Thursday, September 13, 2012

Times Internet is online video service BoxTV opens to a rush in India, UK and US

Times Internet Ltd has launched BoxTV.com, an online video service that offers premium content such as movies, television shows and short films.

The service, BoxTV, will focus on premium content only, not hosting UGC content like Google's YouTube.BoxTV.com has been launched in India, the US and the UK, and has got 50,000 requests for registration already, Satyan Gajwani, chief executive officer of Times Internet Ltd, said.
The new service will focus on bringing both Indian and international content to Indian users, partnering with Indian and Hollywood studios at launch. In addition, it will also take Indian content, like Bollywood films and other regional content in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati languages, to Indians living abroad. "We are going to focus only on premium content on BoxTV.com," Gajwani said, at a press meet to launch the service. "The users will be able to watch videos on regular web browsers, smartphones and tablets, and even on TV-connected platforms like Roku," he said.

Times Internet has invested in curating the content's metadata, which will enables users to jump to their favourite scenes and songs while watching a video and easily find the content they are seeking.

The company has already tied up with a dozen content providers, including, Sony, UTV, Shemaroo, Rajshri,Lehren and Zoom. "We will soon have three times more content providers on board as well," Gajwani said. BoxTV.com is launching with over 3,500 full-length films, more than 500 short films, and over 2,000 television episodes.

For revenues, the company is banking on ad sales and subscription. The consumer profile will be a mix of free users (who will get access to limited content) and paid subscribers. For users in India BoxTV will be available for Rs 199 a month, while those in the US and UK will pay $4.99 or £4.99, respectively.

In the last six months, TIL has already seen huge interest from users. "We already have over 50,000 invitation requests, and in the last 5 days when we privately launched, we received 10,000 of them," said Gajwani, adding, "While we know there will be a large base of free users, we are also targeting audience which is ready to pay."

BoxTV.com will also be accessible via iPhone, iPad and Android devices. To begin with, the company will test the success of the new product in the market and then launch marketing and promotional campaigns to broad base the offering in a few months from now. 

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