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Director Sanjay Gupta, who made many gangster flicks, recently expressed frustration on social media, highlighting a growing issue in the Indian film industry.

He pointed out that after being in the business for decades, he never expected the industry to be so heavily influenced by two major OTT platforms like Netflix and Prime Video.

What Sanjay Gupta is trying to say is that these OTT platforms now hold significant power over content creation, as directors must pitch their ideas to them and get approval before proceeding with their films, especially if the film’s digital rights are involved.

This situation is causing concern among many filmmakers and producers. Historically, the power to create and control content was in the hands of the producers, but now OTT platforms are dictating what kind of content should be made.

They push producers to create films that will appeal to their audience, often forcing filmmakers to alter their creative vision to meet the platform’s demands.

This is seen as a problem because it undermines the traditional process where creative decisions were made by the filmmakers themselves.

An insider shared that OTT platforms are also influencing the casting of films, with actors being chosen based on their digital appeal rather than their fit for the role.

Recently, some film releases have been planned around the OTT platforms’ schedules, leading to clashes in release dates and concerns about how this will affect box office performance.

The key issue is that producers seem to be prioritizing the needs of OTT platforms over the desires of their audiences.

It’s time for producers to take creative risks and make content that they believe in, rather than curating films just to meet OTT demands.

Actors should support this shift by reducing their upfront fees and cutting down on unnecessary costs to make room for more authentic and impactful cinema. M9News

CBS sportscaster and three-time Emmy winner Greg Gumbel has died. He was 78. Gumbel, a college basketball fixture as the host of “College Basketball on CBS,” lent his voice to myriad iconic moments across a variety of sports.

Gumbel’s wife, Marcy, and daughter, Michelle, confirmed his death to CBS Sports.

It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our beloved husband and father, Greg Gumbel. He passed away peacefully surrounded by much love after a courageous battle with cancer. Greg approached his illness like one would expect he would, with stoicism, grace, and positivity.

He leaves behind a legacy of love, inspiration and dedication to over 50 extraordinary years in the sports broadcast industry; and his iconic voice will never be forgotten.

Greg’s memory will forever be treasured by his family, dearest friends, colleagues and all who loved him.

Gumbel spent more than five decades announcing and covering some of the biggest sporting events in the world, many of them as a member of the CBS broadcast team. Throughout his illustrious career, he served as a play-by-play announcer for the NFL, NBA, MLB and college basketball.

“The CBS Sports family is devastated by the passing of Greg Gumbel. There has never been a finer gentleman in all of television. He was beloved and respected by those of us who had the honor to call him a friend and colleague,” CBS Sports CEO David Berson said in a statement.

In his first stint with CBS, which spanned from 1988-94, Gumbel served as the host of “NFL Today” alongside legendary Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw. He also anchored the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in 1992 and 1994.

Gumbel returned to CBS in 1998, becoming the network’s lead play-by-play announcer for the NFL. He also began his 26-year run as the host of “College Basketball on CBS” with his voice on Selection Sunday announcing to fans where their teams would begin their NCAA Tournament journeys.

Analyst Clark Kellogg sat next to Gumbel for more than two decades on the college basketball desk forming a close friendship with his long-time coworker.

“For close to 25 years, I enjoyed and was richly blessed by Greg’s friendship, goodness, humor, partnership, professionalism and wisdom,” Kellogg said. “He was excellent in his work and exemplary in his caring and character. Like all who knew and loved him, I too am saddened by his death, yet also so very grateful to have known him in my life. What a gift to be touched by such a good man and partner. My deepest condolences to the entire Gumbel family.”

When Gumbel called Super Bowl XXXV in 2000, he made history as the first Black play-by-play announcer for a major sports championship. Gumbel also led broadcast coverage for Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004.

Harold Bryant, CBS Sports executive producer and vice president of production, worked closely with Gumbel throughout his time with the network. He said Gumbel blazed the trail for the next generation of Black announcers.

