ITV

Tag: Zee News

  • Zee News goes interactive on Dish TV, sports to follow

    Zee News goes interactive on Dish TV, sports to follow

    NEW DELHI: Dish TV, India’s first DTH platform, announced that Zee News channel has gone interactive and Zee Sports is to follow suit from mid-September.

    Talking to indiantelevision.com on the issue, Dish TV business head Jawahar Goel added that apart from interactivity, Dish TV subscribers can also enjoy all Star channels at no extra cost till 30 September.

    “Interactivity is something that we had promised our subscribers as part of value-added services and over a period of time we have readied ourselves with the right technology,” Goel said.
    Dish TV interactive services also consists of a gaming channel and electronic programming guide.

    An interactive Zee News will enable a viewer to watch a live programming, while simultaneously giving him or her option to access information on a variety of other topics via eight windows.

    Information can be had in the areas of business, entertainment, crime, sports, top 10 news stories and weather report of 100 Indian cities, apart from the live news bulletin or programme being aired at the moment.

    How does this work? A subscriber of Dish TV wants to see whether Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza has won her latest match in the on going US Opens or not and cannot wait for the sports segments to come in the news bulletin.

    So, while a news bulletin is on on Zee News, a few presses of the buttons can take the viewer straight to the sports section for the Sania news story even as the main news bulletin continues.

    To facilitate interactivity on the Dish TV platform, the company has tied up with the US-based Open TV, a company specializing in such activities and features.

    Apart from news, Dish TV is also planning to go interactive with sports, starting with Zee Sports. Sports interactivity will involve freezing of shots from a particular angle, getting player details immediately without having to wait for the sports channel providing it and statistics about the game in progress and sports in general.

    The interactive Zee Sports will start on Dish TV with the tri-nation cricket series involving India, Australia and another country at a neutral ground from mid-September for which Zee has the telecast rights.

    India began commercial DTH operations in October 2003 and by December 2004 reported over three million subscribers.

    Hong Kong-based market research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) has said India is poised to become Asia’s leading cable market by 2010, the largest satellite market by 2008 and the most lucrative pay TV market by 2015.

    Presently, apart from Dish TV (over 1.25 million subscribers), other DTH players active in India are Tata Sky and pubcaster Doordarshan, which provides a subscription-free service of free to air channels through DD Direct+ that has over 1.1 million subscribers.

  • Zee Turner, Tata Sky spat reaches court

    Zee Turner, Tata Sky spat reaches court

    NEW DELHI: It has come a full circle for the Zee group. DTH service provider Tata Sky has dragged distribution company Zee Turner to court for acting pricey on giving its channels to the new entrant in the Indian DTH arena.

    The case filed some days back in a Delhi court by Tata Sky states that Zee Turner is setting “unreasonable” terms for negotiations for its bouquet of channels, which amounts to a breach of various directives issued by the sector regulator.

    The case is slated for a hearing today. However, court sources indicated that its unlikely arguments will take place in the first hearing.

    Tata Sky, which began its commercial operations few weeks back, is presently offering consumers 55-odd TV channels at a price that is more than the Subhash Chandra-promoted Dish TV, which is country’s first pay TV platform.

    Zee Turner is a 74:26 distribution joint venture between the Chandra-controlled Zee Telefilms and Time Warner company Turner International India.

    The genesis of the present face-off is lack of consensus on pricing of Zee Turner channels and Tata Sky’s insistence on select TV channels from the bouquet of 32 channels.

    While India’s second pay digital platform Tata Sky wants select Zee Turner channels for a reported sum of below Rs. 40 per subscriber, the latter is insisting all its 32 channels should be taken.

    As reported by Indiantelevision.com earlier, sources close to the negotiations said Zee Turner has conveyed that it’s ready to give all its channels to Tata Sky’s DTH platform for Rs. 74 per subscriber per month, which is 50 per cent of the price that cable operators pay for the Zee Turner bouquet.

    Bouquet 1 of Zee Turner comprises Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee News, Zee Studio, Zee Bengali, Zee Gujarati, Zee Marathi, Zee Punjabi, Cartoon Network, Reality TV, CNBC, CNN, Zee Café, Zee Trendz, ETC, ETC Punjabi, Zee Jagran, Zee Smile, Zee Telgu and Zee Music.

