ZEE's new premium HD English channel &Prive to take on Sony, Star India

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEE) is expanding the ‘&’ brand for its entertainment channels with the launch of &Prive, a premium high-definition (HD) only English movie channel. The new channel will compete with Sony Pictures Network India’s (SPN’s) Sony Le Plex and Star India Star Movies Select.

A comparatively late entrant into the premium English movie channel genre, the Punit Goenka-led network feels that the time for an entry was just right since the first channel in the space was introduced two years back, and this gave them enough time to observe and research.

Star India launched Star Movies Select in 2015, while last year, SPN launched its premium HD English movie channel Sony Le Plex. Before these, however, HBO did try its hand at this genre with HBO Hits and HBO Defined, but could not sustain momentum and hence had to shut down these channels eventually. 

Chief Executive Officer Punit Misra, India broadcast business, ZEE, says: “I think the time to launch a premium HD channel for the discerning English movie viewer is now. In the past two years, we have seen immense scope and demand within the genre. As a network, we want to be in all the genres that are relevant to our consumers. With the number of HD (set-top box) users growing, and the fact that consumption of English language content is on the rise, we’re very optimistic about the channel.”

The team at &Prive went about curating content by first talking to the consumers. The channel goes with the philosophy ‘Feel the Other Side’. The term came into being after interacting with one of the focus groups that ZEE conducted in preparation for this channel. “One of the participants of these focus groups said while some movie viewers see films in order to keep up with (their) peers or basically to not be left out, there are those who watch films and actually feel the nuances. This is the more discerning viewer who wants to experience the emotions and subtleties of the movie. This is the viewer we want to cater to,” adds Aparna Bhosle, English cluster head, ZEE.

She cautions that channels in the premium HD segment run the danger of being too niche and may end up alienating audiences. The new channel will not have obscure films but films that are nuanced and are critically acclaimed. Oscar winning title Moonlight will be the first movie to premiere on &Prive and the channel intends to build a library along the lines of this movie.

Prathyusha Agarwal, chief marketing officer, ZEE, says: “While content and presentation represent two pillars of the channel, we have also paid attention to the packaging of the channel. In order to make it look exclusive, we have taken inspiration from a lot of international luxury magazines. So the look and feel of the channel conveys that the content is not the popular mainstream cinema from Hollywood, but the more layered titles to come out from there.”

• Total Urban India has 79 Mn households, of which nearly 1/5th (10-12Mn) watch HD on a regular basis.

• HD households have grown by 160% in last 2 years,  which is 8X growth of TV households in India (2015 – 5Mn; 2016 – 10.2Mn; 2017 – 12.8Mn

Source: Zee