Reliance Big Entertainment Acquires Willow TV: World's Largest
Cricket Streaming Portal
MUMBAI, India (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) September 8, 2008 --
Reliance Big Entertainment today announced that it has acquired a
majority stake in US based Willow TV (www.willow.tv),
the World's largest portal for live internet streaming of all major
cricket events from across the world.
Willow TV, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, is a pioneer in live
streaming of major international cricket, a global sport very popular
with most South Asians, Australians, South Africans and English Cricket
fans. It already has more than a million registered users worldwide,
predominantly in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. In 2007-8, Willow
TV has streamed all major Cricket events live, including all Indian
Cricket including iconic Indian Premier League, all Australian, South
African and English International Cricket.
Commenting on this acquisition, Mr. Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance
Big Entertainment, said, “The acquisition of
Willow TV is in line with our strategy to strengthen our presence in the
global markets and reinforce our Group's presence in new media. Not only
that, there is considerable scope to expand the size, scale and scope of
Willow TV portal, we are also looking at launching a Video-Box Service
which will seamlessly integrate cricket, movie and television content on
the Television Screen which would give our audience great choice and
enhanced viewing experience. There is a considerable synergy between
Cricket from Willow TV, Movies from Bigflix.com, and telecom services
from Reliance Communications which will be now ignited.”
Mr. Vijay Srinivasan and Mr. Sameer Mehta, co-founders of Willow TV,
said, “We are very happy to be a part of the
Reliance ADA Group and excited at the prospect of scaling up the
business manifold. There is complete convergence of vision between
Willow and Reliance Big Entertainment. The synergies from the ecosystem
will enable us to offer a significantly superior product to our
consumers across three screens: PC, Mobile and TV.”
About Reliance Big Entertainment:
Reliance Big Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (RBEL) is the flagship media and
entertainment arm of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of India’s
leading business houses with market leading businesses across Telecom,
Financial Services, Infrastructure, Energy and Healthcare.
Filmed Entertainment:
Reliance has built a compelling presence in Indian Film Industry across
film production, distribution and exhibition. In a short span of one
month, RBEL's venture Big Pictures has built a large slate of 100 movie
projects in India. This slate has projects from leading production
houses and marquee directors like Farhan Akhtar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra,
Mani Ratnam, Amitabh Bachchan, Shyam Benegal, Madhur Bhandarkar, etc.
RBE has also announced development silos with leading Hollywood stars
and production companies that include Nicholas Cage's Saturn
Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Tom Hank's Playtone
Productions, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Colombus's
1492 Pictures, Jay Roach and Brett Ratner.
RBE's sister concern Adlabs owns the largest exhibition chain in India
and also recently acquired 250 screens in US and 51 screens in Malaysia.
Recently, Reliance Big Entertainment has acquired the controlling stake
in Big ND Studio, a premier film studio facility in Mumbai. RBE has
built significant presence in Music & Home Video, Animation, Special
Effects and Digital Restoration & Enhancement businesses. Recently it
acquired the iconic Lowry Digital Images, the Digital Images Business of
US-based DTS Inc.
New Media:
Zapak (zapak.com) - India's number one gaming portal,
BigAdda (bigadda.com) - No. 1 Indian social networking site,
BigFlix (bigflix.com) – India's No.1
online/offline movie rental and movie download business, and
Jump Games (http://www.jumpgames.co.in/)
- a fast growing global mobile entertainment venture. Besides many
marquee mobile gaming properties, it has acquired Worldwide Mobile
gaming rights for the No.1 football club in the world: Manchester United
and Worldwide Mobile Gaming rights for Cricket Games from International
Cricket Council.
Broadcasting:
In less than 2 years, Big 927 FM has become the No.1 FM radio
network in India with the largest number of radio stations in India. In
television broadcasting, Big Broadcasting has ambitious plans to launch
a bouquet of channels comprising of General Entertainment, Film, Kids,
Music, News and a range of specialist channels.
About Willow TV
Willow TV is the world’s leading portal for
live Internet streaming of all Cricket events worldwide, and has been
providing live streaming video of every major cricket series since 2003.
Willow TV provides subscribers with an unparalleled viewing experience
with enhancements such as live interactive scorecards and high bandwidth
video streams as well as mobile and IM offerings.
Willow TV is headquartered at Sunnyvale, CA, with offices in Bangalore,
India.
See the original story at: http://eon.businesswire.com/releases/willow/reliance/prweb1306594.htm
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