    The second bouquet includes HBO, Pogo, Awaaz, VH1 and Zee Business. Zee Turner is soft bundling Zee Sports at a price benefit.

    The third bouquet, called Breakfree, consists of Zee Action, Zee Premier and Zee Classic, which air movies of different genre and are primarily available on Dish TV DTH platform.

    Zee Turner had earlier reasoned that its demand is based on a recent ruling of a disputes tribunal in Dish TV vs. Star case wherein Star was asked to make available its channel to Dish at Rs. 27 per subscriber, which is 50 per cent less than the price cable ops pay.

    Dish TV had to wait for over 18 months since launch to finally manage to get Star channels on its DTH platform.

    After having got powerful products like Star Plus, Dish TV has announced that it will not charge its consumers for some months anything extra for the Star channels, most of which are in the basic tier of 78-odd channels and can be had for Rs. 185 per month by a subscriber of Dish TV.

  • ZEE News and ZEE Business are promotional partner for international film festival of India , Goa

    ZEE News and ZEE Business are promotional partner for international film festival of India , Goa

    MUMBAI: Zee News and Zee Business is the “Promotional Partner” for the 37th International Film Festival of India – the annual celebration of cinema –is starting from November 23rd and will go on till December 3rd 2006 in Goa, India. This time of the year will be seeing some of the best stars of various regions across the country along with the Bollywood biggies to sprinkle the glamour in Goa.

     

    As the official promotional partner, Zee News and Zee Business will be bringing some of the rare visual treats of the Film Festival exclusively for its viewers.

     

    With the festival just a day ahead, Zee News is gearing up for the “Grand opening Ceremony” which will be showcasing the diversity and a mammoth platform that Indian Cinema has created. The channel is going to cover the event extensively that will include interviews, special bytes and exclusive visuals of the 37th IFFI, Goa. From children competition to events, from national, international and regional concerts to movie screening, all the happenings will fill colours to the imagination of the viewers of the channel.

     

    Zee News will exclusively bring special encounters with the most happening stars of the glamour world. Big names like Bipasha Basu, Vikram Phadnis, Shankar Mahadevan, Boney M to name a few, will be part of the promotional interviews on the channel. With all the dignitaries and the distinguished guests, the channel will be covering the glitterati of the festival with regular capsules for its viewers.

     

    Watch Zee News and Zee Business to catch all the actions of 37th International Film Festival of India, Goa.

  • Zee News seeks government clearance on foreign shareholding

    Zee News seeks government clearance on foreign shareholding

    MUMBAI: Zee News Ltd (ZNL) has moved the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to seek clearance on foreign shareholding, which would not exceed 26 per cent as per government norms for news ventures.

    The company is seeking government clearance under a proposal wherein foreign promoters of Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) will be transferring their foreign holdings to an investment company in India.

    As part of a restructuring, ZTL had proposed to spin off its news and regional channels into ZNL to comply with uplinking regulations on foreign holdings in news channels, which are capped at 26 per cent.

    The FIPB application of Zee News specifies, “Issue of 42,467,291 equity share of the company to the foreign promoters of ZTL, that is M/s Delgrade Ltd and Lazarus Investment Ltd, which would be transferred to the Indian promoters of ZTL on allotment, that is to M/s Jayneer Capital Pvt Ltd.”

    The foreign holding of promoters in Zee Telefilms is primarily through Delgrada Ltd, which has 19.98 per cent stake. Delgrada is an overseas corporate body (OCB) owned by the Zee Telefilms promoter Subhash Chandra. The balance 2.79 per cent is held by Lazarus Investments Ltd.

    The shares to be issued to foreign financial investors (FIIs) in ZNL will have to fall within the 26 per cent cap also. The foreign shareholders will, thus, be given preference shares of equivalent value to bring it under limit. Along with this, the promoters’ foreign holding will be transferred to an investment vehicle (Jayneer Capital Pvt Ltd) in India.

    Jayneer Capital Pvt Ltd is one of the Indian promoters of ZNL and holds 40 per cent equity stake in ZNL, while 25 per cent is held by another Indian entity, Churu Trading.

    As per regulations, Indian shareholding of 51 per cent is mandatory in a TV news venture uplinking its channel from India. After the completion of the de-merger and transfer of shares, Indian promoters will be able to hold the mandated percentage in ZNL, an executive of Zee News admitted.

