Tech giant Google has signed deals with 80 media partners representing more than 130 publications for Google News Showcase, an online news experience programme. Launched last year in India with 30 publisher partners, Google News Showcase has completed one year in the country.

The tech giant's partners include Times Group, The Hindu Group, HT Digital Streams Ltd, Indian Express Group, ABP LIVE, India TV, NDTV, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Deccan Herald, Punjab Kesari, The Telegraph India, IANS, and ANI.

"This time last year, we announced a package of investments to support India’s news ecosystem, including launching Google News Showcase - our new product experience for readers and licensing program for news publishers," Google's Kate Beddoe, Director, News Partnerships, APAC, and Durga Raghunath, Head of India News Partnerships, said in an official blog.

"Since Google News Showcase launched in India last year, we’ve signed deals with more than 80 partners representing more than 130 publications, including national, regional, and local news organizations like Times Group, The Hindu Group, HT Digital Streams Ltd, Indian Express Group, ABP LIVE, India TV, NDTV, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Deccan Herald, Punjab Kesari, The Telegraph India, IANS and ANI. We continue to work towards adding more partners."

Google News Showcase has also expanded to more languages over the past year and now supports a total of 8 languages, including Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Bengali - along with English and Hindi. "We’ve also continued our work providing training and resources for news businesses and journalists, for example, GNI Startups Lab, GNI Newsroom Leadership Program, and GNI Advertising Lab," the blog reads. Update

Amazon miniTV announces a short film – Sorry Bhaisaab, produced by Arré Studio featuring popular actors Gauahar Khan and Sharib Hashmi in lead roles. Directed and written by Suman Adhikary and Sumit Ghildiyal, Sorry Bhaisaab will premiere on 16th December for free, exclusively on Amazon miniTV on Amazon’s shopping app. The film is a relatable humorous take on the desires, motivations and aspirations of the middle class and their eternal quest for things to make their lives better.

“At Amazon miniTV, we always try to bring fresh, engaging and relatable content for viewers. We are delighted to partner with Arré Studio once again to bring yet another heartwarming and entertaining short film. This is a great addition to our library of award-winning short films”, said Harsh Goyal, Head of Amazon Advertising.

“Sorry Bhaisaab showcases the desires and aspirations of a common middle-class family with a relatable plot. This short film is a very special project for us, as at Arré, we endeavour to narrate different and unique stories that touch audiences’ hearts and entertain them thoroughly. We are delighted to collaborate with Amazon miniTV on this since it will give the film a wide reach across see millions of Indians from all parts of the country.” said Niyati Merchant, Co-Founder and COO, Arré................ 

For the first time, Zee Digital crossed the 100-million unique monthly users mark in Comscore India ranking in the month of September 2019. The latest Comscore report placed Zee Digital ahead of many leading networks on the basis of unique users under the news and information category in India.

Over the past five months, Zee Digital has witnessed a marked growth of 55% in its total unique monthly users which is the second-highest in terms of performance among the top media groups in the country. The largest contributors to this growth have been India.com, Zee News Sites and Zee Business each of which has grown by 147%, 87% and 83% respectively during the same period.

Zee Group's CEO, Digital Publishing, Rohit Chadda said, “We aim to be the top digital destination across India and bringing the country together through content across categories, regions and languages. The reach of 100 million users only gets us a step closer in achieving this vision. We shall continue to focus on further improving our products to provide the best user experience to our consumers.”

Earlier in June 2019, Zee Digital overtook large media groups including NDTV and HT Media Group on the same metric and continues to do so.

Lotame, the unstacked data solutions company, has on-boarded seven partners CarDekho, Quikr, FirstCry, CarWale, Zapr, Vikatan & Unicorn Techmedia as publishers for Lotame PDX India. It’s another feather in the company's cap.

Lotame Private Data Exchange (PDX) was launched recently in India in response to market needs for increased data trust, transparency and quality from advertisers and agencies. It is a curated marketplace of second-party data sellers, as well as niche third-party data providers from around the world. The exchange directly connects authenticated sellers of data with selective buyers in a transparent environment.

Speaking to exchange4media, Gaurav Seth, Managing Director, Lotame India delved into the details of the partnership, “These are all niche companies that are leaders in their own verticals. For example, Car Dekho and Car Wale are leaders in the auto information vertical where any user that is looking in the market to buy a car is going to either of their websites, so these are users that are in the market and are looking for specific information within that vertical. Then we have Firstcry which is a leader in parenting, Quikr which has multiple different portfolios in classified, they also have real estate, automobile and personal technology. Then there is a company called Zapr which has TV audiences and is a leader in that segment, they are also on our platform. We have a data aggregator as part of our platform called Unicorn Techmedia, within Unicorn they have multiple different publishers.”

