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Tag: Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd.

  • Supriyo Banerji moves to JioStar Digital (entertainment) as vertical head (LCS)

    Supriyo Banerji moves to JioStar Digital (entertainment) as vertical head (LCS)

    MUMBAI: Until December 2024 Supriyo Banerj was selling air time for the entertainment component of JioCinema as the national vertical head. Came January 2025, he moved to JioStar Digital (entertainment) as the vertical head (LCS), following a reshuffling of resources between Disney Star and Viacom18 after the merger.

    Banerji’s experience spans over 15 years, with a proven track record of leading high-performance sales teams, driving business growth, and delivering revenue results. Prior to joining Star India, Banerji held key roles at Viacom18 Media Private Limited, Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd., Star India, and Radio Mirchi.

    As vertical head (LCS) – Jiostar Digital (Entertainment), Banerji will be responsible for driving brand growth, building relationships with key stakeholders, and developing content-driven solutions. With his expertise in campaign management and team leadership, Banerji will play a crucial role in shaping JioStar’s digital entertainment strategy.

    Banerji holds a PGDIB from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and has a strong background in sales, advertising, and solution selling. His passion for big-picture thinking and collaborative leadership will be valuable assets to the JioStar India team.

    Banerji’s appointment became  effective January 2025, and he is  based in Gurugram, Haryana.

  • DP World ILT20 season three unveils new signings and retained players

    DP World ILT20 season three unveils new signings and retained players

    Mumbai: The DP World International League T20’s season three, to be broadcasted by Zee Entertainment, promises to be a high-octane cricket experience with the addition of the biggest names to the six franchises. The window to sign new players began in June and concluded on Sunday, 15 September.

    Season three of DP World ILT20 will feature international T20 stars like Jason Roy (Sharjah Warriors), Fakhar Zaman (Desert Vipers), Shai Hope (Dubai Capitals), Lockie Ferguson (Desert Vipers), Roston Chase (Abu Dhabi Knight Riders), Matthew Wade (Sharjah Warriors), Ibrahim Zadran (Gulf Giants) and Romario Shepherd (MI Emirates) making their debut in the tournament. Fans will be treated to exciting action as these cricketers showcase their skills in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.

    Some of the world’s most prominent cricket stars are slated to play in season three, including Australian powerhouse, David Warner and Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka. They will be joined by West Indian legends like Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Rovman Powell, who will bring their dynamic all-round abilities to the tournament. The league will also feature some more talents from the previous seasons, including Sikandar Raza, Chris Jordan, James Vince, Shimron Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran. Other key retained players include, Kusal Mendis and Tom Kohler-Cadmore.

    Commenting on the announcement, Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd chief growth officer – digital & broadcast revenue – Ashish Sehgal said, “Zee is delighted to unveil the impressive line-up for Season 3, featuring some of the world’s finest players. With iconic locations like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, world – class infrastructure and six powerhouse franchises, our aim is to build on the success of the last two seasons and solidify the league as one of the most-widely followed global cricket events. As it continues to attract international interest, we are excited to present this thrilling cricketing spectacle to fans across the world.”

    Other season three signings include New Zealand quick Adam Milne, seasoned wicketkeeper-batter Tim Seifert (New Zealand), Australia left-arm spinner Ashton Agar (Australia squad member – ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024), Afghanistan all-rounder Karim Janat (Afghanistan squad member – ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, Gulf Giants season two) West Indies all-rounder Keemo Paul, Sri Lanka duo of Avishka Fernando and Bhanuka Rajapaksha (Dubai Capitals Season 1, MI Emirates season two), Australia all-rounder Daniel Sams (rehired for season three), USA left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh and Malaysian all-rounder Virandeep Singh.

    Meanwhile the teams can add more players or replacements to their squads upon clearance from the ILT20 Technical Committee. Teams can also add additional UAE players to their squads via a Draft which will take place after the conclusion of the DP World ILT20 Development Tournament next month. Details of the tournament will be shared in the coming days.

    Cricket fans and sports enthusiasts in India and around the world can watch the live action exclusively on ZEE’s 15 linear TV channels, OTT platform ZEE5 and its syndicate partners’ TV and digital networks across the world. Aiming to capture a viewership of 230-million for the upcoming season, ZEE will expand its reach by including South Indian channels, offering a month-long cricket carnival experience.

