Tata Play | Business Upturn

Tata Group likely to acquire Walt Disney’s stake in Tata Play: Report

Markets Desk — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 12:31:01 +0000

Tata group in a new development is likely to buy Walt Disney’s stake in Tata Play which will enable the company to have a full control of the subscription television broadcaster, a report from Bloomberg stated on Thursday. The news of the development comes in days after the Reliance-Disney deal to merge its businesses, which is likely to capture the 50% of country’s streaming market.

Both Tata and Walt Disney are in the initial stage of talks about an acquisition of Disney’s significant minority stake, which would value Tata Play at about $1 billion or more, sources aware of the matter told Bloomberg. Tata may decide not to pursue a deal, they told Bloomberg.

The loss making firm Tata Play, is owned 50.2% by the Tata Group, Singapore’s Temasek holds around 20% stake, while the remaining stake (29.8%) is held by Walt Disney. In FY23, Tata Play reported a loss of Rs 1.05 billion or $13 billion. Its revenues fell 5% during the same period. The company had also filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) a year ago.

Enhancing Educational Environments: Extron’s AV Solutions elevate learning at Utah Tech University

Tushar Aggarwal — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:45:05 +0000

Extron, a leading provider of AV technology solutions, recently collaborated with Utah Tech University to enhance the audiovisual infrastructure of its new Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) building. This 15,000 square meter facility required advanced AV systems in 35 classrooms, labs, lecture halls, and conference rooms. Shaun Hayes, the university’s senior AV administrator, partnered with local integrator Marshall Industries to install cutting-edge AV switching, distribution, control, and audio amplification equipment.

In addition to outfitting the SET building with state-of-the-art AV systems, Utah Tech University embarked on a comprehensive AV standardization initiative. This initiative involved retrofitting 175 rooms across 31 buildings with Extron technology to create standardized systems. According to Hayes, Extron’s AV system control and remote support models were instrumental in streamlining the design, configuration, and management of complex rooms.

The SET building features various AV assets, including single-screen classrooms, large lecture halls with multiple screens, and anatomy labs with multiple dissection tables, each equipped with a camera and display for group viewing. The standard classroom setup includes a DTP CrossPoint 4K Scaling Presentation Matrix Switcher with a built-in audio amplifier and control processor, an 86″ flat-panel display or projector, and a 7″ TouchLink Pro touchpanel for input selection. Wireless microphones and ceiling speakers enhance audio quality, while video and audio are fed through an Extron MediaPort 200 USB scaling bridge to the instructor station PC for conferencing applications.

The larger classrooms and lecture hall deploy similar AV systems but with additional projectors, flat-panel displays, and ceiling-mounted directional mic arrays. These spaces feature up to 12 ceiling speakers, driven by an XPA amplifier, and a presentation matrix switcher with more input and output ports for increased functionality.

The anatomy labs are equipped with video cameras above each dissection station, allowing video to be viewed on 86″ flat-panel displays and 43″ screens. ShareLink Pro 500s enable wireless content sharing, while MediaPort 200 USB scaling bridges deliver audio and video to remote students. Each lab also includes wireless microphones, a directional mic array, and 10 ceiling speakers for clear audio delivery.

Overall, Extron’s AV solutions have significantly enhanced Utah Tech University’s AV capabilities, providing instructors with a dependable and uniform AV experience across all classrooms and labs. This standardization initiative has not only improved teaching efficiency but also maximized AV system uptime, ensuring a seamless learning environment for students.

Tata Play reports Rs. 105.25 crore net loss in FY23; Here’s why

Dixita Hazarika — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:01:06 +0000

According to financial data accessed by Tofler, business intelligence platform, Tata Play has reported a net loss of Rs. 105.25 crore for the fiscal ended March 2023. According to the data, the company reported a net profit of Rs. 68.6 crore in FY22.

The company’s revenues decreased by 5.1 per cent to Rs. 4,499.19 Crore compared with Rs. 4,741.07 a year ago.

Tata Play which was previously known as Tata Sky is not a publicly listed legal entity. However, earlier this year it received permission from capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO). Tata Play’s total expenses for 2022-23 was Rs. 4,691.25 crore.

Tata Play, the joint venture between the Tata Group and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, saw fall of total income of 5% to Rs. 4,529.97 crore. Its total liabilities fell to Rs. 8,658.22 crore in FY23 from Rs. 9,198.1 crore in FY22.

Its borrowings in FY23 rose to Rs. 2,787.35 crore from Rs. 2,037.45 crore a year ago.

The company stated that despite the macroeconomic and industry difficulties, it has made ‘remarkable progress’ during the year by reaching some significant milestones. It also mentioned that free dish, along with cheap data prices, added to the industry’s woes.

It said, “Although the challenges persisted, the elimination of the four major Hindi entertainment channels has resulted in enhanced customer retention in the Hindi-speaking markets.”

Dish Tv, it’s closest rival’s consolidated revenue from operation for FY23 was at Rs. 2,261.85 crore. According to the latest TRAI report, India’s total number of paid DTH subscribers stands at 66.52 million with a 32 % share held by Tata Play.

Tata in talks to buy back Temasek’s stake in Pay TV platform: Report

Adesh Dixit — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 11:58:31 +0000

The Tata Group is currently in talks to offer a repurchase of the stakes in its content distribution platform from Temasek Holdings Pte. The development comes in the midst of the Indian conglomerate delaying the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Tata Play, as per multiple sources.

As per various media reports, Tata Group is considering whether to delay the Tata Play IPO analyzing the market situation. Instead, the Tata Group has started talks with Temasek regarding an agreement that would allow the Singapore-based investor to finally exit its long-term investment in Tata’s platform previously known as Tata Sky.

Temasek owns about 20 percent of the content distribution platform. Tata Play which is a joint venture between Tata Group and Walt Disney-20th Century Fox provides pay television via set-top boxes and over the top (OTT) video streaming through Tata Play mobile application. SEBI recently greenlit Tata Play for its IPO to be listed and would be first of Tata Group’s combined $128 billion to debut the market since Tata Consultancy Services in 2004 at $1.2 billion.

There are various speculations at the current stage regarding the deal, some say that Tata Group and Temasek would part ways whereas some believe that Tata Play IPO would soon hit the markets. Tata Play filed for IPO last year with SEBI and became the first company to go for filing IPO documents without making sensitive internal information public. Tata Play was incorporated in 2001 and expands beyond pay television and PVR services with Tata Play Binge, which is a OTT platform available on Amazon Fire TV stick, Tata Play Binge smart set top box, Android TV and dedicated mobile application and has a pan-India footprint of 23 million connections.