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In Pictures: MATV recognised by High Com. India

MATV has been recognised by the High Commission of India in London for promoting Indian culture and the Hindi diction through its free-to-air national channel.

The channel was awarded earlier this week at the India House in London. MATV Controller, Kuldeep Shekhawat picked up the accolade.

In Pictures:

Earlier this month, BizAsia.co.uk revealed that MATV will be simulcasting its service in India after signing a deal with various cable operators.

India ratings: Average performance for IPL3

The Indian Premier League Season 3 is doing averagely, according to Indian ratings supplied by TAM.

The first three matches of IPL3 played on 12th March and 13th March received an average rating of 5.0 TVR, which is the same as last season. This is despite all the hype and hoopla over the 'homecoming' series.

Moreover, these ratings are lower than the inaugural IPL season, which enjoyed TVR of 5.6 per cent, which also happens to be the highest rating received in the last three seasons. These numbers are according to TAM Sports, CS 4plus years, all India, for the period 12th - 13th March 2010.

The rating for each match also reiterates the fact that most of the viewership for IPL comes during primetime matches. This apart, unlike CS 4+, the ratings for digital CS 4+ happen to be more than IPL2. IPL3 received an average of 6.9 TVR as compared to 6.7 TVR in IPL2, which is a marginal increase.

While the television ratings this year may be more or less the same as last year, the average reach of IPL3 in the first three matches happens to be more than Season 2, which witnessed more reach than the inaugural IPL season despite being held in South Africa. The Day one and two matches of IPL3 witnessed a reach of 37.1 million among CS 4plus viewers, as compared to 29.4 million and 26.3 million reach, respectively.

In the UK, ITV4 has witnessed a surge in its ratings thanks to the Indian Premier League.

Article from Exchange4Media

Priyanka Chopra to host 'Fear Factor' IPL special

India's leading Hindi entertainment channel, Colors, has roped in Bollywood actress, Priyanka Chopra to host a one-off IPL special of 'Fear Factor'.

]]> The IPL edition of 'Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi', will have 13 cricketers (Indian as well as International) competing with each other to vie for the 'Fear Factor - Khaton ka Khiladi' title for 2010. This is part of Colors' initiative to weave interesting entertainment around the biggest cricketing event in India – the IPL, by combining two of India’s biggest passions – Bollywood and Cricket.

Confirming the development, Ashvini Yardi, Programming Head – Colors, said, "We’re delighted to have Priyanka on-board to host this year’s Fear Factor – ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi’. When you combine her glamour, mass-appeal and athleticism with that of cricketers’ energy and adrenalin, what you get is the best possible combination for a show like Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi."

She further added, "Akshay took this show to great heights with his inimitable style, however this year we’re changing the format. So, far you had seen 13 hasinaein with 1 khiladi...this season get ready to witness 13 cricketing khiladis and ek haseena."

Talking about her association with Colors, Priyanka Chopra, says – "It feels fantastic to be associated with one of the biggest shows on Indian television today and it fits perfectly with my personality. I have been a huge fan of FF-KKK and thoroughly enjoy watching it. I am looking forward to begin an all new innings in TV with this show which pumps up the adrenaline levels. It’s exciting to be a part of the concept which is unique and is associated with some of the biggest names in cricket."

The IPL special of 'Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi' will be shown on Colors later this year.

India ratings: Colors back on top; ZEE TV loses

The latest Indian viewership data for Week 11 of 2010 shows Colors taking the crown as the leading Hindi TV channel across India, while ZEE TV falls drastically.

The much talked about episode of Anandi's "death" in 'Balika Vadhu' on Colors gave the channel a much needed boost, helping it to climb back to number one. It raked in 338 GRPs - a 27-point increase from the previous week.

STAR Plus showed a slight improvement too but was dislodged from the top of the chart. The channel delivered 335 GRPs, compared to 316 in the week prior.

The shocker this week was ZEE TV's performance. The channel was on a high in Week 10 with its record breaking show - 'ZEE Rishtey Awards', which helped the channel surge past 300 GRPS. This week, however, the channel lost 59 points, totaling to just 242 GRPs.

Sony Entertainment Television Asia remained fourth with 157 GRPs, while Imagine TV falling sharply to 109 GRPs.

SAB TV was last with 84 GRPs.

Asian Star Radio celebrates third year on-air

Asian Star Radio is celebrating its third birthday on-air with a party at the Empire Cinema in Slough.

The local service broadcasting for the Slough Asian community, will be celebrating at The Empire Cinema’s Café Bar on Sunday 28th March at 13:00 with lunch and entertainment.

A statement from the station said, "The service has developed and progressed comfortably in the last 3 years even with the hard hitting recession period and has accumulated a huge listener base not only locally but also from around the world with its Internet listening."

Asian Star is celebrating its success by forging with groups such as The Slough Express Newspaper and BBC Radio Berkshire.

