ScreenHits TV has tapped the former studio executives and founders of India’s Vial Content Tech to oversee its expansion in the Indian market.
US and UK streaming aggregator ScreenHits TV has formed a joint venture partnership with former CEO of Sony Pictures Networks India, Kunal Dasgupta and exec VP Vivek Gupta.
Under the deal, Dasgupta and Gupta, founders of digital content company Vial Content Tech, will lead ScreenHits TV’s expansion in India.
Rose Adkins Hulse, Founder and CEO of ScreenHits TV, said: “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. With their incredible insights and strategic guidance, we are confident our company will be able to expand exponentially in this vital territory.”
Dasgupta added: “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 ecosystem.”
Vivek commented: “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 and 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.”
ScreenHits TV soft-launched in beta mode in summer 2020 and allows subscribers to integrate their leading streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Disney+, BritBox, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Kidoodle, StarzPlay, Moviesphere, MUBI, Paramount+ and Eurosport onto one app. The service has been initially available in the US and UK and has attracted over 250,000 subscribers to date, with more than 800,000 users having registered their interest.
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.
The app will launch in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the end of August, followed by Argentina and Canada.
