iWorld
Vodafone Idea and Starz launch Lionsgate Play in India
Mumbai: Vodafone Idea Limited, India’s leading telecom operator and STARZPLAY, the international premium subscription platform from STARZ, a Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B) company, have joined hands to launch Lionsgate’s premium service Lionsgate Play in India. This partnership will enable Vodafone Idea customers’ access to a broad portfolio of celebrated blockbusters and award-winning feature films from the studio.
Video is the new growth driver in the digital content consumption today. Vodafone Idea’s partnership with STARZPLAY is a step towards boosting the growth of the digital ecosystem in India. The partnership will capitalize on this huge potential by offering viewers with an array of premium content across genres.
Lionsgate Play will be available to Vodafone Play and Idea Movies & TV subscribers as a part of this strategic collaboration between the two companies. The offering includes multibillion-dollar global blockbuster franchises The Hunger Games and The Twilight Saga, multiple Academy Award ® winner La La Land and the international breakout hit Wonder, with much of it available in four local languages. The content library will be spread across genres like horror, comedy, drama, action, thriller, documentaries to name a few.
Following the launch, the offering will boast an illustrious line up of digital premieres of Lionsgate films coming to the service in the first year including Robin Hood, Crank, Sahara, Redcliff, Jersey Shore Attack, Killers, Grudge, Letters to Juliet, American Pyscho 2, Nerve, Facing Ali, Down A Dark Hall and American Assassin.
Commenting on the partnership, Avneesh Khosla, Operations Director – Marketing, Vodafone Idea Limited said, “At VIL we strive to bring world class partnerships to our consumers with the singular focus to enrich their experience. With Lionsgate Play we are extremely excited at the prospect of offering premium world class English content to our consumers to enable them to enjoy the best that Hollywood has to offer.”
“The partnership with Vodafone Idea creates an exciting opportunity to expand the Lionsgate Play offering as a premium service that delivers a vast library of compelling films and a great user experience to all of our shared customers. We are delighted to bring this premium service to India with a leading global platform like Vodafone which has such enormous reach and tremendous distribution expertise. Our partnership is the latest affirmation of the enormous role that telcos are playing in shaping the digital age of content,” said Rohit Jain, Managing Director of Lionsgate South Asia.
iWorld
Tips Music CEO Hari Nair to step down
Girish Taurani and Sushant Dalmia to jointly steer the company as the hunt for a new chief begins
MUMBAI: A leadership shuffle is under way at Tips Music. Hari Nair, the company’s chief executive, will step down on April 30 as the music label begins the search for a successor.
The company said Girish Taurani, executive director, and Sushant Dalmia, chief financial officer, will jointly oversee operations during the transition while the board identifies a permanent replacement.
Nair joined Tips Music in 2023 and set about reshaping the veteran music label into a more digital, data-led enterprise. During his tenure, the company secured licensing and partnership deals with global platforms including Sony Music Publishing and TikTok, while renewing agreements with Warner Music Group.
Drawing on earlier experience in technology and entertainment, including a stint at ByteDance, Nair pushed the organisation towards a performance-driven culture. He built a brand partnerships division and introduced proprietary software systems aimed at strengthening digital distribution and data capabilities.
Kumar Taurani, chairman and managing director, credited Nair with embedding a data-led culture within the company and driving revenue growth in line with shareholder commitments.
In his resignation note, Nair said that after helping transition the label into a modern, digitally focused and process-driven organisation, the time had come to pursue his next leadership challenge.
The leadership change comes as the broader Tips Films group shows signs of financial stabilisation. In the third quarter of FY26 the company reported a net loss of Rs 2.86 crore, narrowing sharply from Rs 14.2 crore in the previous quarter. For the nine months ended December, losses stood at Rs 12.37 crore.
Yet revenue told a more volatile story. Income from operations slid to Rs 4 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 56 crore in the preceding quarter, taking total operating income to Rs 4.56 crore.
For a company built on a catalogue of more than 34,000 tracks and decades of Bollywood hits, the next chief will inherit both a digital engine and a volatile music market. The playlist may be familiar, but the next act at Tips Music is only just beginning.