Elaborating on how brands and advertisers will be able to benefit from the partnership, Seth says, “So, all this data that is available is used in programmatic advertising. The medium of utilisation is programmatic advertising and programmatic advertising overall is growing 30 to 40% year on year in India and the usage of this data of these segments is taking place among all the agencies in India. All the top agencies are using this data which includes IPG, Omnicom Media Group, Madison, Dentsu & GroupM. So, if you have to divide it into three different stages which are,  awareness, adoption and scale, we are somewhere between adoption and scale, where it has been adopted by all the agencies and we are moving towards using it at scale. And that's the reason this is a really good opportunity for any publisher to come on board and make their data available through organised data exchange.”

According to Gaurav the response to Lotame in India has been phenomenal, “We’ve been able to bring large brands on board because they trust Lotame with user data. In terms of the buyers, all top agencies are buying from us. The purpose of this partnership is to take this momentum that we have now and to create this one-stop-shop for all data needs for every advertiser in the digital advertising ecosystem.”

To ensure quality on their platform, the company has strict verification collection practices and in doing so buyers are ensured of transparency in their purchases. As for the sellers, Lotame PDX offers tools to onboard, organise, monetise and sell data from a secure and centralised platform. Sellers, according to the company, can also control what they sell, at what price and to whom, and how the data may be used.

FirstCry too believes that the partnership with Lotame delivers transparency and precision to their advertisers. Says Vivek Goel, VP Marketing and Analytics, FirstCry, “FirstCry is the largest parenting website in India and along with Lotame’s capabilities, it is able to reach its users anywhere on the Internet at scale and in a privacy-compliant environment.”

For IPG Mediabrands, Lotame has become the primary platform for all their data needs. Anjali Hegde, Chief Data Officer, IPG Mediabrands says, “It has a wide assortment of 2nd and 3rd party data sellers with 2nd party data offering the transparency and granularity that every marketer desires." 

According to the company, Lotame’s customer partnerships has grown exponentially and they have seen a market growth of 30% year-on-year.

Viacom18 has announced its first subscription led offering VOOT Kids - a multi-format kids’ app that offers a collection of over 20,000 e-books, videos, quizzes and games.

To drive the content, VOOT Kids has entered into content partnership with 15 to 20 content companies including Nickelodeon, Oxford University Press, Warner Media, Green Gold, Ceebeebies, TV Asahi, Sony Music, Hasbro, Mattel and Lego.

Saugato Bhowmik, Business Head, VOOT Kids, shared with exchange4media the app’s focus area, price point, advertising model and more.

“The focus is to create India's first multi-format, safe, parent controlled app that addresses various needs at one go. It entertains, enriches and enables at the same time. There is a dire need for parents to curate multiple learning but fun engagements for the child all the time. We are trying to solve that for parents, we are curating for them,” Bhowmik said.

With a mission to make screen time meaningful for kids, the app strikes a balance between fun learning and entertainment for children aged between the age of 2 to 8 years. Certified by Early Childhood Association (ECA), VOOT Kids aims to usher in the next evolution in the kids’ digital ecosystem. The app is priced at Rs 799 for a year and Rs 99 per month with free trials for 30 days.

Bhowmik also highlighted that on the VOOT app, which has an advertising-led model, 15 per cent of the daily viewership on the app was coming for kids’ content which led to the decision of launching a separate app for kids. “That is what got us started thinking that there is a large opportunity here and we must investigate more into the category,” he added. With VOOT Kids, the platform is targeting 107 million households with kids aged 2-10 years. The app is available across seven languages.

“We’re not solving for a few markets. This is a pan-India app and soon we will also be looking at expanding to it to South Asia and some other countries,” he informed.

Though the app will follow a subscription-based model, Bhowmik shared the app was also getting a lot of partner interest.

“We have experienced a lot of interest from tech partners, TV partners and others. So there's a lot of partner interest, which will also be a separate line of business and add to the revenue. We will also open conversations with multiple schools across the country, and take the app to schools. Maybe one day, we will also create a customised product for schools. But as of today, we are only going to go talk to schools about the need for such progressive fun learning capabilities and then we will see how it goes from there,” Bhowmik added.

With this launch, VOOT Kids will bring alive the ‘Masti Main Acchai’ brand idea through a high decibel integrated marketing plan that will reach over 50 million households driven by a mix of print, on-air, on-ground activations and digital outreach.

