MUMBAI: Television Eighteen India Ltd has inked an alliance with Infosys BPO to launch Source 18, which will provide a full spectrum of services to media and entertainment companies globally.

Infosys BPO with its global delivery capabilities, technological know-how and process understanding will provide the initiative the much needed process and technological support while TV 18 would bring in domain knowledge and expertise to the alliance. Media companies around the world have gone through significant transformation with new forms of media gaining superiority.

Source 18 will offer services in enabling content for digital media including digital archiving and metatagging, repurposing content, work flow charting, ideation, reediting, transcoding, quality control as well as media process outsourcing which shall include promo production, traffic management, uplinking, inventory management. The services would also offer analytics, finance and accounting services, order management, rights management, HR and other outsourcing services. Source 18 will utilize the services of Tangerine Digital Entertainment, a company specializing in content repurposing and media process outsourcing, for part execution of the contracts.

Source 18 offerings have already seen endorsements from the industry. National Geographic Channel International (NGCI) has signed up for repurposing their archived and current content for the mobile platform.

With the global media and entertainment industry growing to almost $ 2 trillion by 2008 and proliferation of content in multiple formats across media platforms, there is a sizeable business opportunity emerging in the media outsourcing market. Major content owners globally are focusing on creating strong content after-markets and generate revenue through multiple platform delivery. This will allow broadcasters and content owners significant incremental revenue upside and reduced costs.

TV 18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla says, “Source 18 will be a key part of our strategy to address all aspects of the media value chain. We believe that as a full play entity, process outsourcing and media repurposing and production services are key focus areas for us. With Source 18, we combine the technological, process and management know-how of Infosys BPO with the domain knowledge of the TV 18 group and this will be a market making alliance.”