English Entertainment
Star World and Star World HD to air ‘MasterChef Australia season 7’
MUMBAI: Star World, India’s leading English General Entertainment channel, is all set to bring the latest season of the biggest and most watched culinary show on Indian television – Amazon.in presents MasterChef Australia S7 powered by India Gate Basmati Rice. Starting 3 September, the seventh season of the globally popular series will air every Monday to Friday, 9pm only on Star World and Star World HD.
MasterChef Australia has been a tent pole property for Star World and has inspired millions of Indians year on year changing the way food is perceived in India. The last season further cemented the show’s massive fan following, becoming one of the most-watched shows in the 9 PM slot in 3 years across the category.
Commenting on the show’s launch Star World official spokesperson said “MasterChef Australia has been a flagship show on Star World that has transformed the culinary landscape in India. Star World has always been a pioneer in exposing India to global lifestyles and creating that urban premium consumer segment who today we call as the Global Indian consumers; they demand nothing but the very best in English Entertainment”
A mega 360 degree promotional campaign has been put in place which will pan across various mediums to include On-Air, Digital, On-Ground, Trade and Public Relations. For the launch of the show, Star World will be putting up a massive promotional TV campaign not only across the Star network but outside network TV channels as well. Digital is key driver and the lead medium for the show and the channel has a robust visibility and consumer engagement campaign planned to reach out to its target audience via an extensive paid and earned media marketing campaign.
Star World will further amplify the show with unique targeted digital and on-ground tie ups. Food Talk India, one of India’s largest digital food communities has come on board as a digital partner and will be creating fun and engaging content on social media platforms for the show along with co-curating promotional events in Mumbai & Delhi to give viewers a MasterChef Australia worthy experience. Food Talk India, along with Star World, and Olive Bar and Kitchen will be hosting on-ground concepts with in New Delhi and Mumbai.
MasterChef Australia follows the journey of ordinary home-cooks as they showcase their extraordinary cooking ability. From different backgrounds, and with different experiences, skills and cultural influences, there is one thing that unites the home cooks – their passion for food. With the culinary bar set high in 2014, the heat will be on and this year we will see some of the most talented and passionate home cooks eagerly tackle challenges and put up dishes which will leave everyone spellbound.
Judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston will seek out the most passionate and talented amateur cooks from across the country to unearth the Top 24 to join them in the MasterChef Australia kitchen. This September, judges will once again become mentors, encouraging and challenging the contestants to push the boundaries further and unearth their passion for food. Speaking on the launch of the show in India, Gary Mehigan said “MasterChef Australia is very special to me. I am aware of the fan following the show has in India and its evident from all my visits to this fabulous country. This season will be truly awesome as the contestants on the show are cooking & plating food better than ever before. Don’t forget to tune in”
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.