“Greg was a role model and a pioneer,” Bryant said. “He broke barriers being one of the few Black broadcasters covering sports at the highest levels. He set a high bar for others to follow. His work was beyond reproach as he became one of the most respected broadcasters in the industry. Whether it was play-by-play, studio host, or interviewing elite athletes, Greg was as smooth and trustworthy as could be. Greg loved his family, loved The Rolling Stones, and loved CBS. He treated everybody with respect and gratitude. Greg – you will be missed.”

Greg’s younger brother, Bryant — longtime host of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” on HBO and co-host of NBC’s “Today” for 15 years — has often been credited with helping Greg begin his broadcasting career by alerting him to an open sportscaster position at WMAQ-TV in Chicago.

Between his stints with CBS, Greg Gumbel spent time at NBC, where he worked as an NBA play-by-play announcer and served as the daytime anchor for the 1996 Summer Olympics coverage. Gumbel also called the 1995 NLDS and NLCS, and he was part of the broadcast team for the 1995 World Championships of Figure Skating.

Gumbel’s voice has been the soundtrack to some iconic sports moments over the years. During Super Bowl XXXVIII, his voice set the scene as Adam Vinatieri’s 41-yard field goal sent the New England Patriots to their second championship in three seasons.

Gumbel also called the “Mile High Miracle” in which the Baltimore Ravens’ Joe Flacco hit Jacoby Jones for a 70-yard touchdown to force overtime against the Denver Broncos in the final minute of play. The Ravens won the game on a Justin Tucker field goal in overtime, and they went on to win the Super Bowl later that postseason.

As a member of the NBC broadcast team, Gumbel was the play-by-play announcer for the 1997 Western Conference Finals between the Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets. In Game 6, Gumbel announced John Stockton’s buzzer-beater that sent the Jazz through to the NBA Finals.

Early on in his broadcasting career, he worked for MSG Network as a host and play-by-play announcer for the New York Knicks and New York Yankees. Gumbel won a local Emmy for his work at MSG, and he won two local Emmys for his work with EMAQ-TV in Chicago. In 2007, Gumbel was the recipient of the Pat Summerall Award for excellence in broadcasting. CBS Sports

Charles Dolan, the astute businessman who created HBO in the early 1970s before transforming a small cable TV business on Long Island into a multibillion-dollar entertainment, sports and telecom empire, has died. He was 98.

Dolan’s family told Newsday, the newspaper that they own, that he died of natural causes, surrounded by loved ones. “Remembered as both a trailblazer in the television industry and a devoted family man, his legacy will live on,” they said Saturday.

The Cleveland-born mogul got his start in the cable business in Manhattan, where his Sterling Manhattan Cable company was awarded rights by New York City in 1965 to wire the lower part of the borough for cable TV service. It was a way to bring reception to places like high rises, where antenna reception was difficult.

It was while building out Manhattan’s fledgling cable business that Dolan came up with the idea to offer exclusive programming through cable TV to try to drum up subscribers. His idea, which he detailed in a memo while vacationing in France in 1971, was to give subscribers access to exclusive movies and sporting events. He subsequently cut a deal with Madison Square Garden to air exclusive New York Knicks and New York Rangers games.

“You couldn’t buy the movies and the games unless you also bought the reception,” he recalled in an interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School in 2013. “We wanted to provide a complete television service.”

His initial idea, which he dubbed The Green Channel, was intriguing to executives at Time Inc., the majority investor in Dolan’s Manhattan cable operation.

The Green Channel was renamed HBO before launch, and Dolan and other executives like Gerald Levin sought out exclusive sporting events and films for it.

“There was a discussion, and the first idea was, ‘Well, let’s call it The Home Box [a slang term for the box that delivered broadcast signals to cable homes],’” Dolan recalled. “Then somebody said, ‘Well, if it’s Home Box and we’re selling movies, why don’t we make it the Home Box Office.’ That’s what it became, and it didn’t take long for that to convert to HBO. Everybody liked that name, and that was the beginning of it.”

Dolan’s Manhattan cable business, however, struggled. According to Felix Gillette and John Koblin’s 2022 book, It’s Not TV, HBO mustered a scant 10,000 subscribers in its first year, a number Levin called “very demoralizing.” Time ultimately bought out Dolan’s stake in HBO in 1974.

