iWorld
Viu to produce 70 originals in 2018
MUMBAI: The pan-Asian OTT platform Viu will see 70 titles and over 900 episodes of locally produced content by the end of this year. Produced in Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Arabic languages, Viu Original spans the full spectrum of TV content genres and has extended its production scope to movies. Since the beginning of 2018, OTT platforms in India are boosting their original content.
“With the evolution of OTT streaming service and consumers adoption, quality content with strong relevance is the key to our continued high engagement with viewers. Viu aims to introduce the refreshing local productions in various markets, including Spotlight 2 produced by Bollywood director Vikram Bhatt, and Kenapa Harus Bule? by award-winning Indonesian director Andri Cune. Our latest Viu Original series development of The Bridge, a popular international TV series, will be remade with Asia context and filmed in Singapore and Malaysia. By working with top tier local talents and production houses, we fulfil our brand promise to provide Viu-ers with compelling localised entertainment,” PCCW Media Group managing director Janice Lee said.
Viu not only works with top award-winning directors and production talent in the markets, but also employs highly innovative ways to come up with new ideas for its originals. Viu ‘crowd sources’ Viu Original ideas in an event called Viu Pitching Forum in Indonesia, where young filmmakers are encouraged to pitch their ideas before a team of renowned experts, including award- winning producers, directors and scriptwriters. Viu will fund shortlisted ideas and collaborate with professional filmmakers to produce them for airing.
“We are encouraged by the overwhelming positive response from viewers for Viu Original and we will continue to create many more fresh and engaging originals tailored to ourmillennial Viu-ers. We are especially proud to provide a platform for young talent in local markets to showcase their creativity and gain popularity among our viewers,” Lee added.
Viu Original has recently launched a foray of full feature movies. High Jack, which is co-produced with award-winning Phantom Films in India, is scheduled to be screened in 450 Indian theatres followed by viewing on the Viu platform. Working alongside its broadcast partners, Viu aims to bring Original to free-to-air and pay-TV audience around the world. Viu has collaborated with Zoom TV – a Bollywood pay-TV channel and Gemini TV – a pay-TV channel owned by Sun Network, to deliver its original content in India.
Also Read :
Viu announces the launch of its latest Original, ‘Love, Lust and Confusion’
Viu and Phantom films join hands for its upcoming movie ‘High Jack’
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
