This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Tuesday, Oct 16, 2012.
Zee Group, India’s leading media player, has taken yet another pioneering initiative in the television industry by launching the country’s first edutainment television channel for kids.
ZeeQ, the new channel launched by Zee Learn, the BSE-listed educational division of the group, will cater to the education and entertainment needs of children in the 4-14 years age group.
Punit Goenka, MD & CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, the group flagship, said the new channel is in line with the group’s principle of improving human capital.
“For two decades Zee has been making a difference in the lives of millions, and now ZeeQ will sustain it further. It is a step ahead in fostering curiosity among children through fun and entertainment,” he said, adding that the new channel will have a mix of home produced and acquired content.
ZeeQ’s broadcast operations would be managed by Zee Entertainment and Enterprises Ltd, while Zee Learn will look after the content and channel management.
The 24-hour paid-for channel would be offered across various direct-to-home (DTH) and digital cable platforms across the country from November 5. Pricing and bundling details will be announced closer to the launch date as negotiations with multi-system operators and DTH players are still on, the officials said.
On investment, Navneet Anhal, COO, Zee Learn, said, “Being a new business, significant investment has been made in this channel. We are focusing efforts on market exposure now.”
The programming content has been planned after taking into account Zee Learn’s experiences in running a chain of pre-schools and under Kidzee (over 1,000 centres) and K-12 under Mount Litera Zee School (over 100 centres).
“During the production and acquisition of content, we took into consideration the learnings of Zee Learn from the 18 years of interacting with as many as 300,000 students, parents and teachers across India. This has helped us make the edutainment content engaging and relevant to the needs of Indian children,” said Anhal.
Subhadarshi Tripathi, business head, ZeeQ, said the programming and scheduling approach of ZeeQ’s content is geared to help children with subliminal education while keeping them engaged in never-before edutainment fashion.
“The channel will have 210 minutes (three-and-a-half hours) of live action content and 90 minutes (one-and-a-half hours) of animated content for now. We have also acquired Emmy Award wining shows from across the globe for a period of five years. The feeds of these shows will also be made available in Hindi. The ratio of Hindi to English language programming on the channel will be 70:30. Some proportion of programming on the channel will also be in Hinglish,” said Tripathi.
The advertising market for kids entertainment channels in India is estimated to be around `250 crore growing at 10% year on year.
While the market is fiercely competitive, Zee Learn officials said child edutainment is a completely new space in India with ZeeQ as the only focused Indian player.
“We will be creating a completely new market with the channel,” said Tripathi.
Zee Group, India’s leading media player, has taken yet another pioneering initiative in the television industry by launching the country’s first edutainment television channel for kids.
ZeeQ, the new channel launched by Zee Learn, the BSE-listed educational division of the group, will cater to the education and entertainment needs of children in the 4-14 years age group.
Punit Goenka, MD & CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, the group flagship, said the new channel is in line with the group’s principle of improving human capital.
“For two decades Zee has been making a difference in the lives of millions, and now ZeeQ will sustain it further. It is a step ahead in fostering curiosity among children through fun and entertainment,” he said, adding that the new channel will have a mix of home produced and acquired content.
ZeeQ’s broadcast operations would be managed by Zee Entertainment and Enterprises Ltd, while Zee Learn will look after the content and channel management.
The 24-hour paid-for channel would be offered across various direct-to-home (DTH) and digital cable platforms across the country from November 5. Pricing and bundling details will be announced closer to the launch date as negotiations with multi-system operators and DTH players are still on, the officials said.
On investment, Navneet Anhal, COO, Zee Learn, said, “Being a new business, significant investment has been made in this channel. We are focusing efforts on market exposure now.”
The programming content has been planned after taking into account Zee Learn’s experiences in running a chain of pre-schools and under Kidzee (over 1,000 centres) and K-12 under Mount Litera Zee School (over 100 centres).
“During the production and acquisition of content, we took into consideration the learnings of Zee Learn from the 18 years of interacting with as many as 300,000 students, parents and teachers across India. This has helped us make the edutainment content engaging and relevant to the needs of Indian children,” said Anhal.
Subhadarshi Tripathi, business head, ZeeQ, said the programming and scheduling approach of ZeeQ’s content is geared to help children with subliminal education while keeping them engaged in never-before edutainment fashion.
“The channel will have 210 minutes (three-and-a-half hours) of live action content and 90 minutes (one-and-a-half hours) of animated content for now. We have also acquired Emmy Award wining shows from across the globe for a period of five years. The feeds of these shows will also be made available in Hindi. The ratio of Hindi to English language programming on the channel will be 70:30. Some proportion of programming on the channel will also be in Hinglish,” said Tripathi.
The advertising market for kids entertainment channels in India is estimated to be around `250 crore growing at 10% year on year.
While the market is fiercely competitive, Zee Learn officials said child edutainment is a completely new space in India with ZeeQ as the only focused Indian player.
“We will be creating a completely new market with the channel,” said Tripathi.
No comments:
Post a Comment