But it was after that sale that Dolan made his fortune, bringing cable services to New York suburbs via his Cablevision Systems Corp. Based on Long Island, Cablevision offered service in most of the city’s fast-growing suburbs to the east, north and west before expanding into such other markets as Boston, Cleveland and Chicago.

At Cablevision, Dolan and his family tried to replicate their success with HBO, launching a movie-focused channel in 1984 called American Movie Classics. AMC and its sibling channels operated under the Cablevision-owned Rainbow Media banner, which it subsequently spun off and now operates as AMC Networks Inc.

In 1994, Cablevision acquired a 50 percent stake in Madison Square Garden, which included the namesake arena as well as the NBA’s Knicks and NHL’s Rangers, from Viacom for a reported $1.1 billion, and it acquired the other 50 percent three years later for $650 million.

Dolan and Cablevision launched, bought and sold a variety of businesses over the years, including SportsChannel, the first regional sports network in the U.S., as well as the New York-based theater chain Clearview cinemas. Cablevision also acquired the electronics retailer The Wiz in 1998 and at Dolan’s urging purchased Long Island-based Newsday in 2008 in another $650 million deal.

In 2015, Charles and the Dolan family agreed to sell Cablevision to Patrick Drahi’s European telecom giant Altice for $17.7 billion. AMC Networks and Madison Square Garden continue to be owned by the Dolan family, with Charles’ son James Dolan running those businesses.

“The impact he made on the media, sports, and entertainment industries, including as the founder of Cablevision and HBO, is immeasurable,” said a statement on behalf of MSG Entertainment, MSG Sports, and Sphere. “His life was a testament to the importance of innovation, generosity, and hard work, and his legacy will live on in the industries he pioneered, the communities he served, and the memories of those who love him. Our thoughts are with the entire Dolan family and the countless people Mr. Dolan influenced throughout his remarkable life. We do not expect this to directly or indirectly change ownership by the Dolan family.”

Charles Francis Dolan was born in Cleveland on Oct. 16, 1926. His father, David, was an inventor; Gillette and Koblin noted that he came up with an early prototype of the automatic transmission for automobiles.

“When I learned how to drive,” Dolan said, “it was in a car that didn’t have a clutch. I’d pull into a gas station and the attendants would just be amazed.”

While attending Cleveland Heights High School, he got $2 to write a weekly column for the Cleveland Press about Boy Scout activities, and that led to him appearing on a radio program. He then served with the U.S. Air Force and studied at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, before dropping out to pursue an interest in telecommunications.

With his wife, Helen, whom he married in 1951, he launched a sports-reel business, sending prints of a “Game of the Week” to TV stations around the country in a syndication deal.

He moved to New York to produce for the syndication company Telenews, then joined Sterling Television, which he eventually bought with a partner. Sterling helped its clients reach their target audiences with films, usually by showing them at conventions held in New York.

One early deal he did with Sterling was buying cable rights to Knicks and Rangers playoff games in 1968 for $24,000.

“All the home games were blacked out,” he said. “The broadcast stations didn’t carry them because the Garden was worried about jeopardizing box office receipts. But our circulation was so modest in Manhattan that they were willing to make a deal.”

While his fortune was made by providing TV and internet services, his time launching HBO continued to stick with him. When asked by the University of Penn interviewers if if he had ever thought about its sale to Time, he replied, “Every day … I’ve never really felt that much apart from HBO.”

“Charles Dolan was a visionary creative, an extraordinary business leader and a great friend whose creation of HBO forever changed the quality and prestige of storytelling on television,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement. “His impact continues to be felt today at HBO, Warner Bros. Discovery and across our entire industry. He will be deeply missed. We send our condolences to the entire Dolan family.”

