The media company, which has a noteworthy appearance on the Web, aims to venture into the media outsourcing service space. The TV18 Group, in association with Infosys BPO has taken plunge in launching a new company called Source 18 which will make us available with a full spectrum of services worldwide.



These ranges of services include-- digital archiving, meta-tagging, repurposing content, workflow charting, ideation, re-editing, transcoding and quality control to media and entertainment companies.

This company, Source 18, besides analytics, finance and accounting services, order management, rights management and HR services, will also furnish other services such as promo production, traffic management, uplinking and inventory management. TV18, group CEO, Haresh Chawla, says that the launch of this new venture as a key part of our strategy will address all the aspects of the media value chain.

As associate of it, BPO services will fetch on board its global delivery ability, its technological know-how and process of understanding with the good domain knowledge of the TV18 group. While in the other direction, TV18 will bring about its knowledge and expertise in the industry. Source 18 had already received its first client, National Geographic Channel, which is one of the leading and most respected international broadcasters, has affixed its signature for converting its archived and current content for the mobile platform.

Source 18 will be applying the services of Tangerine Digital Entertainment, as it specializes in content repurposing and media process outsourcing. This company is floated by Puneet Johar, ex-senior vice-president of STAR India.

Chawla said, Content utilization has been personalized today through mobile, PCs and ipods as the delivery mechanisms for content have been changed. It needs to be re-engineered to suit new platforms.

For most of the contents existing worldwide are in the analogue form, the opportunity of media process outsourcing is massive. They need to be digitized for new platforms. Chawla explained by giving a instance, if for the mobile screen, 3-minute episodes of a TV program needs to be configured, than Source18 can do it by counting on technical support from Infosys and from its own team of editors and content creators.

Media process outsourcing is a new stage for media companies. Last year, Genpact was tied up with the NDTV Group to launch a similar service in the country. The global media and entertainment industry will touch $2 trillion mark by 2008, as evaluated approximately.

They are looking forward to multiple platforms for the purpose of content delivery as the development of content in multiple formats across the media platforms has become the demanding immediate action for all the broadcasters ; this will also help in bringing down the cost for the broadcasters.

We harbor expectations from media and entertainment to be a key growth driver for us. Amitabh Chaudhry, Infosys BPO Limited MD & CEO said that we have firm faith that this strategic alliance of two great organizations - Infosys BPO and TV 18, will appear to be of great symbiosis. The relation subsiding between two partners will together cater to the tremendous opportunities in Media & Entertainment industry.