'We believe there is a large TV audience with a progressive mindset'

Upbeat about its performance and the growing entertainment market, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, or ZEEL, has announced the launch of its new channel Zindagi. It is likely to be on TV screens on or before June 23. This new general entertainment channel will source most of its content from countries that share Asian and Indian sensibilities. Punit Goenka, Managing Director & CEO, ZEEL, talks about why this content will be relevant in an email interview with Shamni Pande. Edited excerpts:

Q. Why do you need for a new general entertainment channel? Which geography and audience are you looking at?
A. Firstly, the audience itself is evolving. In our traditional or regular GEC space, we cater to women who are of a traditional mindset. We believe there is a large audience which now has a more progressive mindset, balancing work-life with family life. We realized that kind of content is not being made in India... We studied a lot of geographies and came to the conclusion that markets like Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Latin American content can be explored. The content that they are creating, while it is foreign, will fit in very well culturally within the Indian viewership context as well.

So we have gone out and sourced content from these markets to start with. Our next phase will be to actually co-produce or produce content in these markets along with the local talent and also maybe introduce Indian talent within that as well. We will be taking the rights of novels, books which will then get into active production either in India or overseas itself.

There will be no repeats from our other channels (on Zindagi). The idea of getting foreign content to our audience is to choose the content from the markets which will have an higher affinity to the Indian market itself, hence Pakistan. As we start sourcing content from overseas, it will soon move into producing content exclusively for the channels, and this will be content produced in India or overseas depending on the need of the storyline and the subject. Currently, we have almost 4,000 hours of content. Zindagi is a pay channel, priced at Rs 25.81 and available across all platforms

The first project has already kicked off where we have commissioned twelve telefilms. Six are being produced in India and six in Pakistan. This festival will launch in the season rank this year itself. Following that we are already in talks with production houses for co-producing shows based on very successful novels by acclaimed writers and that work will start sometime by the end of the year-early next year. When sourcing content from other geographies, the content will be dubbed or remade, Including Pakistani shows, while today it is purely syndicated, we are already actively working towards remaking shows in India, Pakistan, or Dubai - whichever is feasible.

Q. Humour is a big slot that was missing, is this going to tap that space?
A. Yes, 'Zindagi' will cover all genres. It will cover drama, comedy, and telefilms.

Q. How much will you invest in the channel to support it, also do you see the market picking up and more ad support coming in this year?
A. I will not comment on what costs ZEE to do it, but yes if someone today wanted to enter this market with a GEC product, the cost would be anything below $500-800 million, it is not possible to make a dent. Having said that networks like that would not have to spend that much, because we have a base and a network which itself can support this kind of a product launch. From that perspective it is in line with any other investments made by us. Our results in the first three quarters show that we have beaten the industry very heavily at a 20% growth rate on advertising as a function of both volume and value. Ad revenues and subscription revenues contribute 50-50 to total revenues of ZEEL . About 12.5% of the total revenues come from overseas subscription. The numbers have gone up in last three years. But the last three quarters have seen a growth of approximately 20% in the ad revenues. The range of growth (run- rate) for this year is 9%-12% I'm confident Zee will beat that.

Q. ZEE Next did not work. This is your second attempt at launch. So what learning are you bringing into this?
A. Zee Next was an example of bad execution of the sampling. We made the mistake with that channel and we got our learning. This time we are very confident about Zindagi and have learnt from our mistakes we made with Zee Next. We already have had successful second channel launches in the recent past - Zee Anmol - Free-to-air GEC and & Pictures - Premium Movie Channel.

Q. With the closure of MediaPro Enterprises India alliance, what is your plan now to tap the market?
A. We have set up a team for ourselves which will also include the sports bouquet that was not present earlier and was a part of the MediaPro. I believe it's a strong bouquet for us to achieve the growth levels we have projected while we were on media pro. That's the plan for now.

Q. Will we see your group taking any fresh stakes or acquiring any new sports properties this year?
A. To consolidate our sports portfolio, there aren't that many properties coming up compared to India cricket, so in that respect for the next 6-7 years pretty much the marquee cricket properties are year marked on who gets what and, apart from Star and Ten Sports, we have tied up the entire cricket for the next 6-7 years. So from that perspective it is going to be a game of consolidation, taking benefits from our entertainment business onto sports by bundling it together.

Today if you look at international football, we have 285 days of international football on our channel, from Champions League, Europa League, I-League, Capital One Cup to name a few. This adds up to around 624 hrs of Club TV programming. In terms of tennis we have close to 287 days of tennis, we have exclusive golf rights which no other player has in this country. We offer 800 hours LIVE Golf to our audience.