Zee launches it's food channel 'Khana Khazana' with new ingrediants!

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEE) today announced the refresh of its 24 hour food channel Zee Khana Khazana with the tag line ‘Ab Khana Sawal Nahi, LajawabHai!’ In a first step towards refreshing the channel, Zee Khana Khazana, India’s first 24 hour food channel will debut four  brand new shows on Wednesday 20th February 2013 . An event announcing this new initiative was held at Mayfair Banquets, Worli ,  on 18th February 2013 . At the gathering present were Puneet Goenka, Managing Director, Zee Entertainment Enterprise, Amit Nair- Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana, Ms. Gurdeep Kohli- Television actress, Chef Ranveer Brar- Executive Chef, Hotel Novotel, Juhu and Chef Gautam Mehrishi- Executive Chef, Sun N Sand.

The channel initiated an extensive research which divulged a lot of interesting and unique findings on the basis of which, after two years of successfully airing engaging and relevant content, the channel decided to refresh their content to meet the current needs of the Indian homemaker today. It is the channel’s objective to empower the Indian woman and help her secure that Super Wife /Super Mom status through the food that she cooks for her family.

The brand new content is fresh, simple and showcases easy to replicate cooking methods and dishes at one’s home. Through this exercise, the channel aims to become the one-stop shop for ‘simple yet delicious’ cooking with its engaging and instructive approach.

Zee Khana Khazana, which pioneered the cookery show content in India, is all set to build on its legacy with a slew of exciting and original new shows, targeting Sec A, B  housewives across India. Khana Khazana is a familiar name in Indian households and closely associated with the name Sanjeev  Kapoor. In year 2010 the half-hour show soon became a 24-hour channel from the Zee network and continued to be  identified with the famed chef .

The channel will have fresh programming line-up but the target audience will continue to be 21 + female SEC AB.

Now the network has  decided to revamp the channel with new programming and a new identity. Though slated to  be released in a month's time, the new programming line-up will be visible on air from 20th February 2013. Sanjeev  Kapoor will  no longer be a part of the revamped version but all the same the channel does have a library of the show and that remains one of the important offerings of the channel.

Speaking on the refresh of Zee Khana Khazana, Punit Goenka, MD - ZEE, said: “We have a lot of firsts to our credit – one of which was the launch of Zee Khana Khazana, India’s first 24 hour food channel. We are proud of the iconic stature the brand Khana Khazana has achieved in the last 20 year which is extremely popular and very well recognized. With the 24 hour food channel – Zee Khana Khazana we are happy to take our engagement with our audience to a deeper level through a new programming line - up which is both relevant and appealing.”

Atul Das, Chief Strategy Officer – ZEE, said: “Television landscape is changing rapidly with digitization and there is increasing demand for premium content. Food and lifestyle is emerging as a genre with great potential. Our effort is to bridge this gap by offering a premium product which caters to the evolving Indian palate.”

Says Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana, “Khana Khazana has always been at the forefront of providing exciting food content with its wide range of shows. To take this culinary journey ahead we conducted research and found that creating exciting food everyday for their family was the biggest challenge for our audience. Zee Khana Khazana addresses this need by being a solution provider for the Indian Homemaker. Thus the new shows help by giving recipes and food solutions that will make their daily cooking interesting, simple, quick and delicious.” He also added to say that the entire programming line-up will be revealed gradually. With regard to  competition from the lifestyle channels, Nair said  that Zee Khana Khazana is mass, Hindi cooking channel whereas lifestyle caters to a very niche and specific audience.

It is also interesting to note that Zee Entertainment has appointed Scarecrow Communications as the creative agency for its food channel The new campaign for Zee Khana Khazana is based on a powerful insight and will serve as a platform to showcase the exciting line-up of new shows, thereby continuing the tradition of creating people-centric content by the Zee family which is appreciated across genres.

Adgully spoke to Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana and Gaurav Jang, AVP, programming, Zee Khana Khazana  present at the function who explained the new line up and fresh content  viewers can eagerly look forward to in the coming days.

