ITV

Tag: Zee’s

  • Zee’s J K Ray appointed as Essel Group VP corporate

    MUMBAI: Former Zee Bangla business head J K Ray has been appointed as VP corporate Essel Group, West Bengal. Based out of Kolkata, Ray reports to Zee Telefilms CMD Subhash Chandra.
    “My responsibility here is to lead Essel Group’s new business initiatives in West Bengal,” states Ray, who took charge on 1 January 2006.
    As part of a major corporate re-shuffle, Ray was moved to Mumbai in September 2005 as VP network retail & slot sales. Ajay Trigunayat, who then replaced Ray as Zee Bangla business head, has now returned to Mumbai. Zee is yet to fill the vacancy created by Trigunayat’s exit.

     

  • Zee’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 enters ‘Gharana’ round

    MUMBAI: Zee TV has announced the launch of the second phase of the musical reality show, Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005. In the forthcoming weeks, viewers will be privy to competition among the contestants belonging to the privileged “gharanas” of the four mentors – Adesh Shrivastav, Himesh Reshammiya, Ismail Darbar and Jatin-Lalit.
     

    Speaking on the occasion, Zee TV business head Abhijit Saxena said, “Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 is a show that has brought the country’s leading music directors together, for the first time in the history of Indian television. The real Maha Yudh between the musical mentors flags off in the second phase of Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005″.

    He further added, “Through rigorous selections and eliminations processes we have selected 32 contestants, who have gathered their rightful place in the gharanas of the four magical mentors. From here on, the valuable training imparted by the mentors will reflect in the performances of the contestants and will take the competition to greater heights”.
     
     
     

    Each gharana has a set of eight contestants – four boys and four girls. The gharanas have been formed through four selection rounds namely Guru Round, Shishya Round, Saubhagya Round and Deeksha Round. In the Guru round each mentor chooses a contestant for his gharana. In the Shishya round, a chosen contestant gets a chance to choose his gharana. The Saubhagya round introduces the wild card entries, who get a chance to pick their gharanas, and the Deeksha round proved as an opportunity for the contestants who were eliminated earlier, but had what it took to find a place in the privileged gharanas, states an official release.
     

  • Zee’s Mahesh Krishnan moves to Maharaja Television

    MUMBAI: Zee Network’s Mahesh Krishnan, who has been handling ad sales of Zee Punjabi in the capacity of assistant vice president West, South and East, is moving to Sri Lanka’s Maharaja Televison Channel Pvt. Ltd. (MTVC).
     
     

    In MTVC, Krishnan will be heading the ad sales division for the network’s infotainment channel MTV and radio channel. He will be based out of Colombo.

    Confirming the development to indiantelevision.com, Krishnan said he would be joining MTC on 15 September. “I am currently serving my notice period in Zee. My last day in Zee will be 5 September,” he said.
     
     

    MTVC runs three terrestrial television channels — MTV, Sirasa and Shakthi — in Sri Lanka. While Sirasa is a Sinhalese channel, Shakthi targets the Tamil segment.

  • Zee’s Mohan Kapoor joins Sahara as V-P corporate

    MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms vice-president in-house programming Mohan Kapoor has quit. Kapoor has joined Sahara India Media Entertainment as vice-president Corporate Affairs.

    In his new role, Kapoor will be assisting Sahara India Media Entertainment MD Shailendra Singh for all the group initiatives. “I will be facilitating Singh’s ideas and helping him in the areas of idea generation, processing and execution,” says Kapoor.
     
    At Zee , Kapoor’s responsibility was mainly to design software for on-ground activities. The key projects he was associated with at Zee included the Zee Cine Awards 2004 and 2005.

    Speaking on his move from Zee to Sahara, Kapoor offers, “This is basically a move for better prospects. At Zee, all the senior positions are filled and in fact I wanted to handle more responsibilities. At Sahara, I will be playing a bigger role since Sahara has major plans in the movie and event segments.”
     
     

    Before jumping onto the corporate bandwagon, Kapoor had been pursuing a career in acting. He has acted in serials Kaahin Kissii Roz and Kittie Party. Kapoor’s significant break in television was with a game show called Saap Seedi.