    As per a plan submitted to the government, every 100 shares of Zee Telefilms would fetch 45 shares of Zee News. Additionally, for every 100 shares of Zee Telefilms held by FIIs, 1,781 preferential shares of Zee News would be allotted.

    At the time of listing, the entire shareholding of FIIs and Zee Telefilms in Zee News would get transferred to Indian shareholders of Zee News. The company is looking at becoming a public company by November-end by which time routine clearances for the Zee Tele de-merger would have come from the Bombay High Court.

    Zee News, which manages news and regional channels of the Zee group, is targeting a turnover of Rs 2.5 billion this fiscal.

    Earlier, this year, the Zee Telefilms board approved splitting of its broadcasting business into three entities — news operations, broadcast and content creation and cable distribution. DTH service of Dish TV is undertaken by another Chandra company, ASC Enterprises.

  • India to play Australia, Windies in September

    India to play Australia, Windies in September

    MUMBAI: This is one series that should have Zee Sports seriously pushing it as a prime property. Just ahead of the Champions Trophy in October, India will be playing a tri-series against Australia and the West Indies in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

    “The triseries of seven One-Day Internationals between India, Australia and West Indies [is] scheduled to be played in September this year in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur as part of the newly formatted Neutral Venue Schedule,” Zee News quoted the BCCI as saying in a statement issued here.

    The series falls under the neutral venue matches that Zee had secured rights to in April with whopping $219.15 million bid (average of $ 8.77 million per match) for 25 matches spread over the next five years. .

    The triseries was approved by the Marketing Sub-committee which met in Mumbai on 28 July, Zee News quoted the BCCI statement as saying.

    The format of the tournament is a league where each of the three teams will play each other twice and the top two will go through to the Finals.

    Singapore will host the first three ODIs while Kuala Lumpur will host the following four matches (including the Finals).

    The Indian board will handle the marketing and sale of television rights, while Cricket Australia will manage and consolidate all ground handling for the series, the BCCI statement adds.

  • India TV expands editorial team

    India TV expands editorial team

    MUMBAI: The Rajat Sharma — promoted India TV has announced three new appointments within the editorial team in the Hindi news and current affair channel.

    The news channel has roped in Aaj Tak’s senior special correspondent Kumar Rajesh as the executive editor. Rajesh, in the past had been associated with Rajat Sharma through the news property Aaj ki Baat as an anchor as well as the associate editor. Earlier, he had worked with Sahara news channel.

    Channel7 senior editor news gathering Prashant Tandon has been brought in to take reponsibility in a similar position. Tandon had earlier worked with Star News, Sahara UP news channel and also for a news based show Rozana produced by BAG Films for DD.

    Nepal 1 executive producer Kishore Kumar Malviya has been appointed as senior editor. Malviya had been associated with Zee News and Navbharat Times.

    In an official statement issued, India TV editor in chief Rajat Sharma says, “We are delighted to welcome Kumar, Prashant and Kishore. I have no doubt that Kumar’s 14 years in television journalism will be a huge asset in India TV’s next phase of growth.

    “Prashant has rich experience in strategic planning and content management and you will be seeing his impact in India TV’s news gathering operations almost immediately. Kishore brings in all-round skill sets across the news gathering and output functions besides having been out there in sensitive field assignments.”

  • ‘Kaun Hai Bond’ contest on Zee News

    ‘Kaun Hai Bond’ contest on Zee News

    To capture the enthusiasm and spirit around during the India – England Cricket Series, Zee News had done a contest to create interactivity between the viewers and the channel. The contest ‘Kaun Hai Bond’ was a SMS and Internet based contest for which viewers were required to predict the ‘Bond’ or the Man of the Match till the 30th over of the 2nd innings.

     

    The number of responses received through SMS on 7575 and through zeenews.com was more than overwhelming with responses coming from every nook and corner of the country. Nine handycams and a bumper prize of one car will be given to the lucky winners of the contest. The winner of the Bumper Prize is Amit Kharbanda (09815504551) from Amritsar. Sh. Laxmi Narain Goel, the Chairman of Zee News will hand over the bumper prize to the winner in a ceremony on 22nd April at 5 PM at MGF Hyundai 1 Jhandewaln Faiz Road.

     

    Zee News has been doing similar contests in the past and will be doing more such contest to create viewer interest and interactivity.

