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Swetha Kannan

Bangalore, Sept. 28 Video content provider Shemaroo Entertainment, which is betting big on video-on-demand for IPTV (television via Internet protocol), has conducted pilots in Europe, Africa, South and South-East Asia and West Asia on this new-age platform.

Shemaroo, which provides movie titles and other entertainment content in various languages — Indian and foreign, decided to test territories where there is high broadband penetration and a huge expatriate population.

Says Mr Jai Maroo, Director, Shemaroo Entertainment: “We have successfully concluded pilots in these markets on IPTV/VOD platforms. There is a huge appetite for South Asian content in these territories… One of the biggest learnings from the pilots has been that the South Asian population is an early adopter to new technologies, be it VAS (value-added services) on mobile or VOD (video-on-demand) on IPTV. Apart from the sheer size of the expat population, broadband penetration is high in these regions. There is a very high awareness level among the expat population in these countries about Indian movies and other Indian content… they have accepted the services with enthusiasm.”

The company believes IPTV has big pay-offs in terms of offering true video-on-demand, superior streaming quality and interactive experience with playback control.

Although IPTV hasn’t quite taken off in India, Mr Maroo says once scale is achieved, it will make a world of difference.

In India, Shemaroo is working with players such as BSNL, Bharti and Reliance to supply content on IPTV.

Emerging technologies will hasten the “movement of entertainment from physical format to digital and we will be a part of that,” says Mr Maroo.

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