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Hungama: Bollywood by mobile
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Tag: Bollywood

Corporate watch: Bollywood by mobile

May 16, 2013 2:38pm by Avantika Chilkoti
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A company that launched on April Fool’s Day and takes its name from the Hindi word for chaos doesn’t sound like a winner.

But in its 14 years Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, the parent of Hungama.com, has grown to become the world’s largest aggregator and distributor of Bollywood entertainment.

It works with more than 400 content creators to distribute material in 47 countries through over 150 partners. With viewers in 127 countries, India’s Rs112.4bn film industry, which recently celebrated its centenary, is certainly not short of paying customers. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , Posted in Asia, India |

Return of India’s single-screen cinemas

Feb 19, 2013 8:55am by Avantika Chilkoti
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In developed economies like the UK “old” has become “vintage”. In emerging India, “old” is still simply “old”. So while single-screen, independent cinemas are the fashionable choice for Londoners, moneyed Mumbaikars prefer a shiny new multiplex.

As in many markets, the rise of the multiplex has pushed many of India’s single-screen theatres into closure. But now in India, too, single-screen cinemas are staging a comeback – but one led by the mass market, not the rarefied few. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, India |

HBO and Eros: where Bollywood meets Hollywood

Dec 13, 2012 4:00am by Avantika Chilkoti
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Ads are something of an institution in Indian television. Visitors to the country often walk away bemused by the hours of screen time devoted to grannies tempting audiences with baked goods, or preened ladies offering skin-lightening cream.

But this is all about to change. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, India |

Bollywood takes on India Inc

Sep 26, 2012 2:29pm by Neil Munshi
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The bulk of Bollywood films are not exactly known for their trenchant social commentary. Modern Bollywood music even less so. Songs about sexy girls and boyz [sic] tend to dominate.

So it is rare that a mainstream Bollywood song takes aim at corporate India. But that is exactly what a song from the upcoming movie “Chakravyuh”, a film about the Naxalite separatist movement which releases next month, has done. And it has elicited a response from the Confederation of Indian Industry. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in India |

Universal: after a bit of Bollywood too

Jul 27, 2012 2:48pm by Kanupriya Kapoor
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Two of the world’s largest film industries may be forging closer ties as US-based Universal Pictures joins the ranks of those looking to crack the Indian market, according to reports on Friday.

The entertainment giant is the latest Hollywood big gun to join to make a foray into Bollywood, following Disney’s takeover of India’s UTV earlier this year and Sony’s entrance in 2008. But according to analysts. it may be harder than it looks for foreign production houses to realise their Bombay dreams. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, India |

Pakistan: more Bollywood please

Jan 25, 2012 3:00am by Neil Munshi
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Nothing like random musical numbers, overacting and scantily-clad-yet-somehow-still-chaste actors and actresses to bring two age-old enemies together.

How else to explain Pakistan’s growing status as a major market for India’s Bollywood films? Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, India, Pakistan |

Akon, Luda and Gaga go Bollywood

Sep 29, 2011 5:30pm by Neil Munshi
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Lady Gaga

For the last few years – and for better or worse – it has been nearly impossible to enter a bar, club, gym or salon in India without hearing the auto-tuned stylings of Senagalese-American pop star Akon.

The same is true today. Only now he’s singing in Hindi.

Akon is part of a new crop of Western artists looking to tap the vast Indian market the only way possible: through its movies. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Asia, India |

Bollywood to Hollywood: outsource production

Jan 10, 2011 3:15pm by Anjli Raval
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Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, will from this week have its very own film studios to rival those in Culver City, where Hollywood stardust gets made. The Anil Ambani-owned Reliance MediaWorks (RMW) is hoping that the company’s new studios business will attract filmmakers from the US and Europe to the country’s movie capital.

Film City, the heart of what is formally known as Hindi cinema, will now host India’s most modern studios, and promises to meet international standards, down to the very smallest safety detail. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in India |

Bollywood: revolutionising product placement

Sep 29, 2010 1:00pm by Anjli Raval
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Watching a recent Bollywood remake of the Hollywood Stepmom original, one might be forgiven for wondering why plastic tubs seem to feature as much as the celebrities who star in it. The reason for pervasive product placement in the film has to do with a new concept in India’s advertising world that is gaining traction: 360-degree marketing.

Not only are advertisers now visible on the big screen, they are benefiting from their own film release-associated adverts. Welcome to the new India where more competition for consumers means advertisements are featuring more prominently in the daily lives of Indians. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in India |

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