Zee's third brand targets youth

The new channel brand could pave the way for a second GEC after the foray with blockbusters premieres

Come August 18th and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) will be ready with its brand new channel, '&pictures'. By launching a new movie channel instead of a GEC as the first under its new brand '&', Zeel is playing to its strength of a rich movie bank. Zeel's need for a third brand of channels (apart from Zee for news and entertainment and TEN for sports) was triggered by emerging India's young mindset.

Bharat Ranga, chief content and creative officer of Zeel explains, "Our objective is simply to widen our reach among the new generation of Indians across the globe, who are ambitious yet rooted. We do have patrons of Zee but had to infuse some freshness as well."

To ensure the youth sit up and watch, the channel will start off with some of the most-awaited movies of the year such as 'Chennai Express', 'Zanjeer' (remake) and 'Besharam' (the latter two by Reliance Entertainment). It will also premiere Disney UTV's 'Ghanchakkar' on TV.

Sources reveal that a new GEC is in the offing in all probability, even though Zeel's attempt in 1995 with a second general entertainment channel in EL TV had been in vain. After all, its rival network Star India has had better luck with Life OK, launched in December, 2011, as a second-rung GEC.

Even though Zeel might have paid Disney UTV Studios and Red Chillies Entertainment as much as Rs 40 crore for their latest Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, the reason to choose the movie genre over general entertainment for brand &'s first channel is its extensive Hindi movie library. Apart from fresh acquisitions, its existing library boasts of a range spanning comedy, action and romance.

Ruchir Tiwari, cluster programming head (Hindi movie channels) says, "Currently, the movies that made sense to acquire belong to Disney UTV and Reliance Entertainment. We do not want to limit ourselves to one genre and we'll be looking at movies from all studios and producers."

The network, Multi Screen Media (which runs Sony Entertainment Television and SET Max) has acquired the year's slate of films from Yash Raj Films and Balaji Motion Pictures. Viacom18's GEC Colors has with it the rights to Eros International's 'Raanjhana' and its own films such as 'Chashme Baddoor'.

Ranga reveals, "With big ticket movies, it is very difficult to recover the full cost. But what they do to the image and identity of the brand is wonderful. For the purpose of revenue, we have a large library with some very good classics and relatively new movies."

The naming and look of the new channel have been kept youthful. In contrast to the blue of the flagship brand, the logo is in red and yellow. Akash Chawla, marketing head (national channels), says that 'pictures' was to retain the use of the Indian lingo and strike an immediate chord, while '&' represents both the ambition and the rootedness of the channel's target audience.

"We had two choices - either break away from the established sister brand or leverage its popularity. We thought if we are launching a new brand, let it stand apart from the existing brand," offers Chawla. The branding of the channel has been created by Scarecrow Communications and the packaging carried out by Argentinian agency, Media Luna. The character '&' was chosen to symbolise the traits of udaan (ambition) and neev (rootedness) according to the team.

The channel will also use the Internet heavily, with a new initiative every other month. Chawla reminds, "We wanted the channel to be interactive, so we will have a new digital campaign every 45 days." His team ran an initiative on its portal to make a crowd-sourced movie in two days. The script comprising lines contributed by users on Facebook and Twitter, over five days, was shot and released on 12th August.

The new channel has started on a strong footing, bagging some current and potential blockbusters, in a year when Multi Screen Media already has the satellite rights to the slates of Yash Raj Films and Balaji Motion Pictures. It will have to keep its freshness quotient alive with more high-ticket acquisitions to keep the buzz going.

With inputs from Sayantani Kar