Reliance Big Entertainment Acquires Willow TV: World's Largest Cricket Streaming Portal

MUMBAI, India (Business Wire EON) September 8, 2008 -- Willow TV, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, 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 2007-8, Willow TV has streamed all major Cricket events live, including all Indian Cricket including iconic Indian Premier League, all Australian, South African and English International Cricket.

Commenting on this acquisition, Mr. 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 that, 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."

Mr. Vijay Srinivasan and Mr. Sameer Mehta, co-founders of Willow TV, said, "We are very happy to be a part of the Reliance ADA Group and excited at the prospect of scaling up the business manifold. There is complete convergence of vision between Willow and Reliance Big Entertainment. The synergies from the ecosystem will enable us to offer a significantly superior product to our consumers across three screens: PC, Mobile and TV."

About Reliance Big Entertainment:

Reliance Big Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (RBEL) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of India's leading business houses with market leading businesses across Telecom, Financial Services, Infrastructure, Energy and Healthcare.

Filmed Entertainment:

Reliance has built a compelling presence in Indian Film Industry across film production, distribution and exhibition. In a short span of one month, RBEL's venture Big Pictures has built a large slate of 100 movie projects in India. This slate has projects from leading production houses and marquee directors like Farhan Akhtar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Mani Ratnam, Amitabh Bachchan, Shyam Benegal, Madhur Bhandarkar, etc.

RBE has also announced development silos with leading Hollywood stars and production companies that include Nicholas Cage's Saturn Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Tom Hank's Playtone Productions, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Colombus's 1492 Pictures, Jay Roach and Brett Ratner.

RBE's sister concern Adlabs owns the largest exhibition chain in India and also recently acquired 250 screens in US and 51 screens in Malaysia. Recently, Reliance Big Entertainment has acquired the controlling stake in Big ND Studio, a premier film studio facility in Mumbai. RBE has built significant presence in Music & Home Video, Animation, Special Effects and Digital Restoration & Enhancement businesses. Recently it acquired the iconic Lowry Digital Images, the Digital Images Business of US-based DTS Inc.

New Media:

Zapak (zapak.com) - India's number one gaming portal,

BigAdda (bigadda.com) - No. 1 Indian social networking site,

BigFlix (bigflix.com) ? India's No.1 online/offline movie rental and movie download business, and

Jump Games (http://www.jumpgames.co.in/) - a fast growing global mobile entertainment venture. Besides many marquee mobile gaming properties, it has acquired Worldwide Mobile gaming rights for the No.1 football club in the world: Manchester United and Worldwide Mobile Gaming rights for Cricket Games from International Cricket Council.

Broadcasting:

In less than 2 years, Big 927 FM has become the No.1 FM radio network in India with the largest number of radio stations in India. In television broadcasting, Big Broadcasting has ambitious plans to launch a bouquet of channels comprising of General Entertainment, Film, Kids, Music, News and a range of specialist channels.

About Willow TV

Willow TV is the world's leading portal for live Internet streaming of all Cricket events worldwide, and has been providing live streaming video of every major cricket series since 2003.

Willow TV provides subscribers with an unparalleled viewing experience with enhancements such as live interactive scorecards and high bandwidth video streams as well as mobile and IM offerings.

Willow TV is headquartered at Sunnyvale, CA, with offices in Bangalore, India.