India’s Vial Content Tech Founders to Lead Expansion of Premium SVOD/AVOD Content Curator in World’s Soon-To-Be Most Populous Nation as It Embarks on a Rapid Global Rollout in European, Latin & North American Territories
U.S. and UK streaming aggregator ScreenHits TV has formed its first joint venture partnership with former Sony Pictures Networks India CEO Kunal Dasgupta and EVP Vivek Gupta, who will lead the premium SVOD/AVOD content curator’s expansion in the world’s soon-to-be most populous nation.
ScreenHits TV tapped the former studio executives and founders of India’s Vial Content Tech to oversee its expansion in the critical market.
“We chose to make our first JV agreement with Kunal and Vivek, because they have proven themselves to be outstanding media leaders in this thriving region,” said ScreenHits TV Founder-CEO Rose Adkins Hulse. “With their incredible insights and strategic guidance, we are confident our company will be able to expand exponentially in this vital territory.”
Dasgupta commented, “We are excited to partner with ScreenHits to bring a global OTT curator and aggregator to Indian audiences. Rose and her team have built a great product and is the need of the hour in this growing streaming eco system.”
Added Vivek, “Partnerships with premium Indian and global streaming companies will ensure that we give Indian audiences an avenue to aggregating and watching their individual subscriptions, and they will be able to do that in one place on ScreenHits TV.”
Moviegoers Entertainment’s Pranab Kapadia, who in conjunction with the executive team at ScreenHits TV facilitated the JV partnership, will serve as a business development and strategic partner for ScreenHits and serve as its Director, Partnerships, in India.
In his role, Kapadia will lead alliances, partnerships, integrations, on-boarding and AVOD & SVOD sales for all Indian and Pakistani languages with streaming partners and OTT platforms across the Indian sub-continent.
“Kunal and Vivek’s vision for our brand was completely in sync with ours,” he said. “I thank Rose for entrusting me with this responsibility and look forward to building great partnerships with our Indian content platforms.”
India joins a growing list of territories gaining access to the streaming service, which is about to embark on launches in European, Latin and North American territories beginning with the DACH territories (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) at the end of this month, followed by Argentina and Canada.
ScreenHits TV’s services vary from region to region but include many of the leading premium streamers.
The app will allow subscribers to integrate their existing streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, Disney+, StarzPlay, Moviesphere, Paramount Plus, Britbox, MUBI, ITV Hub and BFI Player, among others. Along with its iOS tablet app, the mobile app will have compatibility with Android TVs via Chromecast and Fire TV and, shortly, ScreenHits TV will launch a native app on Vizio, LG and Metz
Users will also be able to watch live premium TV channels and thousands of shows and films with discounts offered across a number of subscriptions. Streamers such as Amazon Prime and Paramount+ will be available at substantial cost savings. Users will also be able to share their favorite shows across all platforms with their friends and family, and have new premium bundles added regularly.
One of the key features distinguishing the intuitive content aggregator is its ability to streamline choices for busy consumers through curation, which has allowed it to not only offer the best streaming services but a way for them to organize and get the most out of their streaming subscriptions in one place. This has provided a significant advantage to its affiliate partners, permitting them to prevent churn and ensure their content always remains top of mind with consumers at the point of discovery.
Its unique interface will allow subscribers to discover content across all the leading premium streamers, without having to switch between apps, as well as their AVOD and live channels via an easy-to-use tablet app, desktop versions and Android TV, Chromecast, Fire Stick platforms and smart TVs.