Comments
Shobha and Ekta Kapoor-owned production house Balaji Telefilms Ltd, with interests in films, television and events, is looking at TV-centric intellectual property rights as an additional revenue booster.
One such property the company is betting on is the sports reality show, Box Cricket League (BCL).
Samir Nair, Group CEO, told BusinessLine the company is exploring various genres of entertainment. “We are diversifying and adding reality shows into our portfolio. We, along with Marinating Films, also own the IP rights of the Box Cricket League.”
Margins downIndustry watchers BusinessLine spoke to indicated that margins in TV have decreased considerably over the past two- three years.
Several content creators were looking at intellectual property-based products.
Nair said the BCL has already signed up 150 leading TV stars for the eight city teams across Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.
Each team will comprise 11 active on-ground players and at least 20 players in total. The teams are mostly owned/mentored by celebrities.
Nair said the first season of league will be aired from December onwards on Sony Entertainment TV.
Elaborating on the show, he said the league has introduced a ‘filmy toss’ with options like Jai or Veeru , Basanti or Dhanno .
Viewers will also get to see behind-the-scenes action, locker room gossip and awards like Gentleman of the Match and Most Stylish Player of the Match, among others.
Advertisers’ responseAsked about the advertisers’ response to the new format, Nair said: “Sports have always been puritan in India. But a box league is a new theme even for advertisers. They are keen on the format. As far as we are considered, we are in the investment mode in this format and we hope to make money in the first season”.
He added the company’s movies plate was going from strength to strength.
“We have six to eight movies lined up in the coming quarters. We have also done select joint ventures and have retained the IP of the content produced by us”.
“We are scaling our movie infrastructure and distribution business as we see considerable growth there.”
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.