Viacom18, India’s fastest growing entertainment network is all set to expand its digital ecosystem with the launch of its first subscription play – VOOT Kids. Leading kids’ content on broadcast, Viacom18 now extends its thought leadership with a unique digital service for kids, which creates a seamless experience for both fun and learning in a safe, parentally controlled environment. Certified by Early Childhood Association (ECA), VOOT Kids is India’s first and only multi-format Kids app offering Fun & Learning, with its largest and most versatile collection of over 20,000 videos, e-books, stories and quizzes, aims to usher in the next evolution in the kid’s digital ecosystem. Priced at INR 799 for a year and 99 per month with Free Trials in both packages, the VOOT Kids app is available to download on iOS and Play Store.

Speaking on the development, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO & MD, Viacom18, said, “Viacom18 has grown over the years by focussing on white spaces that are challenging and yet have tremendous potential. As a network, we have been the undisputed leader in kids’ entertainment content since the past 5 years. Our digital play VOOT is the second largest video-on-demand platform in the country today.” He added, “VOOT Kids is a synergy of these two growth stories from the house of Viacom18. Marking our sharper segmented foray into the world of subscription-based VoD, VOOT Kids is India’s first and only multi-format Kids app offering Fun & Learning. No other kids app offers Watch, Read, Listen & Learn all at one place”.

With a mission to make screen time meaningful for Kids, the app strikes a balance between fun learning and entertainment for kids between the age of 02 to 08 years. The app will achieve this by delivering a holistic experience focussed on viewing, reading, listening and playing all in one place. The app encompasses Kids’ favourite toons, best of pre-school and learning shows, beautifully crafted picture e-books, audio stories and fun quizzes and will empower parents with relevant and superior quality engagement options for their children. Behind this impressive content line-up are partnerships with best in class brand owners and leaders like Nickelodeon, Oxford University Press, Warner Media, Green Gold, Ceebeebies, TV Asahi, Sony Music, Hasbro, Mattel, Lego and many more.

Speaking about VOOT’s venture into the premium subscription space, Gourav Rakshit, COO, Viacom18 Digital Ventures said, “The foray into the subscription space with VOOT Kids is the first step in our journey towards building an entire digital ecosystem under brand VOOT. VOOT Kids has been built on the 3 pillars of Product Experience, Content and Safety. In VOOT Kids, we are bringing an offering that is child-friendly, yet parent focussed and gives them an opportunity to bond with an immersive co-consumption experience. Our brand philosophy of ‘Masti Mein Acchai’ reflects our mission to make screen time meaningful.”

VOOT Kids is a key enabler that enhances the bond between parents and children through immersive co-consumption experiences. The curated ad-free content library has parental control features that allow parents to evaluate progress, limit screen time and track content consumed which makes VOOT Kids India’s safest one-stop online destination that entertains, engages and enriches kids, all under one roof.

Elaborating, Saugato Bhowmik, Business Head, VOOT Kids said, “VOOT Kids is a category-creating product in the space of digital fun learning that caters to needs of discerning Indian parents who seek meaningful screen-time that aids in the holistic development of the child’s mental, emotional and social faculties. The app has the largest and most versatile offerings in the space of toon videos, e-books, audio stories and fun quizzes that provides children with a parent-controlled, safe and entertaining content destination.” He further added, “We believe masti should never be served up without acchai and the same holds true the other way around. And this is our guiding philosophy at VOOT Kids".

VOOT Kids will be Viacom18’s first-ever digital subscription service providing immersive content delivered through an elevated product experience and seamless gameplay. With this launch, VOOT Kids will bring alive the ‘Masti Main Acchai’ brand idea through a high decibel integrated marketing plan that will reach over 50 mn households driven by a mix of print, on-air, on-ground activations and digital outreach. Priced at INR 799 for a year with a 30 day free trial and 99 per month with a 7-day free trial, the VOOT Kids app is available to download on iOs and Android.

MX Player has announced a strategic in-app partnership with ShemarooMe. As part of the collaboration, MX Player will stream high quality content from Shemaroo’s library.

On the association, Karan Bedi, CEO, MX Player, said, "We are very excited to be partnering with Shemaroo and bringing their diverse library of content to our millions of users. Our promise to our users has always been “Everytainment” and this amalgamation of forces is a great further step in that direction."

Mansi Shrivastav, Head, Content Acquisitions & Alliances, MX Player, said: “At MX Player, we are always focused on building a deep and robust content offering for our user base. Given the large library of ShemarooMe, this association would be a win-win partnership for both partners, which would give the final consumer access to a vast and diverse content offering. This partnership will enable us to scale up in terms of genres and languages, and also paves the way for a healthy and sustained growth trajectory in the industry as well.”

Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo spokesperson said: “Shemaroo has always aimed at partnering with brands that promise greater outreach even beyond metros and with MX Player as a partner we aim to achieve the same by expanding our markets and reach. This partnership will help us engage with more audiences through our entertaining content which is sure to satiate the content cravings of any viewer.”