Star, Zee join hands for TV distribution venture

Star India and Zee Group, two leading electronic media conglomerates in the country, today came together to form an alliance for distributing television content.

In a landmark deal announced here, Star Den Media Services Pvt Ltd and Zee Turner Ltd will form a a joint venture to combine distribution of their respective channel bouquets in the country.

Currently, Zee channels are distributed by Zee Turner Ltd, a joint venture company of Zee's parent Essel Group and Turner International, which runs channels like Cartoon Network and Pogo in India.

Star channels, on the other hand, are distributed by StarDen, a 50:50 joint venture between Star India and Sameer Manchanda's DEN Networks.

The newly formed company, Media Pro Enterprise India Pvt Ltd, will be a 50:50 joint venture between Zee Turner and Star Den Media Services and would jointly aggregate and distribute channels licensed to Zee Turner and Star Den.

Zee Turner Ltd is an existing 74:26 joint venture between Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) and Turner International India Private Limited (TIIPL).

Commenting on the deal, Zee Entertainment Enterprises CEO and MD Punit Goenka said: "The Indian Television market is growing rapidly and provides ample opportunities for the JV company to create value."

Star India CEO Uday Shankar said that coming together of "the two leaders will lead to a larger consensus around a growth blueprint for the Indian electronic media industry".

The new joint venture would mark the reunion of the Zee and Star groups, which are among the earliest entrants into the Indian private television space, after many years.

Industry observers feel that the new generation team of media companies, such as Star's Uday Shankar, Zee's Punit Goenka and Den Networks' Sameer Manchanda, have successfully moved beyond the old history of cut-throat rivalry between their groups to create this new venture.

Among these people, Manchanda has mostly been a backroom strategist and industry observers feel that a partnership between two giants like Star and Zee would not have been possible without Manchanda playing a critical role in bringing them together.

Observers said that the origin of this partnership finds its roots in Manchanda's departure from Network18 following the latter's tie up with Sun TV group and the pullout of the group's channels from Star DEN network.