  • Zee’s Mohan Kapoor joins Sahara as V-P corporate

    MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms vice-president in-house programming Mohan Kapoor has quit. Kapoor has joined Sahara India Media Entertainment as vice-president Corporate Affairs.

    In his new role, Kapoor will be assisting Sahara India Media Entertainment MD Shailendra Singh for all the group initiatives. “I will be facilitating Singh’s ideas and helping him in the areas of idea generation, processing and execution,” says Kapoor.
     
    At Zee , Kapoor’s responsibility was mainly to design software for on-ground activities. The key projects he was associated with at Zee included the Zee Cine Awards 2004 and 2005.

    Speaking on his move from Zee to Sahara, Kapoor offers, “This is basically a move for better prospects. At Zee, all the senior positions are filled and in fact I wanted to handle more responsibilities. At Sahara, I will be playing a bigger role since Sahara has major plans in the movie and event segments.”
     
     

    Before jumping onto the corporate bandwagon, Kapoor had been pursuing a career in acting. He has acted in serials Kaahin Kissii Roz and Kittie Party. Kapoor’s significant break in television was with a game show called Saap Seedi.

  • Zee’s Jagran channel completes one year

    NEW DLEHI: Zee spiritual channel Jagran successfully completed one year and has claimed a fairly large viewership by giving a fresh outlook to its programming.

    The judicious mix of Hindi and English programmes and introduction of new age group made this possible, Jagran has claimed in an official statement here today, adding new age gurus like Vikas Malkani, Shivender Nagar and Dr. Ratanjit Singh Sondhi proved to be instant hits.

    The channel aims at expanding its target audience to 25+from then conventional 55+ age group. Jagran has some of the top names in religious/spiritual arena including Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Osho, BramhaKumaris, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Sudhanshu Ji, Morari Bapu and Guru Maa.

    On the occasion of the first birthday, Jagran business head Anil Anand said, “We have made a difference not only to our society, but also to the viewers who were looking for something different from the mundane content they get from channels in the same genre.”

    The average time spent by viewers in Hindi speaking market, as per Television Audience Measurement, is the highest ands its reach is growing, Anand claimed. Live telecasts have also been the major focus of the channel, including the longest nightlong jagran from the famous Kangra temple for 15
    hours.

  • Trendz’ new show zooms in on urban Indian nightlife

    MUMBAI: Till now it was NDTV’s Night Out which focussed on the hip n’ happening parties in Mumbai and Delhi. Now Zee’s fashion channel Trendz has also ventured into the same arena with their new half hour weekly show called Diabolical.

    Diabolical will be a guide to the best hangouts in cities all over the country and will showcase food, fashion, décor, music, celeb clientele with a hope to capture the pulse of urban nightlife – and sometimes daylife too. The show will be anchored by ex-Grasim Mr India Vivan Bhathena.

     

    The word ‘diabolical’ has negative connotations by the book, but could, in contemporary parlance, mean anything from different, dynamic and dangerously cool, to rocking, trendy and bravely hip, and that’s just what the show promises.

    Diabolical will be all about partying style and will encase success sagas, stories of small beginnings-happy endings, anecdotes of lucked-out but persevering young entrepreneurs, glimpses of glamour, beauty, passion, grandeur, the good life, the pursuit of pleasure, and the grit behind the gloss!

     

    The show combines a spirit of query with a gathering momentum of fun and is targetted at anyone in the age group of 16-45 years falling in the middle and upper-middle class strata of the society.

     

    The show will feature the likes of club owners, celebrity chefs, restaurateurs, DJ’s, musicians, live acts, architects and designers and will be peppered with trends, critiques, information and style checks.

     

    Diabolic will be presented in segments comprising the profile of a Hot spot, Easy steps, easy learn (‘learn a trade in five to seven easy steps’), Hot event of the week, Style tip, Pan-India trend story and Stylish one. Each episode will be of 22 minutes and has been produced by SOL.