    Earlier this year, ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) reported that the league’s second season reached 221 million viewers. The channel’s extensive distribution strategy ensured widespread accessibility in India and across the globe.

    The six DP World ILT20 season three squads as of 19 September 2024:

    Abu Dhabi Knight Riders

    New signees: Allah Mohammad Ghazanfar, Gudakesh Motie, Hassan Khan, Roston Chase and Terrance Hinds.

    Retentions: Aditya Shetty, Ali Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Andre Russell, Andries Ghous, Charith Asalanka, David Willey, Joe Clarke, Laurie Evans, Micheal Pepper and Sunil Narine.

    Desert Vipers

    New signees: Dan Lawrence, David Payne, Fakhar Zaman, Lockie Ferguson and Max Holden

    Retentions: Adam Hose, Alex Hales, Ali Naseer, Azam Khan, Bas de Leede, Luke Wood, Micheal Jones, Muhammad Amir, Nathan Sowter, Sherfane Rutherford, Tanish Suri and Wanindu Hasaranga.

    Dubai Capitals

    New signees: Adam Rossington, Brandon McMullen, Garuka Sanketh, Gulbadin Naib, Jeffery Vandersay, Joe Burns, Joe Weatherly, Najibullah Zadran, Obed McCoy, Scott Kuggeleijin, Sharafuddin Ashraf and  Shai Hope.

    Retentions: Dasun Shanaka, David Warner, Dushmantha Chameera, Haider Ali, Raja Akif, Rovman Powell, Sam Billings, Sikandar Raza, Zahir Khan, Jake Fraser McGurk and Oliver Stone.

    Gulf Giants

    New signees:  Adam Lyth, Dominic Drakes, Daniel Worrall, Ibrahim Zadran, Mark Adair, Tom Curran, Tymal Mills and Wahidullah Zadran.

    Retentions: Aayan Afzal Khan, Blessing Muzarabani, Chris Jordan, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gerhard Erasmus, Jamie Overton, James Vince, Jamie Smith, Jordan Cox, Mohammad Zohaib Zubair, Rehan Ahmed, Richard Gleeson and Shimron Hetmyer.

    MI Emirates

    New signees: Alzarri Joseph, Romario Shepherd, Tom Banton, Farid Malik, Thomas Jack Draca, Ben Charlesworth.

    Retentions: Akeal Hosein, Andre Fletcher, Daniel Mousley, Dwayne Bravo, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Jordan Thompson, Kieron Pollard, Kusal Perera, Muhammad Rohid Khan, Muhammad Waseem, Nicholas Pooran, Nosthush Kenjige, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth and Waqar Salamkheil.

    Sharjah Warriors

    New signees: Adam Milne, Adil Rashid (played for Warriors in season two as a Wildcard pick), Ashton Agar, Banuka Rajapaksha, Gus Atkinson, Jason Roy, Karim Janat, Keemo Paul, Jason Roy, Matthew Wade and Tim Seifert.

    Retentions: Dilshan Madushanka, Johnson Charles, Junaid Siddique, Muhamad Jawadullah, Kusal Mendis, Luke Wells, Peter Hatzoglou and Tom Kohler-Cadmore.

  • Zee TV’s Birla Opus Paints Sa Re Ga Ma Pa embarks on a new journey with fresh voices

    Zee TV’s Birla Opus Paints Sa Re Ga Ma Pa embarks on a new journey with fresh voices

    Mumbai: India’s iconic singing reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa has been a launchpad for emerging talent, helping aspiring singers release singles on Zee Music Co week-by-week in the previous season. Over nearly three decades, the show has discovered and nurtured notable voices. Now, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa returns with a fresh format titled “Nayi Aawaaz, Naye Andaaz,” premiering on 14 September 2024, and airing Saturdays and Sundays at 9 pm. This season features mentors Guru Randhawa, Sachin-Jigar, and Sachet-Parampara Tandon, with Vipul Roy as the host.

    The new season, Birla Opus Paints Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, promises engaging performances and powerful renditions of popular songs. Contestants will be mentored closely by experts, who are dedicated to shaping their musical journeys. With top music composers competing, audiences can expect significant musical moments as mentors guide their protégés towards excellence.

    At a media event in Mumbai, Zee TV unveiled the upcoming season in the presence of prominent music stars. The evening featured a sneak peek of the talent and musical performances by the mentors. The music fraternity’s consensus was clear, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2024 is poised to make a significant impact with its new talent and mentor panel.

