ITV

Tag: ZEE 4.0

  • CEO Punit Goenka bats for Zee 4.0 vision, as boardroom tussle rages on

    CEO Punit Goenka bats for Zee 4.0 vision, as boardroom tussle rages on

    New Delhi: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) is gearing up for a boardroom tussle with two of its big investors demanding the removal of its top management. Amid all this, CEO Punit Goenka took the stage at the company 39th Annual General Meeting (AGM) to address the shareholders and highlight the efforts taken by the management over the past year to transform the organisation into the Zee 4.0 version.

    “The last financial year has been a dynamic one for us, a year where we started afresh, starting a brand new chapter in our book,” said Goenka at the 39th AGM held on Tuesday.

    The meeting comes after two of the company’s top investors – Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund LLC – who together hold up to 18 percent of the stake demanded the removal of Punit Goenka, Manish Chokhani, and Ashok Kurien as directors in an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). Both Chokhani and Kurein submitted their resignations as non-executive non-independent directors of the firm ahead of the meeting.

    Discussing the year gone by, Goenka said the financial year 2021 was an unprecedented year on all counts. “There was a massive disruption in the first half, and ZEEL’s advertising revenues reduced by almost half,” he added as reported by moneycontrol.com. “There was a sharp rebound in the later part of the year, leading to a 6.8 percent growth in the second half. The subscription revenue saw comparable growth of 5.2 per cent during the year, primarily driven by sci fi.”

    Elaborating on the plans to transform the organisation, Goenka told the shareholders that the Zee team is working on revamping the programming line-ups of the linear channel portfolio to bounce back in the key markets, and expand the broadcast portfolio with the launch of two new channels during the year. 

    “The future roadmap for next three years is going to be driven through digital. The digital business has great promise for the future. It is growing multi-fold,” said Goenka talking about the renewed focus on the digital, with Zee5 scaling its content library and enhancing the customer experience.

    “We are still in investment mode for our digital business and our film business. We enjoyed leadership in several of the markets that we operate in.”

    However, in terms of verticals, he said, the linear business enjoys the maximum of popularity and profitability. “We also want to be the leading studio in films across six languages, and we will continue to increase our market share in the music category also,” he added.

    Responding to the shareholders’ concerns over the impact of the pandemic, ZEEL MD and CEO said Zee Studios bore the maximum brunt, due to the closure of malls and theaters across the country, and continues to face challenges. Zee Anmol also lost market share due to the lockdown restrictions. “The exceptional expenditure incurred in Q1 of FY22 was on account of relocation of shoots to alternate locations,” he added, noting that this will not be significantly higher in the coming quarters.

    On repayment of funds from related parties, Goenka said that there have been no loans given to related parties from the company. “There have been business revenues that we collect from related parties like Siti Cable and Dish TV and other parties and the board monitors these recoveries very closely and the management is engaged with related parties for recovery of our overdues, if any.”

  • ZEE Entertainment announces strategic restructure of organization

    ZEE Entertainment announces strategic restructure of organization

    MUMBAI: ZEEL has announced a strategic restructuring of the organization in line with its  ‘ZEE 4.0 Strategy’. As part of the restructure, the company has brought in Rahul Johri as president – business, South Asia. He will be responsible for leading the integrated revenue and monetization team.

    In other key shuffles in the top leadership, ZEE has elevated CEO (broadcast) Punit Misra to president – content & international markets, while Amit Goenka will take over as the president – digital businesses & platforms. These changes are effective immediately.

    Tarun Katial, who is leading ZEE5 India business, will continue to report to Amit Goenka. Shariq Patel will be responsible for the integrated movies business and Anurag Bedi will continue to drive the music business. All of them will report to ZEEL MD & CEO Punit Goenka.

    Under ‘ZEE 4.0 Strategy’, the company will integrate all of its digital assets under a single umbrella, which includes ZEE5 (Domestic AVOD+SVOD), ZEE5 Global, SugarBox and Digital Publishing.

    In this new version of the company, its focus will be on reinventing the existing business models, maximizing its core, expanding into adjacent spaces and exploring new areas of business. To this end, it has announced the following strategic steps:

    • Aggregating content creation: Creating extraordinary entertainment content has always
    been the key area of focus for the Company. In order to build viewer stickiness, the company has been sharply focusing on enhancing viewer intimacy, capturing & embedding sociocultural insights and the finer nuances of the local languages & customs in its content creation process. Customer centricity has been the key to the Company’s success in delivering rich, meaningful and engaging content. A ‘content first, cluster centric’ framework, is enabling ZEE to take the content creation process, closer to its viewers. This approach aims at leveraging the company’s strengths in regional clusters, improving content production efficiencies, enhancing consumer insights and most above, delivering better and more cost-effective content across platforms. Hence the company has formed an integrated content team, responsible of creating and serving content to its viewers across linear & digital platforms.