     

  • Armed with promo blitz, Zee’s talent hunt to warm up weekend viewing

    Armed with promo blitz, Zee’s talent hunt to warm up weekend viewing

    MUMBAI: The roll out has begun. Next on Zee’s agenda is bolstering its weekend viewing and what better programme than the one billion project- India’s best – Cinestar Ki Khoj. Starting 25 June, the Subhash Chandra promoted channel will be airing the Cities Best edition of the talent hunt, every Friday-Saturday at 9 pm.

    To encourage interactivity, the channel will be running a series of multimedia contests simultaneously on SMS, Internet, and IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) in addition to the ground events.
     

    While the channel is still in process of finalising the move, it is likely that in the next round of selections the channel will be involving the “junta” as well.

    The 20-episode series, covering each of the 20 Indian cities and Hong Kong and Singapore, where auditions were held too, will go on for 10 weeks. The channel has already begun airing a special series of promotions from 11 June. In addition to the “tears of joy, angst and ecstasy” promos, the channel will also be putting up hoardings in all the 20 cities where the event was held.

    “Although the target audience for reality shows would be the youth, but glamour, especially Bollywood- related, is one such subject that fascinates the young and old alike. Also, the housewives would be interested in knowing who will be the next Shah Rukh Khan,” gushes Zee Network vice-president marketing Ajay Trigunayat about the show.

    The India’s Best-Cinestar Ki Khoj talent hunt will be replacing the Farooque Sheikh- anchored personality show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai. The Friday line up at Zee will now boast of Sansui Antakshari at 8:30 pm, followed by an hour-long Cinestar Ki Khoj and concluding with Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.

    Although the channel isn’t vocalising it, the fight is on with the number two channel Sony. It seems like Zee has adopted a strategy where it would counter Sony’s thrillers with talent hunts.

    At present, after the stormy 20 cities auditions, the channel has zeroed in on the 80 finalists, who are being groomed for the next set of auditions. While celebrity photographers like Daboo Ratnani and Gautam Rajadhyaksha are getting their portfolios shot, the finalists are being given a crash course in acting by Kishore Namit Kapoor.

    “All the 80 contestants that we have zeroed down on are “star” material. Selecting 32 out of them is going to be a major task. `Cr?me of India’ as we call them is the group that is in the true sense of term, India’s best,” says a Zee spokesperson.

    All the contestants, flown down and lodged at an undisclosed location in Mumbai, are being groomed in batches. The channel claims that some “excellent” television programming has been shot till now.

    Speaking about the ground event Trigunayat offers, “During the auditions conducted in various cities, we also had a few on ground activities. It was then that we realised that the event has helped us build an excellent brand recall. So, taking a leaf from that learning, we have a special series of on-ground contests in addition to the multimedia campaign that we will be flagging off soon.”

    He further added: “We will be positioning our brand near colleges,
    universities, youth hang-outs and running a contest. As prizes, we will be giving away India’s best merchandise like T-shirts, key chains and pens.”

    That apart, the channel will soon be distributing Salman Khan masks across the country with the programme timing printed on the other side playing up the weekend branding for Cinestar Ki Khoj.

    “After the cities best we will be airing the semifinal and the grooming
    session for another 10 weeks. Since the roll out of the programming will continue till December, we will be chalking out the innovative marketing and promotions plans as we go ahead,” Trigunayat informs.

    Armed with an exhaustive list of promotional activities, the channel is aiming at creating a loyal set of audiences. But will the viewers anoint ‘Cinestar Ki Khoj’ as India’s best? Guess it is wait and watch for now.