    Zee TV chief channel officer Mangesh Kulkarni said, “For nearly three decades, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa has been one of Zee TV’s most beloved and enduring properties, a testament to our unwavering commitment to discovering India’s finest singing talent. This season, the idea is to take the show to new heights with a stellar panel of mentors whose melodies have captured every emotion of India and some incredible new voices that have the power to touch your soul. What makes this season truly special is our deeper connection with the audience—earlier this year, we launched ‘Hamara Parivar’, a direct line to our viewers, allowing us to listen to their feedback and preferences. Our new season is a product of this active listening. The audition process itself saw our viewers participating directly via social media, choosing talent that they believe in. With this approach, we’ve crafted a season that is more interactive and engaging than ever.”

    Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd chief growth officer – digital & broadcast revenue, Ashish Sehgal expressed his excitement about the new season, “The remarkable legacy of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa lies not just in its ability to discover exceptional musical talent, but also in the deep-rooted trust it has cultivated over the past 3 decades with its audience and partners alike. This purity and authenticity associated with the show have been instrumental in attracting top-tier brands such as Birla Opus Paints, Chocolate Horlicks, Smith & Jones Pasta Masala, Clinic Plus Shampoo, Garnier and Vicks Double Power to the new season, for whom we have curated some remarkably innovative solutions. The overwhelming advertiser interest we’re witnessing is a testament to the platform’s consistent ability to reinvent itself and stay relevant in an ever-evolving landscape. We look forward to creating memorable partnerships this season and deliver a power-packed season that resonates with our viewers and advertisers alike.”

    Birla Opus Paints CMO Inderpreet Singh spoke on the strategic importance of this partnership, “Birla Opus Paints wants to add Beauty & Colour to life of every Indian. ZEE Network, with its unmatched reach and content innovation is a perfect partner to create meaningful connections with our consumers.”

  • Living Foodz sees 25% growth in advertiser response

    Living Foodz sees 25% growth in advertiser response

    MUMBAI: After Aparna Bhosle’s elevation in the Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (Zeel) from the premium English cluster head to now being the business head of Zee TV’s Hindi GEC channel, Shaurya Mehta along with handling the lifestyle genre, Living Foodz (LF), is also given the additional responsibility of donning the hat of the premium English cluster– Zee Cafe, &flix and &prive.

    Talking about the lifestyle channel that launched in 2015, LF COO Shaurya Mehta said that since the start, the channel’s only focus was to offer original content to the Indian audiences and being true to its factor, it has been the cornerstone to its success.

    Despite the disruptive elements that the lifestyle genre witnessed in the form of demonetisation and GST, it didn’t affect LF which took two years to break even. “We broke even a while back. It took less than two years to break even,” he said. According to him, the genre within these 2-3 years has grown 10-15 per cent y-o-y and the channel claims to have grown in excess to the growth of the overall space.

    Not only this, as far as advertisers’ response on the channel is concerned, it claims to have witnessed a healthy growth rate in excess of 25 per cent y-o-y. Also, whether or not the ad rates of the genre increased, Mehta said that the channel has already increased its ad rates. “The ad rates have already increased and over these past three years, we have consistently seen our ERs growing. LF is more on the premium side now from a viewer and advertisers perspective and we enjoy a much healthy ERs than our competition.”

    When it comes to adex that declined in FY18, according to the KPMG report 2018, the lifestyle genre observed 1.3 per cent adex in FY17 and 1.2 per cent in FY18. “We at LF have seen great growth within these 2-3 years. The genre stayed a little stagnant from the ad sales perspective and going forward this would improve and there will be relatively steadier phase over the coming years.”

    Considering the BARC data, LF has been ruling the charts. Mehta said that the channel continues to lead the market share in terms of viewership with a healthy margin in a genre which is already cluttered. “With the channels that have been around for almost a decade especially some leaders in the market like Discovery and others and to go up against them and draw us a span of viewership shares is quite a big thing.”

    The network has plans to launch 6-8 shows this month and many more in the coming month with a mix of both original and acquired shows. The channel garners most of the viewership during the daytime, between 1-7 pm depending on the shows that could vary. Several shows were launched on 3 October, slotted for the typical prime time of 9 pm.   

