Zee bullish on the regional space; new channels, HD feeds on the anvil

Zee Entertainment Enterprises now has its eyes firmly on the regional television space. Not only has the media group lined up a slew of HD feeds of its regional channels, there are also plans to launch a few new channels in this space. The licence for regional HD channels is awaited.

Zee is planning to expand its offering in the Marathi language space with a new youth entertainment-focussed channel tentatively named Yuva. The network already has Zee Marathi in this space.

Zee Cinemalu, a Telugu language movie channel, is also on the anvil. Zee Telugu is already catering to the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana markets.

As is known, Zee Media Corporation has announced its plans to launch an English news channel called WION (World Is One News). The channel is slated to go on air in August this year.

Meanwhile, Zee Entertainment Enterprises will now handle the distribution of Zee Media’s channels. The distribution deal was earlier with Taj Television, which now stands terminated. This move will save Zee Media 7 per cent as commission fee from its subscription revenue.

For the financial year ended March 31, 2016, Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ subscription revenue stood at Rs 2,057.9 crore, registering a growth of 14.7 per cent. During the year, domestic subscription revenues was reported at Rs 1,630.2 crore and the international subscription revenues stood at Rs 427.6 crore.