  • More ‘exclusive’ channels for Zee’s DishTV

    MUMBAI: Three more exclusive movie channels are expected to come on board Zee’s direct-to-home (DTH) venture DishTV, after Smile and Premier TV – the two home grown Zee channels – made their appearance on 2 October.
    The ASC Enterprises-promoted DishTV made its debut in certain pockets of the country on Thursday, for Rs 100-plus-taxes for a basic bouquet of 48 channels; and an introductory offer of Rs 3,990-plus-tax for the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) including a vanilla set top box.
    The channels currently offered on DishTV include the Zee bouquet and the Alpha clutch of regional and free-to-air (FTA) channels, plus some uncommon channels.
    The basic tier is being beamed into 800-odd homes across Jammu and Kashmir, Coimbatore, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, reports state.
    Smile TV, the comedy channel and Premier TV, a movie channel, are part of the premium tier, and customers have to pay Rs 10 extra for each of them.
    According to an ASC spokesperson, over the past few years, the DTH satellite industry has emerged from nowhere with the launch of 55 DTH platforms worldwide. Subscribers to DTH platform or satellite premium services worldwide had skyrocketed to reach 60 million households in 2001, representing 200 million viewers, with an impressive growth in revenue to Rs 1,100 billion in 2001.
    Another 45 million households receive FTA channels through DTH.
    Zee Group plans to push the service in areas where cable TV penetration is weak, attempting to break into Doordarshan territory. Additional vice-chairman of Zee Telefilms Jawahar Goel, had recently told indiantelevision.com that the company plans to offer DTH service to consumers who are unable to get cable television. 
    Goel said that the company did not see an overlap of DTH service with its existing cable operations. “The set-top box need under conditional access regime cannot be upgraded to the DTH platform,” he added.
    The number of channels that can be carried on the DTH platform is limited unlike in the normal cable operations.

  • It’s GalaxZee for Zee’s HITS project

    NEW DELHI: After Trendz, it’s GalaxZee that is soon
    coming to a television set near you. Trust Zee to come
    up with a catchy brand name for its headend in the sky
    (HITS) project that would also serve as a back office
    company for the venture.


    Having decided on the brand name for the HITS project, to be implemented by the company’s cable arm Siti Cable, the Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms has started wooing prospective franchisees and partners for HITS and has begun distributing a colourful brochure amongst cable operators in cities like Delhi and Kolkata.
    The brochure also tantalisingly says that HITS is an opportunity for cable ops to earn up to 40 percent in distribution margins.
    Under the HITS concept for conditional access, Zee is proposing to offer dealers (cable ops) up to 40 per cent of the distribution margin, the distributor getting 10 per cent, the company managing the subscriber management system (in Zee’s case it is Cyquator, according to company sources) for CAS cornering 10 per cent, the CAS software provider (Zee has tied up with Conax for CAS software) getting 10 per cent, while Galaxzee would keep 30 per cent of the pie.
    However, it has been made clear that the margins for the dealers “may vary in accordance to the distribution margins provided by the broadcasters.” In the government-piloted task force on CAS, Siti Cable representatives have opined several times that multi system operators (MSOs) like it would prefer getting between 60-70 per cent of the distribution margin from broadcasters.
    According to the GalaxZee brochure, interested dealers for HITS would have to apply through a form, filling in various financial and business details, which would have to be accompanied with a cheque/demand draft of Rs 10,000 in favour of Siti Cable towards refundable security. This has been done to weed out non-serious players as the whole of Zee Telefilms, which is part of the Essel Group, has pinned lots of hope on HITS as something that would usher in a new era in cable television in India.
    GalaxZee has been touted as a cost-effective and transparent solution. It has also been explained to cable ops, via text and diagrams, the way the whole system would work.
    Amongst the benefits accruing to cable ops it has been said that operators need not install CAS/SMS at the head-end level and they need to invest in trans modulators (costing Rs 1,200 per channel), which would significantly reduce investments for the cable ops.
    What is HITS ? In short, it is an end to end digital system involving downloading of television channels (that are interested in being part of HITS) at a single location. These channels are then encrypted with a single CAS and uplinked to a satellite (in this case it’s likely to be an INSAT satellite).
    Signals from the satellite are received by cable ops who have to use a trans-modulator to redistribute the same (may be after mixing the signals of the FTA channels) to their subscribers who, with the help of a digital set-top box, can receive the channels that they wish to subscribe to. All the boxes can be addressed from a single CAS/SMS.

    Also read:
    Siti pushing HITS plan for CAS; Swaraj calls meeting with cable ops next week

    Canal+ backs HITS model for CAS rollout