Working closely with clients such as NHS, Thames Valley Police, Crimestoppers, Haveli, Peugeot, local retailers and popular Bollywood film organisations the Asian Star's popularity is on the increase.

BBC shows UK AMAs through 'Red Button'

The UK Asian Music Awards are being broadcast on BBC's digital television Red Button facility from today until Wednesday 24th March.

]]> The event is available to watch across all BBC channels from today (Wednesday 17th March) at 18:00 on Sky Digital, Freeview and Virgin on the interactive Red Button service.

The special Red Button programme, presented by the BBC Asian Network, will feature exclusive backstage interviews with all the performers and presenters from the night, as well as first reactions from all the award winners.

Mark Strippel, Head of Music & Events, BBC Asian Network said, "BBC Red Button Interactive TV is emerging as a brilliant platform for taking music and entertainment into British-Asian homes across the UK. Last Summer we reached an audience of more than 800,000 with our Mela specials and now the likes of Imran Khan, Jay Sean and RDB (plus exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of Amir Khan and The Grewal’s) are one red button click away on your remote control for 7 days."

The UK Asian Music Awards took place last Thursday (11th March) at the prestigious Royal Festival Hall. The glittering event saw a host of British Asian, Urban and International talent come together to celebrate what has been a phenomenal year for the British Asian music industry.

The UK AMA’s in their entirety will be broadcast worldwide on the B4U TV network at a later date. Kevin Rego says, "B4U are delighted with the success of the UK Asian Music Awards 2010. It was an eventful ceremony that yet again celebrated the success of a scene full of talent. Congratulations to all the winners. We look forward to broadcasting the ceremony globally on our network."

NDTV Imagine lines up Easter movie fest

NDTV Imagine, soon to be rebranded to Imagine TV, has lined a movie fest this Easter, which includes two movie premieres.

Starting on Friday 2nd April with romantic comedy, 'Kismet Konnection' at 15:30. Followed with two premieres, 'Kaminey' on Saturday 3rd April at 21:00, then 'Do Knot Disturb' at 20:00 on Sunday 4th April.

'Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani' will be shown on Saturday 3rd April at 15:30. 'Main Aur Mrs Khanna' on Sunday 4th April at 15:30.

The long weekend fest will conclude with 'Jane Tu Ya Jane Na' starring Imran Khan and Genilia on Monday 5th April at 15:30.

Leicester gets ready for first Asian Carnival

Leicester host its first Asian carnival this Easter weekend with a three day sevent showcasing South Asian Culture.

The Leicester Asian Carnival takes place from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th April 2010 at Parklands, Oadby, Leicester. The event provides a unique shopping experience in the heart of the community by promoting and showcasing South Asian cultural traditions, modern cuisine, fashion and performing arts.

Children can enjoy a range of activities including face painting and bouncy castle at the 'Kids Korner'. Get your taste buds going at the enormous 'food court' sampling the best in exquisite Asian cuisine, shop 'til you drop at our vibrant 'Bargain Bazaar' with exclusive bridal fashion, jewellery and accessories.

The Travel Market where a variety of experts from the travel industry will help you tailor make your perfect get away!

BBC Asian Network will be hosting the 'entertainment stage' where local talent will be showcasing their talent against the UK’s finest British Asian artists including Bollywood sensation Navin Kundra performing his hit Tere Liyeh, Punjabi prodigy Jaz Dhami and many more.

ZEE Network has been roped in as TV partner for the event. BizAisa.co.uk is proud to be the official online media partners of the Leicester Asian Carnival.

Leicester MP, Keith Vaz who will be opening the event, said, "I am proud to be able to lend my support to such a wonderful event. This carnival will provide the perfect setting for Leicester’s many South Asian residents to celebrate their culture, traditions and food and to share this with the whole Leicester community. I hope all local residents make their way down to the venue over Easter weekend for what will be a fun-filled family day out."

For further information about this event or exhibiting/ sponsorship enquiries, please visit: www.asiancarnival.co.uk or email info@asiancarnival.co.uk

Indian Premier League - a huge hit for ITV4

The Indian Premier League's debut on free-to-air terrestrial television has been declared a monster hit, according to official figures released today.

]]> ITV's digital channel, ITV4 which is telecasting the much hyped tournament has witnessed a record surge in its viewership since it started on Friday.

According to overnight BARB figures, the channel's peak viewing during the first three days were as follows:

Friday 12th March: 479,000
Saturday 13th March: 402,000
Sunday 14th March: 401,000

The numbers above exclude ITV4+1's ratings and any recorded elements viewed later.

While the opening day saw just one match being played over four hours, ITV4 cleared its daytime schedule on both Saturday and Sunday from 09:30 onwards to bring viewers rolling coverage live from Mumbai. The channel is now hoping to remain seated on the goldmine until the tournament concludes on Sunday 25th April.

