Arré and SonyLIV ENTERS INTO A CO- PRODUCTION PARTNERSHIP FOR A DIGITAL WEB SERIES

Arré and SonyLIVenter into a co-production partnership for a new Web Series

by Suman Gupta

Mumbai, November 07th, 2016: After announcing a distribution alliance, SonyLIV and Arré, have now come together to co-produce a digital series. The lead of the series, Rithvik Dhanjani, is one of the most popular faces on Indian television who is currently anchoring Super Dancer, the No.1 reality show on Sony and was also last seen in I Don’t Watch TV and Arré Ho Ja Re-Gender on Arré.

Set against the backdrop of a big fat Indian wedding, the show is a comedy of errors that promises to be a visual treat and centres around a wild bachelor trip gone horribly wrong.

A wolf pack of three best friends, a groom-to-be and his two quirky friends take off on a bachelor trip just before the wedding. With a bullying bride-to-be back home, some comical misadventures on a foreign sojourn and an unexpected encounter with a beautiful stranger, the protagonist comes to understand the meaning of love and friendship.

The show, produced for Arré and SonyLIV by Rithvik and Srman Jain, also a well known TV actor, will go into production soon and is planned for launch in early 2017.The show is scheduled to go into production soon, with a digital launch planned on SonyLIV’s and Arré’s web and mobile platforms for early 2017.

Uday Sodhi, EVP and Head – Digital Business, SonyLIV said, “The new-age Indian viewers want engaging and original entertainment solutions which they can relate to and enjoy. We, at SonyLIV, have been developing fresh and youthful content which caters to the evolved entertainment sensibilities of the millennial viewership. Given its theme, we are confident that the show will be hugely popular with our target audiences, as they will be able to relate to the characters and the situations on the show.”

Ajay Chacko, Co-Founder & CEO of Arré, said, “At Arré, we believe in bringing a new lens to traditional formats and genres of content, be it commentary on the news or a comedy fiction show. After our distribution alliance,  we’re are delighted to partner with SonyLIV – which has already established itself as a leading digital entertainment platform – for original content and look forward to many more such shows together.”

Rithvik Dhanjani, said “I am super excited about the show and look forward to working with SonyLIV and Arré again on yet another interesting project. With digital entertainment destinations like these, there is scope to tell stories that have a new-age sensibility and which resonate with the young audiences. The story and the characters in the show are reflective of this mindset and I feel the audiences will be able to relate to it l.”

SonyLIV:

SonyLIV is the first premium Video on demand (VOD) service by Sony Pictures Networks’ (SPN) providing multi-screen engagement to users on all devices. Launched in January 2013, it enables users to discover 20 years of rich content from the network channels of Sony Pictures Networks’ Pvt. Ltd. It also provides a rich array of movies, strong line-up of events across all sports, shows, music, product reviews.

With 25 million app downloads so far, SonyLIV is the first amongst its competition to provide original exclusive premium content.

As a true pioneer in its space, SonyLIV launched India’s first-ever original show exclusively for the online platform earlier this year. With #LoveBytes, it became the country’s first digital video-on-demand (VOD) platform to introduce an innovation of this nature

About Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN):

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), (formerly Multi Screen Media Private Ltd.), is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation which owns and operates theSony Entertainment network of television channels.

As a leading television network in India, SPN comprises of Sony Entertainment Television (SET), one of India's leading Hindi general entertainment television channels; MAX, India's premium Hindi movies and special events channel; MAX 2, a second Hindi movie channel showcasing great Indian Cinema; SAB, a family comedy entertainment channel; PIX, the English movie channel; AXN, the leader amongst English Entertainment Channels; AATH, the Bangla movie channel, MIX a refreshing Hindi music channel; SIX and SONY ESPN – the cluster of sports entertainment channels and LIV - the Digital Entertainment Channel, and, SPN’s Motion Pictures division, formerly MSM Motion Pictures.

Sony Pictures Networks India is in its 22nd year in India.

About Arré

Arré is India’s first multi-format, multi-genre digital media brand. Arré brings to India’s new-gen digital audiences a range of contextual storytelling and entertainment using video, audio, graphic-art and text. Founded by B. Saikumar, Ajay Chacko and Sanjay Ray Chaudhuri, Arré launched its website and social media offerings in early April 2016 with original content ranging from articles that explore sub-culture and popular culture to audio-dramas in partnership with Saavn, the first of which is Trial By Error | The Aarushi Files based on one of India’s most intriguing murder cases, doodles and illustrations that take a satirical look at the world and the socio-political environment, fiction shows like A.I.SHA | My Virtual Girlfriend that explores the dynamics of interplay between technology and relationships, I Don’t Watch TV which is a satirical sitcom series that explores the many unsaid dimensions of India’s over-the-top entertainment television industry and its protagonists. Arré has also launched the country’s first digital reality show based on a social experiment Arré Ho-Ja-Re-gender (an Israeli format), which explores what it takes for the sexes to literally be the other gender and a fiction web series Official Chukyagiri which is a slice-of-life dramedy about life in the corporate world viewed through the eyes of an intern. Arré has also collaborated with the Indian Express Group to launch a series of documentaries, the first one being a documentary on Pollution titled Death by Breath. It also put out a documentary on the violence towards children in Kashmir titled Kashmir’s Lost Children.

Arré has been working with a range of advertisers to integrate their brands seamlessly into contextual storytelling and entertainment as well as with a range of Video platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Yupp TV, SonyLIV, TF1 Xtra (a French based television and digital network), Vodafone Play etc. to market and distribute its content.

Arré is accessible at http://www.arre.co.in/, 

On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ArreIndia,

YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/ArreIndia,

Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/arrepics/,

Twitter@arretweets and

On its Android App at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.co.udigital.Arre&hl=en