    LF provides just local content for the viewers buy other players offer a mix of syndicated and local content. Mehta said, “We have seen much of our competitors also adopting our strategy where instead of airing syndicated content, they are also airing a mix of original shows. So as the overall content strategy, competition will have a mix of both syndicated and original content and in case of LF, original shows remain our main pillar.”

    He added that as per the consumers’ choices, there is an appetite for syndicated content as well. There is a room for both local and syndicated content where there are people in the market who want to consume the content from all around the world.

    Mehta said that considering the infotainment and lifestyle genres together, lifestyle has seen growth from the perspective of the accretion value of the viewers that is known in India. According to him the outlook remains positive and the viewership base will continue to grow. “We have seen digital as a medium growing tremendously in this genre and competing with TV viewership. So from that perspective as well, LF has a strong strategy for our digital footprint also playing an important role for growth in the group and LF as a brand. We have been investing our digital platform as well since last year and we continue to do so. We bring the shows that are available on TV and we also do some originals to publish on our livingfoodz.com. We do realise that in order to build the story over the next 5 years, our digital footprint will also play an important role,” he said.

    A Tamil feed was also to be added this year for which he said, “The Tamil feed is still in progress. We want to ensure when we are completely ready to announce. We are looking at all the possibilities.”

  • TDSAT directs Zeel to sign RIO based interconnect pacts with five MSOs

    TDSAT directs Zeel to sign RIO based interconnect pacts with five MSOs

    NEW DELHI: Five multi-system operators have been asked by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal to pay Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (Zeel) a sum of Rs 3 crore to enable the signing of an RIO based interconnect agreement.

    Chairman Aftab Alam and member B B Srivastava said the agreement would be from 19 May, the date from which the petitioners are operating on that basis.

    Listing the matter to come up on 16 August, the tribunal on 2 June made it clear that both the payment of Rs 3 crores and the direction for execution of the RIO based agreement is without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties and will abide by the final result of the petition.

    The petitions were filed by Fastway Transmission Pvt Ltd, Jagsumi Perspectives Pvt Ltd, Novabase Digital Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, and Radiant Digitek Network Pvt. Ltd against a general notice asking all the MSOs who on the date of issuance (11 May) of the fresh RIO by Zee Entertainment did not have a subsisting interconnect agreement with it to execute an agreement based on the RIO. 

    The petitioners were willing to execute an RIO based agreement until the validity and legality of the RIO coming under challenge in this petition and several other petitions on that issue is finally decided by the tribunal.

    But the tribunal said the difficulty was that Zeel said the petitioners owe the sum of Rs 5.4 crores and odd and unless the dues are cleared, it is not inclined even to enter into the RIO based inter connect agreement. But the petitioners say the dues, if properly worked out, would come down to Rs 1,66,16,726, which the petitioners are agreeable to pay.

  • TDSAT directs Zeel to sign RIO based interconnect pacts with five MSOs

    TDSAT directs Zeel to sign RIO based interconnect pacts with five MSOs

    NEW DELHI: Five multi-system operators have been asked by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal to pay Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (Zeel) a sum of Rs 3 crore to enable the signing of an RIO based interconnect agreement.

    Chairman Aftab Alam and member B B Srivastava said the agreement would be from 19 May, the date from which the petitioners are operating on that basis.

    Listing the matter to come up on 16 August, the tribunal on 2 June made it clear that both the payment of Rs 3 crores and the direction for execution of the RIO based agreement is without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties and will abide by the final result of the petition.

    The petitions were filed by Fastway Transmission Pvt Ltd, Jagsumi Perspectives Pvt Ltd, Novabase Digital Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, and Radiant Digitek Network Pvt. Ltd against a general notice asking all the MSOs who on the date of issuance (11 May) of the fresh RIO by Zee Entertainment did not have a subsisting interconnect agreement with it to execute an agreement based on the RIO. 

    The petitioners were willing to execute an RIO based agreement until the validity and legality of the RIO coming under challenge in this petition and several other petitions on that issue is finally decided by the tribunal.

    But the tribunal said the difficulty was that Zeel said the petitioners owe the sum of Rs 5.4 crores and odd and unless the dues are cleared, it is not inclined even to enter into the RIO based inter connect agreement. But the petitioners say the dues, if properly worked out, would come down to Rs 1,66,16,726, which the petitioners are agreeable to pay.