Skip to main content

Zee World expands African footprint with customized content and local productions


Having brought all the glamour of Bollywood to Africa on Zee World, CEO Zee TV Africa Harish Goyal is looking to the continent to help take the company’s global viewership to the 1 billion mark by 2020.

Speaking at the MultiChoice Africa Content Showcase, alongside Business Head Ratna Siriah and Marketing Manager Linda Oliphant, Goyal said he was proud to see that Zee Worldhas become synonymous with Bollywood in Africa,thanks to the channel’s loyalviewership.

Zee World is a completely customized channel experience for mainstream audiences in Africa and is available exclusively on DStv (Channel 166) and GOtv (Channel 25).
“We started Zee World to bring Bollywood to mainstream audiences in a language everyone could understand,” said Business Head Ratna Siriah.
“The channel has been so successful because we’ve done a lot of research into Africa, to understand how people connect with Bollywood, and we’ve customised the channel and content, accordingly.” The levels of customisation on the channel are astonishing, with Siriah explaining that the team even researches the availability of traditional Indian ingredients for the channel’s trio of cooking shows in local markets, makes tweaks to the recipes and even sources substitute ingredients. “We also customise our movies and
series – a Bollywood movie is normally three hours long, so we’ve cut out a number of song and dance routines to make them more easily-consumable for the busy African market,” she said. “That said, we also get complaints about the songs we’ve cut out – people really want to see them – so we use these musical moments as fillers on the channel so nobody misses out on the full Bollywood experience.”

Feedback is important to the Zee World team, and they pay very close attention to social media. “Our fans are very active on our Facebook page, and we listen to what they have to say and take comments on board when making programming decisions,” said Siriah.

On the channel’s growth plans, Goyal said that the mainstream acceptance of
Zee World has encouraged the channel to make the move into other languages on the continent. “The next channel we are putting together will be in French, and it should be available before the end of this year,” he said.
“Next year, we have two more projects, in two other languages. Then we will be getting into content production, producing content locally in Africa and putting together programming that is even more relevant to the African market.” Siriah expanded: “We are also looking at bringing Zee TV original formats like Dance India, Dance to the continent and producing a local version. We will use local production partners and local talent and depending on how relevant the content is to our markets in the other 168 countries where we broadcast, we could consider showcasing that content elsewhere in the world.”

The MultiChoice Africa Content Showcase is a dynamic 5-day content extravaganza, which sees a host of DStv’s biggest channels, including Sony, SuperSport, Zee World, A+E, Disney, MTV Base, BET, Comedy Central, BBC and M-Net previewing their latest and greatest content, soon to be seen across the video entertainment services provider’s platforms. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vodafone sells 45% shares in Verizon for US$130 billion

Vodafone has sold its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to US telecoms group Verizon Communications in one of the biggest deals in corporate history. The US$130 billion (£84bn) deal was announced by Vodafone after the close of trading on the London Stock Exchange. The company will return £54 billion to its shareholders, of which £22 billionn will go to shareholders in the UK. Vodafone will also invest money in its business, with funds earmarked for high speed mobile phone networks. It said that by 2017 its main five European markets would have almost complete 4G coverage. Possibly it would be wrong to carp and wring hands that Vodafone won't be paying a penny of tax to the British taxman” Vodafone group chairman Gerard Kleisterlee said: "The transaction will position Vodafone strongly to pursue our leadership strategy in mobile and unified communication services for consumers and enterprises, both in our developed markets and across our emerging markets businesses." The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shortage of weighing cards hit major hospitals in Accra

By: Fred Yaw Sarpong- Daily Express There is scarcity of Child Health Records Book (weighing cards), in some major public hospitals in the capital, information reaching the Daily Express indicates. Checks by this paper revealed that while some of the hospitals have being encountering the shortage for about a year now, others started experiencing it six months ago. In place of the Child Health Record Book (weighing card), the nursing mothers are given a single card on which information of children are recorded on it. Those hospitals identified are the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Korle Bu Polyclinic, Kaneshie Polyclinic, Adabraka Polyclinic and the Ridge Hospital. At the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the nursing mothers are given yellow cards in place of the weighing cards. The Public Relations Secretariat at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital said such information has not come to their notice and for that matter they cannot comment on it. “We do not have some ...
Post a Comment
Read more

ABL launches chibuku super in Bolgatanga

By: Fred Yaw Sarpong sarpong007@gmail.com Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) has officially launched the Chibuku Super drink at Bolgatanga in the Upper East region with the aim of reaching a lot of customers. Mr. Thomas Nii Ponku, Supervisor in charge of Chibuku Super at ABL told Daily Express that the management decided to launch the Chibuku Super drink in the Upper East region because they’ve realized it is similar to a traditional drink in the region. “Chibuku is like a well developed pito, a traditional drink made from fermented millet or sorghum in the Northern part of Ghana. So the idea is to provide them with similar drink,” he added. Mr. Nii Ponku disclosed this when members of the Institute of Finance and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) toured the facility of ABL to acquaint themselves with the expansion project at the factory. He mentioned that after a feasibility study, they realized there is a potential market for the product in the northern part of Ghana ...
Post a Comment
Read more