Two things which Indians can’t live without are Indian food and Indian song
Two things which Indians can't live without are Indian food and Indian song
Hyderabad: It is often claimed in the global tourism circles that the two things which Indians can’t live without are Indian food and Indian song and dance entertainment both of which are uniquely desi, without any alternatives across the world.
While many Indians, who missed the ubiquitous masala food and entertainment, did not do anything, an NRI from Hyderabad, Uday Reddy, has woven his business plan on addressing the need to connect NRIs with India albeit through television.
“As part of my job at Nortel, I had to travel to different countries from Australia to Latin America and the United States to Singapore. Wherever I go, the one thing that I missed was Indian content on television.
Trinidad and Tobago the country where I last worked had a population, which is 45 per cent Indian, but they were almost cut off from India as there was no Indian cultural content available on their TV. Even in the US, DTH networks had just one or two Indian channels,” said Mr Reddy, explaining the reasons that promoted him to start his Internet-based television content provider Yupp TV in 2007.
Yupp TV can be accessed through an app installed in smart televisions or through set-top box, provided by the company. In both the options, the content will be accessed by using internet.
Mr Reddy funded the venture by withdrawing all savings, including his social security saving, and by selling his property in India. In 2014, Hyderabad-based venture capitalist Sashi Reddi invested $2.5 million for a 10 per cent stake, valuing the company at $25 million (Rs 152 crore).
Though there was a need and its solution was available, it was not a cake-walk for Mr Reddy as he had struggle hard to convince TV networks to share their content on Yupp TV’s platform.
“While launching this service, technology was not an issue for me as I had worked on Nortel’s deployment of a 3G video network during my last assignment in Trinidad and Tobago. However, making content providers understand the concept of TV experience via internet was hard nut to crack,” he recalled.
So he started the service with a few Telugu channels. And now, almost seven years after the launch, Yupp TV is one of the largest internet TV providers of South Asian content with over 200 channels available worldwide.
It is available in Australia, the UK, the US, Europe, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and many more regions. It has recently entered Pakistan and Bangladesh market and will soon be launching Sri Lankan channels.
( Source : dc )
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