Big Entertainment acquires majority stake in Willow.TV

The company plans to pump in around Rs 250 crore in the next two years to expand the portal’s cricket webcasting business

Big Entertainment, the media and entertainment company of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group has acquired a majority stake in Willow.TV for an undisclosed amount. In the next two years, it plans to pump in around Rs 250 crore to expand the business.

Willow.TV is a US-based portal that streams cricket events from across the world, live on the internet. It had also streamed the Indian Premier League live. It claims to have more than a million registered users, predominantly in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Users need to pay a subscription fee for watching webcasts of matches on the site.

In an official communiqué, Rajesh Sawhney, president, Reliance Big Entertainment, says, “The acquisition of Willow TV is in line with our strategy to strengthen our presence in the global markets, and reinforce our group's presence in the new media space. There is a considerable synergy among our ventures, as consumers can watch cricket from Willow TV, movies from Bigflix.com, and use our telecom services through Reliance Communications.”

This is not the first time that Big Entertainment has invested in a global entertainment venture. In May, it announced its acquisition of 250 theatres in the US and 51 theatres in Malaysia, through its company, Adlabs.

Its mobile gaming company, Jump Games opened its US office in August and is planning to tie up with mobile content companies in that country. Jump Games has exclusive global licenses to create and distribute games for some of the world's leading brands, such as Manchester United Football Club, Virgin Comics, and Honest Entertainment (Fido Dido).

Big Entertainment is also planning to produce films with production companies owned by Hollywood stars, such as Nicholas Cage's Saturn Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Tom Hank's Playtone Productions, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions and Chris Colombus' 1492 Pictures.

The company also owns a gaming portal, Zapak.com and BigAdda.com, a social networking site.