video streaming service targeted in Russia) while Eros will facilitate featuring Russian content on Eros Now.
Eros International group CEO & managing director Jyoti Deshpande said, “With our entry into the Russian market, we continue to build our strong global position and are delighted to take the lead in associating with the prestigious Russian film company Central Partnership. Russia’s domestic market potential is promising and coupled with the rise in digital consumption by local audiences, we see a huge opportunity in exploiting exciting, unique and high-quality content together to reach audiences across the two diaspora.”
Central Partnership CEO Pavel Stepanov added, “Our strategic partnership is a big step for both companies in their international expansion, since content from India is now underrepresented in Russia and vice-versa. Our plan is to benefit from both companies’ leading positions in domestic markets to change this layout.”
Russia’s box office grew in the first half of this year by 8.6% to 29 billion rubles (US$ 413 million), while attendance was up year-on-year by 9% (112 million tickets sold). Foreign films continue to be the main driver of growth in the market. Between January-June box office for foreign films grew by 9.6% to 23 billion rubles (US$ 327 million), while attendance rose from 78.6 million to 88 million. Meanwhile, box office for Russian films in the period increased by 5.1%, to about 6.1 billion rubles (US$87 million), while attendance improved fractionally from 24.5 million to 24.7 million people.
Eros International acquires, co-produces and distributes Indian films across all available formats such as cinema, television and digital new media.Central Partnership, the exclusive distributor of Paramount Pictures in Russia, owns the largest library there comprising over 700 features and 3300 hours of TV series.
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.
