MUMBAI: The phenomenon of Social TV is surfacing in India as single screens and consumers are turning to multiple platforms.

Tata Sky MD Harit Nagpal said that about 31 million Indians were now regularly viewing TV and as such TV is not an idiot box any longer. ?There are also a large number of Indians watching programmes through digital platforms. There are over 750 channels catering to diverse tastes. TV broadcast is merged with broadband,? he said.

What?s on India CEO Atul Phadnis said that TV viewers were indeed doing multi-tasking. About 75 per cent of TV viewers were simultaneously using other technology platforms.

The theme of Fusion 2012 was ?Content, Creation, Consumption and Audience involvement?.

Tam India CEO LV Krishnan said that today?s children between age of 4 and 12 were tech-savvy, and would engender a revolution in the coming years in TV world. ?You will see a sea change in the next eight years in people?s attitude towards viewing programs on TV and digital platforms. As the size of TV viewers enlarge, all stakeholders will stand to gain,? he said.

Meanwhile in the opening session Union minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Ajay Maken blamed the sports federations for obstructing growth of sports in India. ?The federations have been playing a negative role,? he said.

Sports was a healthy form of entertainment, popularised through mass media. ?Unfortunately, the growth of sports in India was being stunted due to monopoly of sports federations, which have become fiefdom of powerful vested interests. For breaking their stranglehold, it is necessary to promote sports leagues and other platforms, so that Indian youth would be able to avail wider opportunities for nurturing their skills?, he said.

?Sports is a State government?s subject, and the central government has no direct control on its administration and development. Yet I have taken initiative to promote sports by offering liberal grants for creating infrastructure and for setting up training academies,? Maken added.

Explaining further, he said that India had 92 sports academics, catering to the needs of about 15,000 youths. ?My ministry has sanctioned grants totalling Rs 2.60 million for promoting non-cricketing sports by hiring the services of 29 foreign coaches, all in preparation for London Olympics,? he said.

He would be moving a Bill in the Lok Sabha for bringing all sports organisations under the ambit of ?Right to information? for ensuring transparency and ending vested interests.

?Once this Bill is passed, you will see revolutionary changes in the world of sports in the country. We want to set up a sports university and also an academy of sports sciences on the model of China. I will get the Cabinet?s okay for this Bill before 31 March 2012?, Maken said.

MUMBAI: English movie channel Movies Now, which created an impact in the genre in a short period of time celebrates its first anniversary on 19 December 2011. It is looking at increasing its distribution footprint.

Movies Now channel head Ajay Trigunayat said that the aim is to increase its reach in the one million plus towns. "These are places where products and services are seeing a lot of growth. The focus will be on making the channel available at the right price among operators."

He notes that Movies Now is the only channel in the genre that reports for eight Metros which gives advertisers a homogeneous picture. Some of the other players he says are still not present in cities like Chennai and Ahmedabad.

The channel has now done deals with all the DTH operators - Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel Digital TV, Videocon D2H, Reliance Digital TV, and Sun Direct. The question though is what impact cable digitisation will have in terms of distribution costs.

Times Television Network MD, CEO Sunil Lulla notes as per the experience in other markets globally digitisation will result in as re-caliberation of carriage costs. "It is important that you are a strong brand that is present in consumers homes. The Times Television Network owns and operates strong brands. Movies Now, if I may say so, has been a super smash hit. We are a daily habit. Consumers come to see the movie of their choice," Lulla added.

One challenge is that of viewer fatigue with franchises like Rocky and Bond revolving among channels. Trigunayat notes that Movies Now gives at least a two month break to a film. The other challenge is increasing content costs which Trigunayat says have doubled in the past couple of years. This is affecting the period for which a channel holds the rights to a film. "For instance, if earlier you held the rights for three years, today if you want to pay the same price then you will only be able to hold it for a year and a half to two years. It has become a sellers market. Earlier when there were fewer players it was a buyers market."

He adds that when Movies Now launched it challenged the status quo. He adds that most viewership in this genre comes from library content. Action and comedy work the best. "Our philosophy is that if 60 million people watch this genre each week then it cannot be considered as niche. Right from the start we provided the necessary value with HD."

He adds that GRPs for the genre have risen despite the large amount of cricket being played. Also now more library content for film is being exploited with more players coming in. Earlier only 60 per cent of the available content was being used. Now this has gone up and popular films from previous decades air. Movies Now has around 500 films in its library and this will not grow. The only thing is that some films will go out and others will come in.

He adds that the broadcaster has made strides in social media. On Facebook it has half a million fans.