Zee5 unveils its Telugu content slate

Zee5, India's largest home-grown video streaming platform and multilingual storyteller for millions of entertainment seekers, reaffirmed its commitment towards its viewers and content partners in the South by unveiling a compelling slate of 11 Telugu originals in a star-studded event held in Hyderabad. With its strong consumer proposition, Zee5 has been winning the hearts of audiences across the region. The platform's content portfolio builds a high level of excitement as it brings the world of entertainment to the consumers' screens in multiple languages, with diverse emotions and endless experiences to get hooked on to.

Zee5 viewers in the Telugu market will have an extensive slate to watch ranging from thrillers to comedy, drama, romance, and many more which are deeply rooted in the rich culture and legacy of the region. In addition, viewers can watch blockbuster movies along with a line-up of original content and movies from ZEE5's library that have been specially dubbed in Telugu to cater to the viewers' consumption preferences. This much awaited content slate was unveiled in the presence of Harish Shankar, Praveen Sattaru, Kona Venkat, Niharika and Sushmita Konidela.

One could also catch a glimpse of the highly anticipated upcoming titles such as 'Recce', which is a thriller featuring Shiva Balaji, Sri Ram, Dhanya Balakrishna, Rajeshwari Nair, Aadukalam Nareyn, Sharanya Pradeep, Sammeta Gandhi, Ester Noronha and 'Maa Neella Tank' - a romantic comedy based in a small village that marks heartthrob Sushanth's OTT debut. The event also saw noted filmmaker Harish Shankar revealing the first look of 'ATM'- a heist comedy featuring Subbaraju, Prudhvi and VJ Sunny. Further to this, popular actor Raj Tarun unveiled the lyrical video of a song from the upcoming 'Aha Nee Pellanta'- a fun romantic show of a man's failed attempt at finding a spouse.

The audiences were hooked to the line-up which boasts of shows like Hello World! – based on the life and trials of a group of youngsters on the cusp of their careers in the prominent IT sector of Hyderabad and Mission Tashaffi -an adrenaline-pumping spy drama. Other shows which we can look forward to are Paruvu, Bahishkarana, The Black Coat, Prema Vimanam and Hunting of the Stars.

The evening also raised a toast to the talented teams of 'Oka Chinna Family Story', 'Net', the 'Loser' franchise and 'Gaalivaana' for their remarkable storytelling which has had the Telugu audience hooked.

Talking about the focus on the Telugu market, Manish Kalra, Chief Business Officer, Zee5 India said, "South is an important market for us at Zee5 and we have been consistent in expanding our presence in this market across languages from the very outset. The response from the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana region has been encouraging and we did foresee a growing appetite for Telugu content worldwide. We are excited to work with the Telugu entertainment industry's talented creative ecosystem and are convinced that we will embark on an exciting and enriching journey together. We have significantly boosted our investments in this market and stand open to collaborate with the creators in delivering extraordinary entertainment to Zee5 audiences."

Anuradha Gudur, Chief Content Officer, Telugu added, "ZEE has a very strong and rich legacy in the Telugu market, with a widespread audience base. Keeping our viewers at the centre of our content strategy, we have time and again delivered authentic and relatable stories through our extensive offerings on television. With shows like Oka Chinna Family Story, we have managed to tap into the innately inclusive Telugu cultural mindset, and we look forward to some of our offerings to tap into the facet further.

We aspire to continue entertaining our audiences across platforms, by leveraging our expertise and understanding of viewers that has been garnered over a decade of our presence in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Our mission is to replicate this success on ZEE5, and we are excited to collaborate with some of the most popular creators and prolific talent to narrate 11 new original stories and iconic movies as part of our fresh content slate."

Manish Kalra, in an exclusive conversation with The Hans India shares some important moments in his journey and the future plans of Zee5. Let's have a look into it.

Tell us about the journey of ZEE5

The last four years have been an exciting and adventurous journey for us; we have expanded our offerings in terms of content, strengthened our position as India's largest homegrown video streaming platform, ventured into new markets, bolstered our tech stack even further, forged value driven partnerships to better our offerings, and most importantly, explored and experimented with all the right intent taking several risks which has only upped our value proposition among our consumers. The plans for the regional markets are in line with our strategy to achieve the first mover advantage in Indian languages as we have a strong presence owing to the parent company in regional content.

What were the challenges you faced along the way?

OTT industry is still at an evolving stage and the industry is at a growth curve. The pandemic acted as a catalyst in bringing audiences on online platforms for content consumption however the trend now as we see is audiences have a huge appetite for quality content. OTT has expanded the creative ecosystem with a variety of genres and formats being introduced, unique storytelling strong narratives, refined character arcs have empowered our audiences to only demand for more.

The challenges have been in shaping consumer behavior; if we go few years back, online entertainment was not a popular or preferred medium. However, it is a natural progression, the growth of emerging technologies and the developments in the nation's digital ecosystem enabled access to good content. Now the main challenge is to retaining customers as they have a plethora of options and unlimited content available at their fingertips.

The key to retaining customers though is to offer a high value to proposition to them, at an affordable price. The biggest challenge was to get people on the platform, when the industry was in its infancy stage a few years back. One of the main reasons for it was the lack of willingness to pay. Most of the middle-class families of the country considered streaming platforms as an additional expense. But with time and of course, the pandemic that acted as the catalyst, people shifted to online consumption of content.

What is the special care you have taken to attract South audience?

Owing to the long-standing legacy of our parent company ZEE, we were the first OTT platform to recognize the popularity and prominence of content in south Indian languages. We have already established ourselves as the biggest multilingual storyteller of India and plan on further bolstering our position with continuous efforts. To best serve our consumers from south, we have significantly increased our investments along with collaborating with industry stalwarts like Vetrimaaran, Prakash Raj, Prashanth Pandiraj and Dil Raju

The south market has an appetite for quality, original content on OTT platforms. We have been tapping into these greenfield markets one by one, by bringing power packed content titles, both original and acquired to satiate the demand of our audiences.

We are sure our expansive Telugu slate of 11 originals will also be just as warmly accepted and loved by our audiences. The most recent offering that we brought on ZEE5, RRR broke multiple records and received 1000 million streaming minutes on the platform.

The movie was trending at #1 in all 4 south Indian languages on ZEE5. Our goal at ZEE5 is to increase the popularity of South Asian content in various languages, not just in India but around the world. We will continue to deliver unique series and blockbuster films, as well as invest in authentic, relevant, and meaningful content

Tell us about the future plans of ZEE5

We want to considerably increase our subscriber base and boost our presence in 2022. We hope to engage and support the regional talents in India by collaborating with them and enlarging the creative ecosystem. Our primary focus has always been on the regional market and penetrating Bharat more deeply.

Since inception, ZEE5 has been the first OTT player to cater to the country's underserved markets at scale. We've made considerable progress toward our main goal of "Entertainment Inclusion" by democratizing access to specialized Indian entertainment content for a number of underserved regions and audiences, including millions of internet consumers from newer markets (Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu, for instance)