Last year's UK broadcaster, Setanta Sports - a subscription channel, could only muster a viewership of around 50,000.

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, was quick to comment on the success of the IPL in the UK. He expressed his excitement on the social networking site, Twitter; "UK figures for viewership on ITV already 10 times that of Setanta last year. Fantastic news."

Modi also claimed to have beaten Sky Sports in the ratings during the same period. Sky Sports at the time had been telecasting the England tour of Bangladesh. He said, "ITV beats Sky Sports over the weekend in nos of viewers. This is great going."

When someone told Lalit that comparing ratings of ITV and Setanta Sports/Sky Sports was unfair, he said the following; "Why should we do that? Viewership is viewership in the end. If ITV has higher viewership than Sky - that's great for the game. He further added, "The ITV nos are double that of rugby league. This is huge by all imaginations."

ITV4 holds the exclusive UK telecast rights of the tournament. Rumouredly, it beat off competition from the likes of STAR and Sony Entertainment Television Asia, who were also up for bidding for the UK rights.

At the time of filing this article, BizAsia.co.uk was awaiting a statement from ITV about the success of IPL 3 on UK television.

Meanwhile in India, the opening game of the third season garnered a rating of 6.95 TVR in the six metros, according to TAM data. Even though the number is huge, it failed to topple the ratings of day one of season one. Then the first match of the first edition got a rating of 8.2. However, there was some good news, IPL 3 fared better than the second edition in South Africa which had managed a rating of 5.6.

ITV set to clinch Amir Khan Stateside fight

ITV is set to clinch the TV rights for boxer Amir Khan's debut fight in America, according to reports.

The Manchester-born WBA light-welterweight champion will fight Paulie Malignaggi at New York's Madison Square Garden on Saturday 15th May.

ITV had done away with boxing after poor ratings but it looks like the channel will make a u-turn on its decision and acquire the rights after talks broke down with Sky Sports. The broadcaster was hoping to show the Amir Khan fight along with Kevin Mitchell's showdown with Michael Katsidis on its Sky Box Office channel.

ITV is now readying itself for a ratings feast but this could be dampened because of the five-hour time difference with New York. The fight may not start in the UK until 01:00. However, talks are still ongoing between Amir and his US promoters Golden Boy to bring forward the ring time by an hour to start at midnight UK time.

Related link:
Amir Khan signs multi-fight deal with Sky

EXCLUSIVE: Andy Parfitt on Asian Network future

Andy Parfitt, controller of BBC Asian Network and Radio 1, shares his thoughts exclusively with BizAsia.co.uk about plans to close the BBC Asian Network.

]]> Sitting in the Royal Festival Hall last week watching a great night of music and celebration at the UK Asian Music awards - ably presented by BBC Asian Network’s Bobby Friction - you couldn't miss the "Save the Asian Network message" - performer after performer called on the BBC to re-think its strategic review recommendation to close the Asian Network as a national service.

As the Controller of Radio 1, 1Xtra, The Asian Network & Popular Music at the BBC, I'm passionate about music and understand the critical role that the BBC plays in supporting new artists including those in the British Asian Music scene. Jay Sean is an obvious example of this. He was supported in his early career by the Asian Network and 1Xtra, and has gone on to enjoy international success with a number 1 in the USA (the biggest music market in the world).

Of course, music is only one of the public service content areas that the Asian Network produces – high quality news, current affairs and language programmes are the others. On the day of the AMAs Nihal brought his afternoon show from an East London School hearing from Asian pupils about the challenges of growing up in households where English is at best a second language. So, the Asian Network is an important public service so what is this "closure" all about?

Well, firstly we are talking about closing it as a national service – the Asian Network first went onto the national digital radio transmitter eight years ago. At that time, the belief was that audiences wanted lots of new stations and in turn, that new stations would drive digital take up. It was also hoped that radio as a whole would move as quickly as TV in its transition from analogue to digital.

For a variety of reasons this hasn't happened. Many stations launched by the commercial sector during the same period have disappeared and it now appears that audiences are happier with a small portfolio of stations. The successes on digital have been with familiar brands or familiar content, i.e./ Smash Hits, Kerrang and 5Live Sports Extra.

So, eight years on, BBC radio has come to the conclusion that to drive digital (which must be done for the long term survival of radio as a medium) it has to build a simpler portfolio of well known brands with extra digital content closely related to very well BBC known stations - for example Radio 1 is known by around 80% of the UK population and 1Xtra by 16%, so by more closely aligning Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra we hope to build digital audiences and promote digital radio.

So where does the Asian Network sit in all this? Well it’s never going to be a huge national brand - only about 800,000 Britons listen to Asian Radio in total - UK Asians are not digital radio fans, adults are 50% less likely to own a DAB radio. It's also hard to see how the Asian Network fits as an ‘extra’ to one of the big BBC stations. In addition we know that 85% of the Asian audience live in five areas of the UK and that Asian radio tends to be a more local or regional experience.