    • Streamlining International Business: The Company has been entertaining viewers in over 190 countries across five clusters viz. APAC; MENA; Africa; Europe and North America. With its rich experience garnered across the globe, the Company has developed a deep level of understanding of each market. The linear (Advt./Distribution) and digital (AVOD/SVOD) teams in the international markets will be integrated into a single team, led by the market revenue leader who will be responsible for maximizing the revenues across all formats (Linear/Digital) and revenue streams. The integration will also enable each international cluster leader to craft a local-market aligned approach. With this integrated approach, the Company aims to maximize revenue and drive content monetization, by optimally capitalizing the opportunities presented in the international markets.

    • Integrating digital assets: The company has been substantively investing in building its digital ecosystem, given its strategic importance for future growth. While TV continues to grow in the country, digital viewership is growing at a frenetic pace, with large number of viewers adding digital to their existing formats of content consumption. In order to drive greater synergies across technology, data and talent, which are the three critical determinants of success in the digital ecosystem, the company will be bringing together all of its digital assets under a single umbrella, which includes ZEE5 (Domestic AVOD+SVOD), ZEE5 Global, SugarBox and Digital Publishing.

    • Movies Business: The Company will be combining the different parts of its movies business which are currently embedded in multiple domains, into a single integrated platform. This team will be responsible for both aspects of the value chain – movie purchase/production as well as monetization, across all markets (Domestic & International). Driving better line of sight through an integrated approach, this revised framework will substantially enhance the effectiveness of the company’s movies business.

    • Music Business: The company’s music business has gained substantial traction and it will continue to invest and grow this business to achieve market leadership.

    • Integrated revenue & monetization team: The company will be creating an integrated revenue and monetization team, combining all the existing B2B revenue generating teams (linear advertisement, sales, digital advertisement sales, distribution and B2B SVOD Partnerships) into a unified ecosystem. With this revised framework, the Company aims to drive a more synergized monetization engine that will deliver enhanced solutions to its clients, improve wallet monetization, extend coverage to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and increase subscriber penetration across linear and digital formats.

    “ZEE 4.0 will be an integrated and synergise organization, with a sharp focus on delivering world class entertainment content to our consumers across the world and enhanced value to our partners across the ecosystem,” said ZEEL MD & CEO Punit Goenka in a press release.

    “I am most certain that the collective experience and expertise of the leadership team will help us immensely in achieving our set goals for the future and realize the vision chalked out for the all new version of ZEE,” he added.

  • Zeel leaps into 4.0 mode with 5 ‘G’s; Punit Goenka reaffirms he is here to stay & lead

    Zeel leaps into 4.0 mode with 5 ‘G’s; Punit Goenka reaffirms he is here to stay & lead

    KOLKATA: India is one of the most promising markets for pay TV and one of those few markets where the business is still growing at a higher rate compared to streaming. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel), the leading force for three decades in the industry, is also the pioneer of this burgeoning business in the country. However, the network’s journey has not been rosy always. After facing strong financial headwinds in the business in the last 18 months, Zeel is ready to take the next leap with 5 ‘G’s through its vision of ZEE 4.0.

    Governance, granularity, growth, goodwill and gusto are the five pillars of ZEE 4.0. Zeel managing director and CEO Punit Goenka has laid out the roadmap for its new journey while clarifying it he is here to stay and lead the transformation. 

    Under an all-new reconstituted board,  the focus going forward will be to build a process-oriented structure for the future along with achieving the highest levels of automation with zero manual intervention. Goenka also cleared the air by stating that the questions raised on some of its decisions taken earlier have been answered. Moreover, he informed that an independent review commissioned by the board has not found anything adverse to report. Zeel will also be releasing the findings of this review, to maintain the utmost levels of transparency. Considerably, the board was reconstituted last year after media baron Subhash Chandra resigned from his position of chairman.

    In a letter addressing to shareholders, Goenka assured that a transparent approach while reporting will be an important area of focus in the new phase of Zeel. The company will ensure that every single aspect including segmental reporting across businesses, consistent reporting on business KPIs, or regular communication pertaining to steps undertaken on ESG and CSR related activities will be informed properly. 

    “ZEE’s constant endeavour to stay ahead of the industry performance will always be a guiding factor in all our future initiatives. We will continue to build our business with speed, responsiveness and decisiveness. Apart from constantly reinventing our existing business models, the focus will be to maximise our core, expand into adjacent spaces and explore new areas of business. With an undeterred focus on growth and profitability, our aim would be to constantly enhance shareholder value,” Goenka stated in the letter.

    Since the time Zeel promoters announced stake sell to repay debt, number of speculations and rumours floated in the market about acquisitions and mergers. Even a few days ago, a rumour made the rounds about a large corporate of India acquiring Zeel. Hence, Goenka reaffirmed that he is here to stay and will remain committed towards the organisation. “I have taken this up as a challenge to restore the goodwill; not just for me, not just for my family, but for the entire team at ZEE,” he stated.

    “I am very proud of the professional leadership team at ZEE. Our entrepreneurial spirit, rich expertise in content creation and the unique ability to gauge the pulse of our consumers, have been instrumental to our success. The zeal, passion and commitment which the team brings to the table, gives me a deep sense of pride and I assure you that this will only grow with greater intensity,” he added.

    The proud son of media mogul Chandra has reminded that it was not possible to create such a large media conglomerate without his father's visionary approach.