The ongoing India-Australia cricket series has infuriated Indian cricket fans, with Steve Bucknor’s umpiring and the ban (pending an appeal) on Harbhajan Singh drawing much flak. However, media planners feel that the controversy augurs for ESPN-STAR Sports, with more viewers now following the series. It also means good news for advertisers who have already booked their airtime spaces for the series.  more...

Endemol India has aggressive plans for the year ahead. According to Marco Bassetti, COO, Endemol, India was a huge market for content. He has also revealed details about some of the company’s forthcoming projects.  more...

Yet another commercial has been launched for The Times of India Group’s ‘Lead India’ initiative. Prasoon Joshi, Regional Creative Director for South and South East Asia, McCann Erickson, has conceptualised the new commercial, while Black Magic has produced it.  more...

Sandipan Deb, Editor of Financial Express, has put in his papers. Deb is headed to the Rs 12,000-crore RPG Group which is entering the print publishing business. Deb would be Editor and Publisher with the publishing segment which will be a division of Sa Re Ga Ma Ltd.  more...

Sun Network, one of the largest media houses in India operating satellite television channels in all four South Indian languages, has announced an increase in its advertisement rates ranging from 3 per cent to 30 per cent, with effect from February 1, 2008.  more...

G2, the Global Gujarati magazine from Cymbal Media, the magazine division set up by Lokmat Group, is celebrating its first anniversary with a special issue on the most ‘Most Admired People’. The magazine also has features on influential Gujaratis and Parsis, besides interviews with Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma, Adi Godrej, and Mike Patel.  more...

VETA, an academy for teaching spoken English, has appointed O&M as its creative agency following a multi-agency pitch. Rediffusion DYR, Law & Kenneth, JWT and Contract were the other agencies that had taken part in the pitch. RK Swamy BBDO is the incumbent agency. The media duties of VETA are being handled by Mindshare.  more...

Dabur India Ltd has developed a new TVC for its Ayurveda-based health supplement Dabur Chyawanprash with the tagline ‘Zaroorat hai sabko’ that conveys the need of the supplement for all members of the family. The creative director of the TVC is Prasoon Joshi and the creative team leader is Vivek Dhyani.  more...

TRAI has released a consultation paper on ‘Issues relating to third phase of private FM radio broadcasting’. Among other issues, the paper deals with whether to allow news and current affairs programme on FM radio.  more...

Following Google and MSN’s recent new initiatives in the mobile space, Yahoo! has also embarked on its mobile initiative with a slew of announcements. In a span of few hours, Yahoo! has announced its Mobile Developer Platform, introduced a new mobile homepage and has also launched its application Yahoo! Go 3.0.  more...

The Ninth Auto Expo 2008, which kicked off on January 8 in the Capital, highlights the launch of new designs in the automotive sector. The expo would be open for public from January 10-17, and 29 countries are participating this year. It would also have largest ever overseas participation with countries like Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Spain Taiwan, the UK and the US.  more...

The 9th Auto Expo, the country’s largest automobile industry show, started today with the participation of around 2,000 companies from various sectors of the automobile industry.  more...

Digital creative is still new for most folks judging it. Here are some thoughts to help demystify, debunk and better prepare for the present future.  more...