India’s Zee to Offer Bollywood, Lifestyle TV

March 1, 2014 Leave a comment

India’s Zee to Offer Bollywood, Lifestyle TV

By Muhamad Al Azhari on 10:30 am February 24, 2014.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises, one of India’s leading media and entertainment companies, is keen to tap the Indonesian pay-television market, banking on strong Indian influence on Indonesia’s culture, its founder and chairman has said.

“We have very strong cultural similarities. These similarities originated way back thousands of years ago during the reign of the Majapahit Empire, one of the greatest and most powerful empires in the history of Indonesia and Southeast Asia, that was based in Java,” said Subhash Chandra, chairman and founder of the Essel Gr oup — owner of Zee Entertainment Enterprises — in an e-mailed statement to the Jakarta Globe last week.

“Till now, similarities in music, dance and customs are very apparent. With Zee Bioskop our endeavor is to bring further synergies between our entertainment offering and local taste,” he said.

Zee Entertainment, which has more than 700 million viewers across 169 countries last month announced the launch of its Indonesia operations.

In January, it opened its Jakarta office, and appointed Maria Liza Ginting as Indonesia country head.

One of Maria’s first duties was to introduce Zee Bioskop — a 24-hour Bollywood movie channel with Indonesian translations — and Veria Living, a lifestyle channel.

These two channels are relayed via Aora TV and Orange TV — both are pay-television services received via satellite.

Subhash said Zee is planning on further expansion as it is eyeing to ink a deal with Kompas Vision, another satellite pay- television outfit controlled by the Kompas Gramedia Group.

“We are currently exploring the launch of the third channel once our feasibility study is complete,” he said.

He added that he sees Indonesia as one of the fastest growing economies in the Asian region, with a population that is relatively “young and vibrant.”

“We endeavor to be part of the lives in terms of lifestyle and entertainment. We will continue to provide the needs of the market in terms of entertainment and opening a representative office as a step towards this commitment and will also increase our investments and team strength,” he said.

Subhash launched India’s first satellite television channel Zee TV in 1992 and through a journey of more than two decades, its Zee brand managed to get strong recognition, not just in India but also worldwide.

Zee, which offers 34 domestic channels and 32 dedicated international channels, aims at reaching 1 billion viewers and to be ranked in the top three global media brands by the year 2020, it said in a statement last month.

 

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