English Entertainment
Star India to launch FX HD in mid September; spruce up content line-up
MUMBAI: As competition heats up in the English Entertainment space with the launch of Colors Infinity and Colors Infinity HD along with the recent revamp of Comedy Central, existing players are now upping their game with compelling content and HD launches.
In a bid to stay ahead in the game, Star India’s English entertainment channel FX is all set to change the way Indian viewers consume content. The channel, which is undergoing a brand refresh by adding new content, will also be launching its high definition (HD) version, FX HD within the next two weeks.
This year, the channel is all set to captivate viewers with the #AllNewFX by showcasing over 50 of the most edgy, new and acclaimed shows across genres.
Speaking about FX, Star India English cluster business head Kevin Vaz said, “English speaking people in India are increasing at a substantial rate and therefore more and more channels are coming in. FX will be for audiences who are following English entertainment since a long time. We now have Star World, which is for family viewing, Star World Premiere – the ad free channel – will cater to premium category and with FX, we want to reach out to the top brass.”
The network pulled Fox Crime off air recently. Vaz cites lack of content and not poor response as the reason for taking the channel down. “We didn’t want to mix it with other content, hence when we saw there were not enough offerings, we decided to pull the curtains down on it,” informed Vaz.
Piracy often eats up a major pie of English entertainment viewership as consumers are accustomed to downloading pirated content and watching marathon episodes on their desktops and laptops. Vaz is of the opinion that accessibility can change that behaviour. “The world is now connected unlike ever before. People talk to friends in the US and want to see content with them and talk the same trend. That was not happening earlier so people resorted to downloading. Now shows will be available at the same time as the US, so I don’t see that factor being a huge obstacle,” he adds.
Post the KBC and Kyunki era, Indian viewers want to consume content everyday and are not used to the concept of waiting for a week, which is a challenge, as per Vaz. Shows in the US are aired once a week and at times while there is Christmas or any other occasional break, they are not even aired every week. “People in India don’t expect something like this. There 22 episodes are run over 32 weeks,” he says.
Keeping Indian viewers at par with the world on English entertainment, FX is all set to make weekends more exciting with day and date shows on the soon to be launched HD version. This will enable viewers to watch the latest episodes of shows like Homeland (Season 5),Affair (Season 2), Empire (Season 2) and Doctor Who (Season 9) right after the international telecast.
What’s more, the action doesn’t stop there. Psychological thrillers like Luther and Bosch, reality comedy like Last Comic Standing and Last Man on Earth will all be showcased in the month of September on FX.
Weekends have also been spruced up with FX Top Rated – where viewers can watch the highest rated and loved shows back to back. With 80 per cent premieres and only shows that pass the 7+ rating on Imdb, FX Top Rated is slated to bring curated quality content across the year.
The all new look and packaging of the channel is specially designed to bring out its strong brand promise of ‘Edge of Entertainment,’ which aptly resonates not just the channel philosophy but also that of curated content.
Content price is constantly escalating and India is yet to figure out which revenue model will work and which won’t. “I think we need to have all the options available for consumers at this stage,” said Vaz.
The English entertainment space on Indian television is definitely getting a facelift at a brisk pace with channels putting their best foot forward as far as programming goes.
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.
