Reliance Big TV & Indiagames sign strategic agreement.

UTV’s Indiagames leverages its partnership with Oberon Media to launch DTH Gaming Services in India through Reliance Big TV

• To introduce DTH Game based on Shahid Kapur's new film Chance Pe Dance
  
  
• Big TV ropes in NetworkPlay to monetize DTH VAS capabilities
  
  
  • Drives profitable growth of DTH business
  • Targets DTH VAS Revenues of Rs 100 crores in 5 years

As part of its agreement with Reliance Big TV, Indiagames will leverage its partnership with US-based Oberon Media, to provide specialized games for Reliance Big TV's DTH platform. Oberon Media is a world-leading multi-platform casual games solution provider delivering global, integrated casual games solutions across online, mobile and interactive television. The games offered on RBTV's DTH platform will be amongst the most popular game series currently available for PC, Web and other media platforms.

Commenting on its agreement with Indiagames, Mr. Sanjay Behl, Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Big TV said, "Our strategic tie-up with Indiagames is an extension of our business relationship with the UTV Group. iGames also signifies our focus to further enhance and monetize our VAS capabilities towards a profitable growth in the DTH business."

According to Mr. Samir Bangara, Chief Operating Officer, Indiagames said, "This initiative, and the DTH partnership with Oberon Media, marks our foray to the third screen of gaming making us the first Indian triple play games company with a strong presence across- mobile, PC and now DTH. With unparalleled content and cutting edge technology from Oberon, optimized for a rich user experience, we are truly taking the gaming experience on TV to a whole new level."

Reliance Big TV will offer the DTH Gaming service as part of its Interactive Services. Branded as iGames, Reliance BIG TV and Indiagames will offer eight different games that will be refreshed every month cutting across multiple genres. The games include leading titles from I-play, Oberon's publishing division: Galapago, Solitaire (with 4 different versions including Classic, FreeCell, Pyramid and Towers), MOODiES, Space MOODiES, Air Hockey, and Darts, as well as premium 3rd party licenses.Indiagames is also planning to introduce local content including its top selling T20 cricket games and Bollywood games like Chance Pe Dance, Kaminey and Jodhaa Akbar amongst others.

The launch of DTH Gaming services is part of RBTV’s strategy to drive profitable growth through innovative DTH VAS services. Currently, the company’s VAS offerings are limited to its PPV bouquet and an array of six free-of-cost interactive features like iCooking, iAstro, iStock, iCricket, iNews, following the launch of iGames service, Reliance Big TV plans to monetize its VAS capabilities.

With this deal, Indiagames, India’s leading cross media games company, brings  yet another pioneering initiative much like they did in mobile and the online games space. With an extensive user base on the mobile and web, the renowned gaming company will now, for the first time, introduce gaming in a whole new format through interactive games on the DTH platform.

Reliance Big TV plans its VAS business to be a key driver of revenues. Though, VAS currently contributes less than 5% of overall business revenues, Reliance plans to double the VAS contribution to overall revenues during the next fiscal. iGames is expected to contribute 10% of the Reliance Big TV’s VAS usage with a cumulative business revenue of over Rs 100 crores over the next 5 years.

As part of this strategy, Reliance Big TV is planning to introduce a series of VAS offerings which will offer monetizing opportunities to drive the financial growth of the company. As part of this outlook, the company is building three specific streams of revenues in the direction of PPV, Interactivity and Advertising.

As part of its drive to enhance the monetizing opportunity of its PPV offerings, the Reliance Big TV is focusing on building its regional PPV repertoire. The company is in talks with various regional film producers and production houses for the DTH rights of regional language films. This regional PPV repertoire will help Reliance Big TV cater to the regional viewing needs of its customers across various languages in India. Reliance BIG TV is also planning to introduce HD content sourced globally on its DTH platform.

The interactivity revenue drive will be done by offering unique and benchmark interactive services offering great value proposition to its subscribers. As part of this focus, Reliance Big TV will launch a series of interactive services over the next few months including iJobs, iHolidays, iMatrimony, iEstate, iJuniors, iEducation, iHealth etc.

One of the major revenue drivers for Reliance Big TV will be advertising sales.  Reliance Big TV has roped in NetworkPlay, India’s leading vertical multi genre brand ad networks, to monetize all its interactive and video channel offerings. RBTV will offer multiple branding opportunities through its 21 owned and operated pay per view and SVOD movie channels, interactive zones like iAstro, iStock, iCooking and iCare. There exists multiple video opportunities outside of banner communications on Big TV whose reach is close over two million connections in over 6,800 towns across India. Reliance Big TV’s partnership with NetworkPlay was based on their agreement to leverage its sales capabilities, evangelizing capabilities and a proven track record of working with marquee brands successfully delivering complete value to their partners. NetworkPlay is a Capital 18 and GMV funded venture.

About Indiagames: Indiagames Ltd. is India's largest games companys and a pioneer in mobile and online gamespace. The Company has established relationships with more than 80 telecom operators across 67 countries around the world such as Vodafone, Verizon, T mobile, AT&T, Hutch, Airtel and many more. It has tie-ups with all major game publishers and media companies in the World such as EA, Disney, THQ, Atari, Universal, Fox, Warner brothers, Sony, MTV, 2K and others. Indiagames has developed and published mobile games such as Bioshock, Garfield, Flavor Of love, Godzilla, Bruce Lee, The Office, Scorpion King, Cricket 20-20, Movin Maze, amongst others. The company also runs the only subscription based Games on Demand service for PC games across all major broadband operators in India.

About Oberon Media : Oberon Media, the world's leading multi-platform casual games company, is the first company to deliver global, integrated casual games solutions across three platforms-online, mobile and interactive television and at retail. Oberon game solutions have been adopted by the world's leading digital and media companies, such as Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, Yahoo!, Electronic Arts, Orange France and NHN. The Game Center combines casual game content, merchandizing and features to fulfill our partners' specific needs. Oberon Media's game publishing division, I-play, works with the industry's best and award-winning game developers to produce the top-selling casual games, which are played across online, mobile, console and iTV platforms in more than a dozen languages. Founded in 2003, Oberon Media is headquartered in New York with offices in North America, Europe and Asia, and is backed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Oak Investment Partners.

About Reliance BIG TV DTH : A wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications, India's largest integrated telecom service provider, offers India's first fully Digital Home Entertainment Service using MPEG-4 platform, under BIG TV DTH brand. The world's most advanced MPEG4 DTH technology platform enables BIG TV DTH to offer over 200 TV, Cinema and Audio channels, the highest by any other DTH operator in the country. With 32 exclusive movie channels in English, Hindi and Regional languages, BIG TV DTH offers a choice of 600 new movies every year, unmatched by any DTH or cable operator in the country. The country's largest on-ground infrastructure for a Home Entertainment created by TV DTH would enable the company to serve over 5 million new customers every year and will offer multiple price points and packaging BIG offers to suit needs of all customer segments. The state-of-the-art Customer Service mechanism is fully functional and ready to serve a minimum of 50,000 customers every day in 11 Indian languages. Available at launch at 1 lakh retail outlets across 6500 towns, over 2000 exclusive Reliance branded stores, BIG TV DTH is the largest retail rollout of a Home Entertainment Service in India. BIG TV DTH Toll Free Number: 1-800-200-9001; Website: www.BIGTV.co.in SMS BIGTV to 55454.

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