iWorld
Spice Telecom plans $150 mn IPO
BANGALORE: Karnataka’s first mobile telephony service provider Spice Telecom (Spice) has plans for a public issue totaling $150 million.
Modicorp (51% stake) along with Telekom Malaysia (49% stake) own Spice. The red herring prospectus will be filed with Sebi and the IPO is likely to open in end March this year with Spice to planning to dilute around 15-20% of their stake.
Spice has recently been awarded a railway outsourcing contract by IRCTC to provide services to the customers for a payment of Rs 1 billion over 10 years. The scope of work includes providing customers with information services across India, IVR, information and other services. The voice call to IVR ratio is around 20:80 according to Spice officials. The contract commences from March this year.
Spice is present in 2 circles – Karnataka and Punjab with a customer base of around 2.5million of the total 100 million plus Indian subscribers. India has over 6000 railway stations and almost 80-90% of these are covered by mobile service providers. Spice is in negotiations with other service providers for carriage and other services in the other circles. This contract means that over the next ten years other service providers can provide railway information only through Spice.
To ramp up and meet the service requirements, Spice plans to set up 4 regional hubs all over the country. This contract has been obtained by an equally shared joint venture between Spice and Spanco Telesystems (Spanco) from Mumbai. Spanco are to be the hardware system integrators for this venture.
Speaking during a press briefing in Bangalore yesterday, Modicorp chairman BK Modi said, “Railways cover the length and breadth of the country physically, Spice will help connect the country telephonically,” while announcing that Spice planned to have kiosks on every platform in the country, where valid passengers can pick up sub $20/- mobile and with a Rs 50/- chip that can receive incoming calls free.
“Currently we were lacking in distribution. Now with 6,000 railway stations we can take telephony to the bottom of the pyramid, a mobile is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity, and with 4 billion passengers that travel by train, the aim for reaching a subscriber base of 500 million by 2010 could be met even earlier,” Modi said.
Spice along with Taiwanese suppliers provide low end as well as high end mobile phone instruments.
Unconfirmed reports also indicate that Bollywood diva Katrina Kaif has been appointed brand ambassador for Spice. Priyanka Chopra, whose three year contract ends in December 2007, will also continue as brand ambassador, a company source says.
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.
