Major new content partnership deal with Essel Gp

RNS Number : 9571P

Audioboom PLC

26 August 2014

 



Audioboom Group plc

("Audioboom" or the "Company")

Major new content partnership deal with Essel Group

Audioboom (AIM: BOOM), the audio social media platform, announces a major new content deal with Essel Group ('Essel'). Essel is one of India's leading conglomerates, with a portfolio of entertainment and news channels including:

- Zee Entertainment Enterprises ('ZEE') one of India's leading television media and entertainment companies, reaching over 730 million viewers across 169 countries. ZEE owns a number of digital properties, including Ditto TV, India's first premium television distribution platform, delivering live news, sports, soaps and music to mobiles, tablets, laptops and connected TVs. ZEE also owns Ditto Suno which delivers audio content to GPRS, 3G and WAP enabled mobiles, providing content across many genres, in Hindi and other regional languages; 

- Zee Media Corporation is India's largest news network, with 10 channels, reaching over 130 million viewers through channels and digital properties such as zeenews.com and dnaindia.com. It reaches about 84% of India's population.

Audioboom is working with companies and brands across Essel Group, including Zee TV, DNAindia, India.com's key brands including CricketCountry, BollywoodLife and TheHealthSite. Initially, Audioboom will provide over 30 new channels, allowing embedding and sharing of content across websites, apps and social media and live reporting from the field by ZeeTV reporters and journalists.

There is also a considerably bigger market opportunity that Audioboom and Essel are currently developing. As well as targetting the estimated 100m+ smartphone users in India, there are an estimated 750m+ 'feature phone' users who access news, sport and entertainment content over WAP and IVR systems. Audioboom and Essel will be developing a technology solution that will connect Audioboom's content platform to Zee's IVR systems.

This will mean Essel's portfolio of brands and Audioboom will be able to instantly broadcast content to smart phones, feature phones and basic phone lines via IVRs, offering paid premium or free sponsored callback content to over 750m users across the Indian sub-continent. Work is ongoing and at an early stage, but this technology will provide Audioboo and Essel access to one of the largest and fastest growing media markets in the world.

Rob Proctor, CEO of Audioboom, commented: "We are delighted that Essel and its many global media properties are partnering with us. This gives us the prospect of reaching hundreds of millions of smart and feature phone users, providing them with free and paid for news, sport and entertainment audio content and providing content partners and advertisers with the technology to reach this important market.

"This is a significant deal for Audioboom; it establishes our brand in the Indian sub-continent with a major media partner, creates immediate operational scale and establishes a clear path to monetisation. I look forward to further developments as the technology and content is rolled out across India and intend that this deal becomes a template we will replicate with other global media companies. "

Enquiries:

Audioboom Group plc	www.audioboomplc.com
Rob Proctor	Tel: [phone]
Arden Partners plc - nomad and broker	Tel: [phone]
Chris Hardie / Katelin Kennish, Corporate Finance
Walbrook PR	Tel: [phone] or [e-mail]
Sam Allen / Paul McManus	Mob: [phone] / Mob: [phone]

About Audioboom (www.audioboo.fm)

Audioboom Group plc is a Saas based digital social media audio platform enabling the creation, broadcast and consumption of audio across multiple global media outlets. Audioboom works with some of the biggest names in broadcasting across sport, entertainment and current affairs to bring their content to millions of listeners worldwide via Facebook, Twitter and other media platforms.

The technology allows partners to embed playlists onto their sites and apps, use our mobile apps and functionality as listen again players and re-syndicate their content around the web. Audioboom allows the monetisation of audio via the dynamic insertion of pre and post roll advertising into content as a user is listening, allowing contemporary advertising selection, depending on content genre and geographic location of the user.

Audioboom has over 1,200 content partners, including the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, Sky Sports, Premier League, Southern Cross Austereo, CNBC and Universal Music Group.

 

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