Media and entertainment arm of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Reliance Big Entertainment acquired a majority stake in US-based Willow TV (www.willow.tv), a leading portal for live internet streaming of all major cricket events from across the world.
Willow TV, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, and having offices in Bangalore is a pioneer in live streaming of major international cricket, a global sport very popular with most South Asians, Australians, South Africans and English Cricket fans. It already has more than a million registered users worldwide, predominantly in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. In 2007-08, Willow TV has streamed all major Cricket events live, including all Indian Cricket including Indian Premier League, all Australian, South African and English International Cricket.
Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance Big Entertainment said, “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 new media. Not only, there is considerable scope to expand the size, scale and scope of Willow TV portal, we are also looking at launching a Video-Box Service which will seamlessly integrate cricket, movie and television content on the Television Screen which would give our audience great choice and enhanced viewing experience. There is a considerable synergy between Cricket from Willow TV, Movies from Bigflix.com, and telecom services from Reliance Communications which will be now ignited”
Vijay Srinivasan and Sameer Mehta, co-founders of Willow TV said, “The synergies from the ecosystem will enable us to offer a significantly superior product to our consumers across three screens: PC, Mobile and TV.”