Bharti Airtel launches digital media business

Bharti Airtel, has made its debut into Media & Entertainment with the launch of the Airtel Digital Media Business. With this, Bharti Airtel will be able to offer Content Delivery Solutions for media and entertainment sector. The creation of its Digital Media Exchange offers the industry, a secure digital distribution capability across multiple media platforms. This ensures that content producers can have an integrated content delivery and aggregation platform that repackages content for all media formats.

According to Sanjay Kapoor, CEO-India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, "There is a clear demand for secure digital distribution capability across multiple platforms. Airtel Digital Media Business will help establish India as an innovation hub for global content and format delivery. This significant step takes Brand Airtel ahead from being just a telecom brand to a lifestyle enabler."

"Airtel's Digital Media Business is integrated with our global network of submarine cable systems, international points of presence (PoPs) and our Content Delivery Network (CDN) services. It will now be able to deliver on a secure platform, high quality content across geographies" says Rajan Swaroop Executive Director, Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel.

The move will also pave the way for over 16,000 cinema screens across the country to potentially offer high quality international viewing experience for consumers in India. Addressing critical areas of operations for media organizations, Airtel through its Teleport services would offer content gathering, distribution services to television channels. This would also include complete content management services such as playout, archival, collocation and storage. Besides, Airtel will also offer content producers- an integrated content delivery and aggregation platform that can repackage content for all formats.

Being both content and access agnostic, Airtel's Digital Media Business will open up the market opportunity for the Indian media and entertainment industry that is estimated to grow from Rs. 611 bn to Rs.929 bn at 11% CAGR over 2009-2013. (Source: PWC Entertainment &Media Outlook 2005-09) This platform will benefit a range of users including producers, creative agencies, production and post production houses, animation, gaming firms, visual media firms, news channels, cinemas, banking institutions, and distribution agencies.