Entertainment
Teach film appreciation in schools: Konkona Sen Sharma
Mumbai, Dec 15 (IANS) Actress Konkona Sen Sharma believes subsidising tickets for cinema halls and teaching children the art of film appreciation in schools can bring back the audience to theatres.
Konkona, filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli, Alankrita Shrivastav, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and RS Prasanna addressed the topic during CNN-News18’s talk show “The Bollywood Roundtables”, read a statement
Konkona, who made her directorial debut with “A Death in the Gunj”, said on the show: “If we are interested in people coming to theatres, then we have to create a film watching culture and teach film appreciation in schools. We should have subsidised theatres that show different kind of films and have film festivals and involve the students and the community so that there is a film viewing and film watching culture.”
Rajamouli added that today, schools are only about academics, unlike the past when there were drama classes, extracurricular activities and periods for playing games.
“Now everything is taken away except academics and there is no help from the government. For a filmmaker, writing the story is one step, finding a producer is the next, getting a studio to distribute is another step — all these are the jobs of a director. Like that, getting your audiences to move out of their homes and come to the theatre to watch your movie is also the job of a director,” said Rajamouli.
Shrivastav, whose film “Lipstick Under My Burkha” was caught in a controversy with the censor board, believes a different form of ticketing will help.
“You cannot expect audience to pay the same kind of money for a really big film and a small film and there are so many things that are prohibitive, like marketing budgets. So, everything works against the smaller film because audiences don’t even know about these films,” said Shrivastav.
“It’s not a level playing field. I would like to place some responsibility on the audience because I feel that very often they will love a ‘Masaan’ but they will have sat at home and watched it, but they will go and watch a ‘Dabangg’. So it also says about the audience who is encouraging certain kinds of cinema to be made,” she added.
–IANS
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Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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