iWorld
SonyLIV aims to provide comprehensive CWG coverage
MUMBAI: 2018, the year of major sports tournaments including the Winter Olympics, Commonwealth Games (CWG) and the FIFA World Cup, is expected to witness a rise in consumption of live sports events on over-the-top (OTT) platforms. The CWG action is currently taking place at Gold Coast, Australia and Sony Pictures Network (SPN) is the official broadcast rights holder for the country.
The live coverage is being shown the network’s TV channels as well as its OTT platform SonyLiv concurrently without any time lag.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, SPN digital head Uday Sodhi said that SonyLiv would telecast the live action in nine feeds thus giving more focus to each event. For TV, Sony is broadcasting the event only on three channels. “We’re giving a far more comprehensive coverage for digital viewers with nine channels on digital versus three on TV,” said Sodhi.
Viewers can watch the action without the barrier of a paywall while the network goes after advertisers for revenue. The only fly in the ointment is that the coverage is restricted to English and Hindi.
SPN is well aware that the Indian Premier League (IPL), its former prized property child that is currently in the hands of Star India, is likely to eat into its viewership after its opening on 7 April. To keep viewers drawn, it launched a patriotic campaign called #RangDeTiranga, which taps into people’s love for the country and is a hint that the CWG is a tournament of national importance. Sodhi said that the campaign had been a hit both on TV and digital.
“The #RangDeTiranga campaign is SPN’s rallying cry that taps into the emotions of Indian sports fans and asks them to show their support for the tricolour. It brings alive our ethos to go beyond and cultivate a multi-sport viewing culture in India. Our intent is to bind the sports fans in a one game-cry ‘Rang de Tiranga’ and give them the opportunity to watch their heroes bring glory to the nation,” SPSN senior VP marketing and OAP Kedar Teny said earlier.
Right after the CWG, SPN will dive into the FIFA 2018 World Cup, which is to be held in Russia this year. With much of the action set to occur at Moscow and St Petersberg, which are 2.5 hours behind India, the digital feed will help people to tune into the action from the comfort of their beds. India also has a young population tuning into football, the same kind who don’t hesitate to pick OTT over TV. Sony hasn’t yet clarified whether the digital FIFA coverage will be AVOD, SVOD or both.
Sony is carving a niche for itself on the OTT side as a sports player after it noticed that its users were glued to sporting events. “35-40 per cent of our traffic comes from hardcore sports followers. This shoots up during large sporting events and then the share gets bigger. Time spent varies from 25 to 40 minutes,” Sodhi said in an earlier interview to Indiantelevision.com. While cricket is the first choice, football is the second most popular sport of viewers on SonyLiv.
Locking different sporting events this year, SonyLiv is aiming to get more viewership and will look to acquire more, especially since it lost two crucial bids to Star–the BCCI media rights for Team India’s home matches and the IPL, thus forfeiting a large chunk sports viewership online to Hotstar, the OTT arm of Star.
In the last few years, India has witnessed a huge change in sports broadcasting. With increasing use of OTT platforms due to smartphones and data affordability, broadcasters are streaming live feeds of sports events, even challenging the business of international players such as Amazon and Netflix. For now, these international players haven’t jumped into India’s sports fray giving SonyLiv and Hotstar an opportunity to take the lead.
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e-commerce
American Express to acquire AI startup Hyper to boost automation
Deal targets expense management as AI reshapes corporate spending tools.
MUMBAI: From receipts to robots, the expense sheet is getting a brain upgrade as American Express moves to bring artificial intelligence into the heart of corporate spending. The company has announced plans to acquire Hyper, a relatively young but fast-rising startup founded in 2022 that builds AI-powered agents capable of organising expenses, generating reports, verifying compliance with budgets and policies, and nudging users with timely reminders. The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, underscores a growing shift among financial institutions to automate traditionally manual, time-heavy workflows.
Hyper counts Sam Altman among its backers, adding a layer of Silicon Valley credibility to the acquisition. While financial details remain undisclosed, the strategic intent is clear: deepen automation capabilities and sharpen American Express’s position in the competitive corporate spending ecosystem.
The two companies are not strangers. They previously collaborated in 2024 on a co-branded credit card product, suggesting that the acquisition is less a cold buy and more an extension of an existing relationship. With this move, American Express is effectively bringing that capability in-house, aiming to embed AI directly into its commercial services stack.
Chief executive Stephen Squeri had already signalled the direction of travel in a recent shareholder letter, describing AI as a “structural shift” in how businesses operate. The Hyper acquisition appears to be a direct response to that shift, particularly in expense management, where processes such as approvals, compliance checks and reporting remain ripe for automation.
Alongside the acquisition, the company is also expanding its product suite. A recently launched business credit card offers cashback and benefits at an annual fee of $295, with another card expected later this year moves that complement its broader push into commercial services.
Taken together, the strategy points to a future where managing expenses may require fewer spreadsheets and more algorithms. For American Express, the bet is simple, if businesses are rethinking how work gets done, the tools that power that work need to evolve just as quickly.
