YOU Telecom Ties Up with Shemaroo Entertainment for Movie Content

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, 07/26/2009 - Shemaroo provides Bollywood content for the “Movies on Demand” service offered by YOU Telecom. YOU Tel becomes the first MSO in India to introduce movies on demand service – You Multiplex Shemaroo Entertainment offers movie content. Mumbai: Digital cable players have decided to take the DTH competition head on. YOU Telecom, one of India’s leading cable broadband companies and multiple system operator, is gearing up to offer its digital cable TV customers a never before TV viewing experience. The Citigroup-owned service provider today announced its tie-up with entertainment content major Shemaroo to broadcast movies through digital cable.Shemaroo is a leading Bollywood content house with aggressive plans in the digital content space. Shemaroo has a huge library of content for this platform. Innovation is an ongoing process at Shemaroo and is continuously working to create and bring the best video experience to consumers.With this arrangement YOU Telecom’s digital cable subscribers will be able to watch latest movies, classics and even international plays. By working together, Shemaroo and YOU Telecom are helping fight piracy and providing consumers with a legal alternative for entertainment consumption. More importantly, subscribers can now enjoy DVD like picture quality and sound sitting at home; demand and view it at their convenience.Announcing the significance of the tie up E.V.S. Chakravarthy, CEO, YOU Telecom said, “Content and customer experience have always been the key touch points in television entertainment. Consumers want to watch what they like when they want. This is a big shift from linear television viewing that is so far prevalent. Availability of good quality content, which caters to different segments of viewership in a home, is therefore very critical. Our new on demand service will satisfy that need in every home. Partnering with a leading entertainment content aggregator like Shemaroo presents us an opportunity to redefine customers’ TV viewing experience.”Adds Jai Maroo, Director, Shemaroo Entertainment, said “We are really glad to be YOU Telecom’s exclusive partner in providing content for their digital cable subscribers. Cable is still the primary way most consumers get their entertainment, and it is now changing to provide new services in great digital quality. We at Shemaroo are certainly proud to be associated with this movie-on-demand service as we have been at the forefront of the shift to digital on-demand entertainment. This service is bound to make its audiences happy because of the flexibility it offers and Shemaroo’s extensive content library will help ensure they get a lot of variety.”YOU Tel and Shemaroo will work towards building a content library that consists of latest films, old classics and plays. It will be pay per view model under the YOU Multiplex service brand where in customers using YOU set top box can select a movie of their choice and buy it for a day. They can choose movies from 5 different genres: action, romance, drama, comedy and classics.“What makes it an exciting proposition is people can watch the movie at any time and any number of times during the day. At any given point of time YOU Tel’s digital cable subscribers have a choice starting from six films going upto 21 films to choose from much like what we see in a multiplex, hence the name YOU Multiplex. This also makes YOU Telecom the first MSO to introduce video on demand service to digital cable subscribers”, adds Chakravarthy.About YOU TelecomYOU Telecom (youtelecom.com, youtele.com) is a category ‘A’ ISP and India’s first ISO accredited broadband service provider. One of the leading independent ISPs in India, YOU offers high speed Internet, voice and video services through cable modem platform to residential, SME and corporate customers in 12 cities. As a part of its growth plans, YOU is rapidly expanding its presence in other cities across the country.YOU Telecom forayed into digital cable business in early 2008 and its services are available in Mumbai, Bangalore, Vizag and Dharwad. In Mumbai, YOU formed a JV with a consortium of cable distributors called SCOD 18. YOU-SCOD18, the new entity is a multi service operator (MSO), which consolidated cable operators in the metropolis. YOU currently offers video services to large number of homes in the 4 operational cities