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Apple Eyes Bigger Slice of India's Streaming, Music Market with Airtel Deal

FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
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Apple Eyes Bigger Slice of India's Streaming, Music Market with Airtel Deal

FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is pictured in an Apple store in Paris, France, March 6, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Apple is tying up with India's Bharti Airtel to offer the telecom firm's premium customers its music and video streaming services for free, giving the US giant access to thousands of consumers in the world's most populous nation.
With mostly English-language content, Apple TV+ is a small player in India's $28 billion media and entertainment market, where its rivals include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video , Disney+ Hotstar and billionaire Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema.
The move comes as competition tightens in India and an $8.5-billion merger of the Indian media assets of Reliance and Walt Disney - which have a streaming service each - faces close scrutiny from antitrust regulators.
"Apple TV+ will come bundled with premium Airtel WiFi and Postpaid plans," Airtel said in a statement on Tuesday, though the companies did not disclose a deal value for the partnership or information on costs.
Apple Music will also be available for current premium users of Airtel's Wynk music app, which will be shut down. Its employees are being subsumed by the company, Reuters quoted Airtel as saying.
Two sources familiar with the strategy said that for Apple, the deal is aimed at reaching out to a much bigger pool of consumers with its digital services given Airtel is the country's second biggest telecom operator with 281 million subscribers.
Ambani's Reliance Jio telecom service has 489 million users.
The Apple TV+ streaming service, known for its original series like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show and Slow Horses, has so far differentiated itself in the streaming landscape with a focus on in-house content.
Most rival platforms in India and overseas offer users older movies and TV shows from other studios, as well as their own originals.
Airtel will within days announce new tariff plans that will include free Apple TV+ offerings, said two other sources with direct knowledge of its plans.
Currently, the Apple TV+ service retails at $9.99 per month in the US and 99 Indian rupees ($1.18) per month in India, compared to Ambani's JioCinema which offers cricket content for free and has plans as cheap as 29 rupees a month. Netflix starts with monthly tariff of 149 rupees.
Cricket is seen as a way to attract more customers to streaming platforms in India, and Disney lost millions of Indian users last year when it lost streaming rights to Ambani's Reliance for streaming the world's richest cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League.
Apple has 6% of India's 690 million smartphone users, according to data from research firm Counterpoint. The remaining market is dominated by phones from Samsung and Xiaomi, and are powered by Google's Android operating system.
Apple Music is currently priced at 99 Indian rupees per month and has a library of 100 million songs.

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New Coppola Film Trailer Axed for Using Fake Movie Reviews

The much-hyped premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making 'Megalopolis' at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
The much-hyped premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making 'Megalopolis' at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
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New Coppola Film Trailer Axed for Using Fake Movie Reviews

The much-hyped premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making 'Megalopolis' at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
The much-hyped premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making 'Megalopolis' at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File

A trailer promoting Francis Ford Coppola's new film "Megalopolis" has been withdrawn after it was found to have incorporated fake movie reviews, reportedly generated by artificial intelligence.
Coppola's wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making movie, which hits theaters next month and stars Adam Driver, has starkly divided critics, said AFP.
A trailer released this week drew parallels to earlier works by the revered Hollywood director that also initially left some professional reviewers cold before going on to become classics -- suggesting "Megalopolis" can do the same.
"True genius is often misunderstood," a voiceover began, before quotes from famous critics calling "The Godfather" a "sloppily self-indulgent movie" and "Apocalypse Now" a "spectacular failure" were presented on the screen.
The problem? None of those quotes were real.
Instead, the trailer appears to have used AI-generated imitations of the type of withering put-downs associated with renowned reviewers such as Pauline Kael.
In at least one case, a criticism appears to have been lifted from a review of an entirely different film
The trailer was quickly recalled, with Hollywood studio Lionsgate offering "our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola" for an "inexcusable error in our vetting process."
"We screwed up. We are sorry," said a statement.
Lionsgate has since parted company with the marketing consultant behind the trailer, trade outlet Variety said Friday. Meanwhile Deadline reported that the quotes were generated by AI.
The furor comes at a time when Hollywood is roiled by the encroaching impact of AI. Fears the technology could replace entertainment industry jobs -- from actors to writers -- were central to last summer's devastating strikes.
The trailer episode is just the latest controversy to hit "Megalopolis," an already hugely divisive epic.
Legendary director Coppola has said he spent $120 million of his own money to make the film, selling a stake in his California vineyard.
But its much-hyped world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded.
Critics' responses ranged from "a true modern masterwork" to a "catastrophe."
Driver stars as a seemingly magical architect whose efforts to rebuild a decaying city into a futuristic utopia are thwarted by its resentful mayor (Giancarlo Esposito).
The movie also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman.
It receives its North American premiere at the Toronto film festival next month, before being released in US theaters on September 27.
The controversy has provoked theories among some Hollywood observers that the entire unseemly debacle could have been staged to provoke headlines.
Lionsgate did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
But a source familiar with the marketing plan told AFP the studio did not deliberately fabricate the quotes, and removed the trailer as soon as it became aware of the situation.