  • Star to decide on uplinking plan by next weekend

    Star to decide on uplinking plan by next weekend

    The recent decision taken by the government to allow broadcasters to uplink directly from India seems to have caught the fancy of almost all the television channels and most of them might be thinking about uplinking form India.

    Not to be left behind, officials at Star will be meeting through next week to decide about uplinking from India. According to a Star spokesperson, if the policy is there, they would definitely take a look at it. He also said that they might take some decision regarding this issue by next weekend.

    Asked whether Star’s content partner for Star News, NDTV, would be applying for an uplinking license, because it might be left behind in terms of live coverage of news by rival news channel Zee News, the spokesperson said that NDTV is using VSNL’s uplinking facilities and the time difference between uplinking directly form India and from Hong Kong is hardly be 2 to 3 minutes.

    It can be mentioned that Star has its own uplinking hub in Clearwater Bay – Hong Kong form where it uplinks all its channels. This gives the group economies of scale as it uplinks its entire bouquet from there.

  • Zee News regains number 2 position

    Zee News regains number 2 position

    New Delhi – 3rd July’06: Zee News, the leading Hindi news channel regains the number 2 position according to the TAM Data for the week 25th. Zee news has always being doing a lot of innovations to give its viewers the right and accurate picture in the news segment.

    According to TAM wk 25 in the channel share Zee news is No.2 (Data enclosed) SEC ABC M 15+;HSM. This is primarily due to the new set, look, presentation and graphics. Also at the 10 PM slot the new program Badi Khabar is delivering and has become an instant choice for the viewers of Zee News.

    Commenting on this achievement Shri Laxmi Narain Goel, Director – Zee News Ltd., said, “Zee News, in its endeavor to update its viewers about the current trend of politics, is now presenting this unique show with a big difference called Badi Khabar which tells you about the big news of the day, highlights the Top Story of the day that concerns and affects the man on the street. Badi Khabar was launched along with the new ‘bold’ look of the channel using the latest technology in presenting news. It has been our constant effort to show the viewers of Zee News not just news but something more than that by constantly creating new shows.

    About Zee News

    Zee News, the news and current affairs channel of the Zee group, has taken giant strides ever since its inception in 1992. Reaching millions of viewers in five continents, the channel revolutionized the way news was brought home to the viewers and absorbed by them.

    Zee News is a pioneer not just because it was the first private broadcaster news in South Asia but also because it created history in 1999 when it became the first 24 hours news channel of the country.

    Media Contacts:
    Chetan Saxena
    9811323282

  • Zee News Initiates Interactive Discussions On Paradigm Shift In The Society

    MUMBAI: Zee News – the pioneer Hindi news channel, in it’s endeavor to highlight the shift of the focus in the society, presents two interactive discussion programmes this weekend. These programmes will primarily focus on two issues; first is “”Are religious Gurus have become the role models of the society, today?” and the second is “Is the society in Gujarat accepting the liberal women?”

     

    The two programmes have been designed in such a way that the viewer’s interactivity would be as high as possible. “Main Azaad Hoon” initiates the discussion on “today’s liberal attitude of women”, whereas it is “commoner’s increasing dependency on the religious gurus” takes the center stage in “Kitna Bole Baba”

    The programmes are aimed at clarifying the prevailing misconceptions about the issues. “Kitna Bole Baba” will focus the society’s current mindset of making larger than life picture of their religious gurus. It is going to be a discussion between today’s famous gurus and the social scientists with a view to bring a clearer picture of the thought process the gurus put in, while advising their disciples in their day to day affairs.

    It will be telecasted on 23rd December’06 at 8 p.m. “Main Azaad Hoon” will focus on the pragmatic situations, which today’s women often find them into. From having a boyfriend to having an extra marital affair, no question is going to be hypothetical. The discussion will further cover the morality factor in the women’s action from society’s viewpoint.

    Apart from survey and field stories, the guests in the studio will also contribute with their views. Guests would include some social activists, young girls and a psychologist. This will be telecasted on 24th December’06 at 8 p.m. The survey was conducted in four cities – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot.

    Zee News has always devised ways to connect to its viewers. A deep research was conducted, before zeroing down on these topics. The channel has been frequently providing a platform to discuss the important topics, which will pave way to an open-minded society.

    Watch the discussions live on Zee News from 8pm. To 9 pm on 23rd and 24th December’06.