Mumbai : Production and distribution house Eros International Media has canned its television network plans following investor calls to focus on their digital platform ErosNow, The company had earmarked an investment of $50 million in 2012 to set up a movie and music channel and as part of the strategy was looking to buy Bollywood television network B4U.
Eros CEO Kishore Lulla, in a recent analyst call, said that the company has shelved its plans for a TV network at least for a year after a group of shareholders led by UK-based investment firm Knight Assets cautioned against launching a television network. Knight Assets, which owns about 3% in the company, said that Eros needed to focus more on acquiring customers for its video streaming platform ErosNow.
The company claimed that ErosNow had about 14 million users at the end of the quarter ended 31st March. It did not, however, disclose monthly active users and the revenues earned from the digital service. Note, for the March quarter, it seems that Eros International has changed its reporting format and has not disclosed revenues from its digital and ancillary segment. In the preceding quarter the segment earned $36.3 million revenues and accounted for 36.15% of the total revenues.
ErosNow was launched in 2012 and has a number of content tie-ups. It also offers streaming of television shows and also includes TV shows from Zee TV. The company also claims to have a library of more than 2,000 films across multiple Indian languages along with their music rights.
