Zee World brings ?extra-ordinary? viewing to African audiences

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Zee World brings extra-ordinary viewing to African audiences --

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:28

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SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: Indian television and media company Zee Entertainment has had a presence in Africa for over 16 years with their flagship channel Zee TV, which still has 60% market share of South Asian audiences in Africa. On 3 February Zee launches a new channel, Zee World, on DStv channel 166, with a further diverse line-up of shows for viewers in Sub Saharan Africa.

CEO of Zee TV South Africa Harish Goyal says that extensive research has been done to cater to local viewers, who show a number of similarities with their Indian counterparts. South Africa and Africa were our first international territories as there was an immediate pull from the African market only a few years after our launch in India, commented Goyal. We underwent extensive research over a period of three years, or even longer, to understand African viewer s preferences.

There were very interesting findings, revealing that there is a close cultural connect between viewers in Africa and India. We also did content testing which gave us very good inputs and insights as to what content will do well in this market. Part of this content customisation is the English dubbing of content, which has been done by South Africans.

Globally, Indian television has been limited to a few genres, namely soap operas and fiction series, but in recent years as demand grows and content consumption splits across multiple devices, there has been a move towards more diverse programming. Goyal says that Zee World will follow on this trend, offering an array of shows ranging from Bollywood films to talent and cooking shows. While the content on the channel during this phase is largely from India, the channel will evolve. We will initially feature Bollywood movies and series, but in time we will feature genres such as lifestyle and wellness shows, reality series and children s programming. There are different phases we have designed for the rollout of programming the objective is to reach the heart of Africans, to mainstream audiences, Goyal concluded.

Zee World is available on DStv Premium, Extra, Compact and Family pack in South Africa and the Access pack within the rest of Africa. It is also be available on the MultiChoice Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) GOtv platform.

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