When I saw the teaser for the Zee group’s new channel Zee Zindagi on television, I thought it was another GEC that Zee will be launching but soon after I was informed by a friend that the channel will feature syndicated Pakistani content. I do remember reading in one of Aunn Zara’s review on our DramaPakistani.net website that the serial will air in India but didn’t know the Zee group will be launching a new channel solely dedicated to Pakistani content which is a great thing. Zee Zindagi will launch on 23rd June, 2014 across India. Zindagi reinforces the vision of ZEE’s corporate philosophy ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam – The World Is My Family’ and aims to unite people in India and across the world with shows produced overseas.
Let’s read what Zee’s MD and CEO Mr Punit Goenka said about launching Zee Zindagi in an interview to LiveMint recently:
Tell us about your new channel Zindagi.
While the first set of content that we are starting with is sourced from Pakistan, we are actively sourcing content from various other geographies as well, be it from Turkey, Latin America, Egypt, etc. What we have found is that content which has relevance with cultural affinity of India will play a good role here. That’s point one. Point two is that it’s not about cheap content or syndicated content, it’s about finding the right stories that will make that connect here. In terms of cost, this channel will end up costing us, similar to what any other GEC (general entertainment channel) would cost us, apart from the fact that we are syndicating content, everything else remains constant.
I won’t comment on how much it would cost Zee to do it, but if anyone wanted to enter this market with a GEC product, anything below $500-800 million it’s not possible to make a dent. Having said that, of course, incumbents such as Zee would not have to spend that kind of money, because we have a base and a network that itself can support such a product launch.
The budget for Zindagi’s launch phase is Rs.80-100 crore. Out of the total budget, primary spend will be on content and secondary on the marketing campaign. In the upcoming phases, the total spends for content production might go up by 15%. Both dubbed content and remade shows are options now. Even with the Pakistani shows, though today it’s purely syndicated, we are already actively working towards remaking shows, whether making them in India or Pakistan or in Dubai or anywhere else, that is economically feasible.
Is this decision coming out of some sort of research? Is there a change in what consumers want?
The consumer is always looking for differentiated content and with digitization and newer technologies coming in the options to the consumers have increased manifold and therefore fragmentation will continue to happen. Hence smaller sets of audiences will choose what they want to consume, either on television or on the second and third screen.
The idea didn’t come from research, it came from a gut feel. And when we researched that thought, it proved that it can work.
Personally, I am overjoyed and excited. I had always wished and hoped that the Indian government would reverse it’s decision of blocking Pakistani channels here in India but now that Zee has taken the initiative of airing Pakistani serials in India I have no complains. I want my fellow Indians to see and appreciate the content produced by our counterparts across the border. Interestingly from what I have read Zindagi channel will air not so old Pakistani serials like Aunn Zara, Zindagi Gulzar Hai, Kitni Girhain Baaqi Hain etc for now so for the new serials youtube is going to be my saviour like it has been so far.
Written by Deepika