Dolan is survived by six children, including James Dolan (and his wife, AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan) and Patrick Dolan, who runs Newsday. His brother, Larry Dolan, is the principal owner of baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. His wife died in August 2023 at 96. The Hollywood Reporter

There’s no ground to bring OTT content services under the authorisation of the Indian Telecommunications Act, 2023, said Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in its counter comments to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Stakeholders like Bharti Airtel Ltd earlier asked that OTTs delivering broadcast content through broadband / mobile should be brought under the authorisation framework and the principle of same service- same rules. However, Jio in it counter comments argued that the principle does not apply to OTTs. It may be noted that while Jio’s original submission did not mention OTTs, the company has previously called for the regulation of OTT communication services. The telco does not specify how an OTT communication platform would differ from an OTT content platform. The company recently announced a merger with Walt Disney and Viacom 18 Media Private Ltd.

In its letter, Jio drew a distinction between OTTs and Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) by saying, “OTTs differ from other DPOs such as cable TV, IPTV, DTH etc., as these latter deliver broadcasting services through broadcasting networks established by them. Furthermore, the licensed DPOs transmit licensed TV channels after acquiring them from broadcasters under the provisions of Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines. Whereas OTT content providers deliver content through Public Internet.” The company also said that OTT content services are already regulated under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Rules.

Other stakeholders like the Broadband India Forum (BIF) said, “TV and radio broadcasters follow a ‘push-model’ as they deliver contents to mass audiences/viewers at a predetermined schedule. OTT platforms make content available to subscribers over the public internet and operate on a pull model (i.e. subscribers choose and request for content they wish to watch from an online library made available by the OTT platforms).”

On the other hand, Airtel argued that any platform which offers similar content as offered by the regulated distribution platform, should equally be brought under a similar regulatory regime.

“OTT delivering broadcast content through broadband / mobile provide the same content as provided by DTH operators to subscribers with no commensurate obligations of any kind. This approach goes against the basic premise of TRAI’s endeavour to have a balanced regulatory framework. These anomalies lead to risks such as exclusionary and discriminatory impact for subscribers who may not be able to access the same broadcast content on their choice of delivery medium,” said Airtel.

Particularly, Airtel asked that Prasar Bharti’s OTT platform services WAVES also be brought within the purview of the authorisation framework. It asked TRAI to bring Prasar Bharti within the ambit of the authorisation / licensing framework of the Broadcasting (Television Programming, Television Distribution and Radio) Service Rules. The Hindu BusinessLine

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing to close 2024 on a high note with the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX), scheduled for December 30. This mission aims to achieve the complex feat of docking two satellites in space, a capability mastered by only a few nations.

Announced by Union Minister Jitendra Singh, SpaDeX represents a significant milestone in India’s space programme. It is set to demonstrate advanced spacecraft docking technology using an indigenous system called the “Bharatiya Docking System.”

The SpaDeX mission will involve two satellites, referred to as the ‘Chaser’ and ‘Target,’ which will dock at an orbital altitude of 470 km. They will operate at speeds of 28,800 km/h, requiring precise manoeuvring to align and reduce relative velocities to just 0.036 km/h before docking. This process will result in the two satellites merging into a single unit, paving the way for advancements in satellite servicing, long-term missions, and space station development.

The project will utilise the PSLV-C60 rocket, launching from Sriharikota at 21:58 IST. ISRO’s ability to execute this intricate procedure will demonstrate India’s expertise in managing such advanced operations in the challenging conditions of space.

The mission will test key capabilities, including precision rendezvous, docking manoeuvres, power transfer between docked spacecraft, and scientific payload operation post-undocking. The satellites, each weighing approximately 220 kilograms, are expected to remain operational for two years, enabling further experiments and data collection.

Docking technology is essential for India’s ambitions in space exploration, such as lunar and interplanetary missions and the development of the Bharatiya Antriksh Station, India’s proposed space station. It is also a critical component for multi-launch missions and future human spaceflight initiatives like the Gaganyaan project.

The fourth stage of the PSLV rocket, known as POEM-4, will carry 24 payloads from academic institutions and startups. These experiments will leverage the microgravity environment to conduct research, adding another layer of scientific exploration to the mission.

If successful, SpaDeX will place India among the few nations—currently including the United States, Russia, and China—that have achieved satellite docking in space. The mission underscores ISRO’s commitment to pushing technological boundaries and strengthening India’s position in global space exploration. East Mojo