All of this led us to ask how BBC radio can service the Asian audience with great Asian content better. The conclusion is our proposal to close the Asian Network as a national service and re-configuring it as a set of regional/local franchises with locally produced and relevant content in London, Manchester, Leicester, Birmingham and North Yorkshire, but supported by a core of syndicated programmes - like our current affairs phone in or new music offer. This could be the best of both worlds and help us build our audiences – which is something we clearly need to do.

I believe in the talent we have at the Asian Network both on and off air but we have to make some tough decisions. Both for the overall sake of a radio industry that needs to go digital and to make sure that we give audiences high quality content in the best way possible.

The proposals are now with the Trust who have launched a consultation period before any final decisions are made. Click here for details.

BBC Asian Network was a media partner at the UK AMAs.

Pictures courtesy of the BBC

Starfish agency forms alliance with HPI Research

Ethnic research specialist, Starfish Research, has formed a strategic alliance with HPI Research – the UK’s largest independent research agency.

The alliance will provide Starfish with access to HPI’s resources, whilst HPI will benefit from much increased presence in the ethnic research sector.

Starfish are architects of MinorityReportTM, a large scale study identifying media consumption, attitudes and behaviour amongst England’s non-white ethnic groups. Their clients include Asda, Ofcom and ZEE Network.

Commenting on the alliance, Parveen Bdesha, Director of Starfish Research said, "HPI is a highly respected and long established research agency and we see this alliance as a real opportunity to put the needs of ethnic minorities on the agenda with some of the UK’s major corporations".

HPI conducts both UK and international research and its clients include Vodafone, Visa, British Airways and Premier Foods. Commenting on the alliance, HPI’s Senior Partner David Iddiols said,
"We are already working with Starfish and this tie-up will undoubtedly enhance our expertise and credentials in the ethnic research sector."

Rakhi Sawant: Rahul & Dimpy won't last long

Loud mouthed, Bollywood 'item girl', Rakhi Sawant has spoken out about Rahul Mahajan and Dimpy's relationship and says the two won’t last long.

]]> Rakhi who was a part of the first series of 'Swayamavar' on NDTV Imagine, made her comments about Rahul and Dimpy who were a part of the second series of the popular reality TV show.

Rakhi says, "How can one marry by choosing his or her soul mate through a public voting system?" In spite of the fact that she herself got engaged to Elesh Parujanwala in the last season of the same TV series that Rahul participated in, Rakhi now looks visibly annoyed by Rahul’s decision of getting married on the reality show.

"It is really difficult to choose a life partner through a public poll. I thought of only getting engaged with Elesh instead of marrying him so that I could get more time to decide. But as time passed, I started feeling that he was not the right person for me. He just wanted to marry me because he wanted be part of my glamorous life. Things got so bad that now I really hate him," clarifies Rakhi.

She also said that the "huge age difference between them will lead to differences between them. In fact, Rahul should have thought twice before marrying Dimpy because of these reasons. Very soon, you all get to hear that Rahul aur Dimpy ka separation ho gaya hai."

Channel 4 News promotes Faisal Islam

Channel 4 News' Faisal Islam has been promoted to economics editor, the first time the role has been filled for 20 years at the news organisation.

Islam who has been with Channel 4 News since 2004 was previously a business reporter and then became an economics correspondent. Channel 4 News has not had an economics editor since 1986, when Sarah Hogg – now a Conservative peer – held the position.

"As we head into an election that may well be fought on an economic battleground, Faisal is the right person to explain and explore the key issues for our audience," Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 told MediaGuardian.

ZEE Cinema lines up 10 premieres in April

ZEE Cinema has lined up ten new and old movie premieres during the month of April.

On Easter weekend (2nd - 5th April) itself, the channel will telecast five premieres including 'Money Hai To Honey Hai' on Saturday 3rd April, 'Lajja' on Sunday 4th April, 'Gauri' and 'Khallas' on the same day. On Easter Monday, the classic Dharemdra and Hema Malini movie, 'Dreamgirl' will air at 20:00.

Other premieres during April are, 'Hijack' on Saturday 10th April, classic for Vaisakhi, 'Azaad' on Tuesday 13th April, Sanjay Dutt's debut movie, 'Rocky' on Sunday 18th April and Madhuri Dixit's 'Maha Sangram' on Sunday 21st April.

However, the biggest movie premiere has been reserved until the end of the month, 'Yuvraaj' starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. The channel holds the exclusive telecast rights for the Subhash Ghai romantic movie. 'Yuvraaj' will be shown on Saturday 24th April.

ZEE Cinema will also be holding an Amitabh Bachchan movie season in April, showing movies of the Bollywood legend every Friday night.