Business Standard has an eulogising report on Anil Ambani:
Looking at straddling the entire value chain of the entertainment content carriageway, the Anil Ambani group is ensuring its footprints across every possible facet of entertainment. Ranging from television to radio to films to exhibition to home video, the ADAE group seems to have a blueprint for every division in place, and the kick-off into the media and entertainment segment does not seem too far off.
Further, much talked about Reliance’s optic fibre cable that would “provide magic”:
Reliance Infocomm has chalked out a collaboration with Microsoft to look at IPTV. The company is all set to enter consumer homes with broadband Internet through its fibre optic backbone. The group is looking at the same connectivity to be used to deliver entertainment content like channels, video-on-demand, among other things.
For ADAE, the bluprint seems determined for the group to emerge as the media behemoth of India.
Is it true?
The article in the newspaper fails to highlight one crucial aspect. Reliance is aiming for a CONTENT DELIVERY PLATFORM rather than “media czar” as the article seems to imply. The biggest advantage with the aim is lack of legacy systems and ability to invest after raising capital.
Further, Anil Ambani is keen on leveraging the network.(Google has a whole lot of links for Anil Ambani.) Airtel or BSNL or perhaps anyone isn’t ready yet for the foray in the entertainment space. Anil needs content; and he is determined to reach out to every possible source.
Similarly, Reliance’s DTH licence or it’s foray in FM radio, means that he would be able to leverage to scale of cross media holdings. For excample, a cheap source of advertisments for his group companies. And of course, leverage the media power for promoting himself. Or his group. Reliance loves this.
Whenever he launches his broadband network, he would be able to leverage the value added proposition. Airtel is stuck in it’s plain vanilla internet access. BSNL made a lot of noise about getting one for themselves; they are still stuck in the time warp. No hope for these critters at all.
So it’s a matter of conjecture really as to how and when they would start streaming content.
From the archives:
2)New trends in Indian Telecom
This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Related posts:
- Reliance Infocomm. Where is it headed? Admittedly, it has come much under the scanner for all the wrong reasons. Call rerouting, CBI enquiries et al. Plus,...
- The influence of Reliance Infocomm on the Indian Telecom Scenery The influence of Reliance Infocomm on the Indian Telecom Scenery Reliance industries have straddled the Indian economy like a giant....
- Reliance Infocomm Reliance Infocomm Reliance started a virtual war when it entered. With the largest user base in the country in mobile...
- Boom! Anil Ambani knows how to do it in style. After Reliance created a mammoth infrastructure for Telecommunications- aiming for being...
- VSNL and Reliance at loggerheads Anil Ambani is known for his hands on approach. Expect more fireworks in the coming days. Anil fiired first salvo...
- Entertainment and Telecom Should we broaden our focus on technology as a whole and include other hip happenings? I have searched for clues...
- Behind Reliance Few details have trickled out in the media. Thats the testimony to the fact that these brothers have an iron...
- Entertainment Wikipedia defines Bollywood as: Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry in India....
- Entertainment redefined For months on end, I was toying with the idea of writing on the way “Broadband” in India could redefine...
- Reliance Broadband When would Reliance jump in the broadband arena? Noone knows for sure. Plus its been debated ad nauseum in the...

[...] On a similar plan is Anil Ambani’s foray in the media business.On an earlier write up I was wrong to assume that Anil Ambani had spread himself too thin. In a later post, I had quoted from a Business Standard article which detailed Reliance’s multi crore ambitions for being the next media moghul. [...]