iWorld
Glance TV launched to provide interactive experiences on smart TV
Mumbai: Consumer internet company Glance on Monday announced the launch of Glance TV – a live, interactive content platform for the home screen or ‘screen zero’ of Android smart TVs. With live streams and real-time on-screen interactions for users, Glance TV aims to transform passive television content consumption into an active social experience.
Glance TV will offer off-beat, personalised snackable content of 5-20 minutes duration, across categories such as sports, entertainment, infotainment, e-sports, current affairs, lifestyle, food, and fitness, unlike standardised long-form TV shows. It has partnered with major content providers including Zee5, Epic On and Docubay to provide users fresh, personalised and premium content every day, said the statement.
Glance TV users can interact directly in real-time with their favourite stars on the television home screens. They can attend personalised fitness training sessions, watch interactive cooking shows with celebrity chefs, or enjoy sports in community watch-alongs that replicate immersive, stadium-like atmospheres. Within shows, users can interact and shape the direction of the content through live comments, reactions, and polls. Using QR codes on live TV, they can also buy tickets for movies and events, shop live, and get their social media posts featured on Glance TV streams.
“The launch of Glance TV is a major milestone for Glance, which has revolutionised content consumption on smartphones by bringing Live, interactive content to the mobile lock screen. Launched in 2019, Glance is now one of the world’s largest mobile lock screen platforms with over 200 million active users,” said the company in a statement.
Glance TV aims to be present on approximately 30 per cent of all smart TVs in India soon. The company plans to make Glance TV available globally and also intends to develop the same for other smart TV operating systems.
“Glance has reimagined the lock screen of smartphones into a live screen for personalised, LIVE content,” said InMobi Group co-founder and Glance president and COO Piyush Shah. “With Glance TV, we want to redefine television experiences just as we did with smartphones. This is TV in a way that has never been seen before and is a true innovation that extends the Live experience that Glance delivers on lock screens to television home screens.”
“With Glance TV, our intention is to remove the age-old connotation of TV being an idle way to pass time and change the perception of TV as the ‘idiot box.’ Glance TV gives users the experience where they can be active while watching TV and can express themselves directly on the big screen, within virtual communities of fellow users,” added Glance SVP and GM Manish Gupta.
iWorld
Banijay Asia’s The 50 tops OTT charts with 8.1 million JioHotstar views
Reality competition becomes most watched show on JioHotstar in debut week.
MUMBAI: Fifty contestants walked into a palace, but millions of viewers showed up for the drama. Reality competition The 50, produced by Banijay Asia, has emerged as the most watched show on JioHotstar, clocking 8.1 million views in its debut week. The figure, reported by Ormax Media, places the show at the top of the OTT viewership charts and marks a strong opening for the digital reality format.
Adapted from a popular French format, The 50 brings together 50 personalities from television, digital platforms, music and reality shows inside a grand palace setting. Over the course of a 50 day competition, participants form alliances, compete in unpredictable tasks and navigate eliminations as the field steadily narrows.
Guiding the game is a mysterious figure known as The Lion, an unseen game master whose voice introduces twists, challenges and strategic turns throughout the show, adding an extra layer of suspense to the contest.
What distinguishes The 50 from typical reality competitions is its audience driven prize structure. Instead of the winner taking home the final reward, the prize is awarded to one of the winner’s registered followers through the show’s dedicated app. The mechanism effectively turns viewers into participants, allowing fans to have a direct stake in the outcome.
The contestant lineup features a mix of television actors, reality stars and digital creators, including Karan Patel, Urvashi Dholakia, Divya Agarwal, Mr Faisu and Dushyant Kukreja, each bringing their own fan following to the show.
With its blend of celebrity personalities, strategic gameplay and interactive viewer participation, The 50 has quickly carved out a strong foothold in India’s digital entertainment landscape. Its 8.1 million views in the opening week underline the growing appetite for large scale reality formats designed specifically for OTT audiences.
