Entertainment
‘Newz Wiz’:Siddhartha Basu brings back another quiz show
New Delhi:TV producer-director Siddhartha Basu, who brought popular quiz shows like “Kaun Banega Crorepati” and “Dus Ka Dum” to Indian television earlier, has now come up with news-based children’s quiz show “Newz Wiz”, the first episode of which will feature Bollywood superstar Salman Khan.
The show will see students from different schools across the country testing their knowledge of current affairs.
Set to be aired on India Today Television starting July 24, “Newz Wiz” will feature senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai as the host and quizmaster.
“One of the underlined propositions is — news is knowledge and knowledge is news. But today there is a lot of misinformation going on as there are so many mediums — TV, newspapers, magazines and most importantly internet. How do people get to know about things, particularly young people,” Basu told IANS.
“Coming of age, we have the largest population of young people in the world. But how plugged in are they to what is going on around them. There isn’t a platform for them to show their excellence. There’s hardly anything (TV show) where people can watch what the level of awareness of young people. That’s why we have come up with ‘Newz Wiz’.”
“The subject for the show is what’s on top of the mind in the left weeks or months. What’s the news going on. Also the viewers will get to play along with the contests literally while we will have some questions for them also,” Basu added.
“Newz Wiz” received entries from 1,500 schools across India from students of Classes 9 to 12, of whom 60 were shortlisted through an online test. The list was further trimmed to 27 schools which will participate in the finals.
The show will consist of 13 episodes which will feature three teams consisting of two participants in each episode.
The teams will be provided with a phone-in helpline where they can take help on their answers from a journalist of the concerned field. Apart from that, the show will also have a web guide station where one team member can look up the answers and assist the other team member who will be attempting the question in an allotted time.
Talking about changing gears from being an anchor to quizmaster, Sardesai said: “It’s in a strange sort of a way — fulfillment of a dream because one of my proudest moment as a young school boy was winning the Bournvita Quiz Contest at the age of 12 or 13. This was with Ameen Sayani for a radio show.”
“The first time that I came to Delhi was for National Cadet Corps (NCC) inter-state quiz competition. The second time was for ‘Quiz Time’ for which Siddhartha was the quizmaster. So I used to quiz a lot. Now getting a chance to be the quizmaster on a news TV show is a great idea.”
Sardesai said that “Newz Wiz” will help youngsters start taking interest in news.
“One of my hopes has always been how do you get young people interested in news, particularly school kids. One interesting way is to start a news quiz with perhaps encourages them to at least follow the news a bit more closely,” Sardesai said.
The winner of the show will get a trophy apart from other exciting prizes.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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