Where content strategy is concerned Nair said that the content strategy is very info-entertainment oriented. All their shows are very chatty, conversational and interactive unlike regular cookery shows. “We are delighted to announce the start of four new shows on air all back by research and by understanding the pulse of women by interacting with them extensively. These our shows are Food Ka Mood, Bacha party, Breakfast express and Ab Har Koi Chef. Each of them have been designed with specific needs in mind. In the coming months we plan to launch a lot of new shows that will also target a broader TG. There will be more travel + food related to reality shows and will dish out more theme based or concept driven shows every quarter keeping our TG in mind,” he said.

He says that  Khana Khazana has always been synonymous with great food experiences and has a unique place in the heart of homemakers and cooking enthusiasts and  since their evolvement to a 24-hour food channel the response has been very heartening.

When asked where he sees the (Food) genre in the next few years he said, “ Food as an offering on television has been growing since the days of Khana Khazana. GECs had cookery shows, then we started having food shows within the regional space. Subsequently even news channels got into it and on the GEC front it evolved from instructional cooking to food reality. With dedicated food bands on lifestyle channels the time was ripe for a dedicated food channel and Zee was the first to do so. In mature television markets, there are 3 -4 dedicated food channels so we are very bullish about this genre. With digitization and greater monetization, specialized offerings like food are expected to do very well.”

Sharing about advertisers for a niche channel like Zee Khana Khazana he opines,  “While our core target audience is female, we have seen enough and more men venturing into the kitchen to try out recipes that are different from the norm. While we may have FMCG and durables as main advertisers there is a lot of interest from home and lifestyle related brands to advertise.”

With regard to marketing strategy of the channel he said that they would be closely working with their DTH/cable partners to increase interactions with consumers and the Focus predominantly would be on digital and activations to build close viewer connect.

Gaurav Jang, explains, "This is also a reflection of the change in spending pattern. As the economy grows, people want to dine out even more. They want to have this whole experience of food. They are considering it as an art-form now and hence the consumption of food content has increased. The time was ripe for a full time food channel in 2010."

Jang explained that a lot of research was conducted on women who had a lot of questions pertaining to cooking. Elaborating further he said that they would want to know how to make best use of limited vegetables in hand for a recipe or would her husband and kids prefer the dishes she cooked for them. Hence this was the rationale behind the new concept for the show.

With regard to the four shows on the anvil he said, “ The first show, Food Ka Mood is a daily cooking, instructional show that showcases simple, easy to make, everyday dishes but with a twist. The second one, Bachcha Party, features the actress, Gurdip Kohli which shows interesting recipes for children.” While all the other shows wilL have chefs, the channel suggests that this particular show features an actress since they were looking for somebody who is managing home and work both simultaneously. As for the recipes, the show has a lot of support from the food team of the channel.

In the third show, Breakfast Xpress, the chef cooks a healthy and easy breakfast and also demonstrates ways in which one can use leftovers. Lastly, Ab Har Koi Chef is a vignette-based show wherein the viewers send in their recipes and the show's chef selects the best of the lot. The sender is then brought to the studio to cook the recipe with him.

He also said, “ There will be fresh launches every month and we will have two to three show completely devoted to flavours of India and regional cuisine from different states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. In every show festivals too will be addressed. For e.g. in the Bachcha party , two to three episodes will be devoted to the Holi festival.”

Where celebrity chefs are concerned he said that they are presently not looking at taking celebs but at a mother who can cook and in time become a celeb herself. He also said that there will be no brand ambassador who will carry the legacy this time but the power of the medium is sufficient and a person who can establish a connect with the audience will suffice like in the case of Aditya Bal who has become a celebrity himself.

According to Gaurav Jang today people have wide choices where cuisines are concerned and there is increased focus on eating out and cooking international dishes too has picked up as a hobby. He also shared that a show in a travelogue format is on the anvil but for the moment they would prefer to concentrate on studio based shows.

Where brand integration is concerned  he said, “The options will be there but right now we are selective because we do not want to be too intrusive but would be blending it in gradually and we intend keeping it subtle for the time being.”

Along with the revamp of the channel, the website is also getting refreshed. The website will sport an easy to navigate interface acting as a one-stop shop for recipes and a food guide.

The channel is expecting a double digit growth in overall revenues, post this revamp, which was the outcome of exhaustive audience research.

All shows are highly interactive with the audience being offered the chance to get in touch with the channel's chefs and anchors via a call or SMS or email thereby taking the engagement level a notch higher.