Zee enters kids' genre with ZeeQ

The bi-lingual channel in Hindi and English will go on air from November 5, 2012

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | October 15, 2012

After completing 20 successful years in Media & Entertainment in India, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) has entered the kids' entertainment genre with the launch of Zee Q. The bi-lingual channel in Hindi and English will go on air from November 5, 2012.

Punit Goenka, MD & CEO – Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, today announced the launch of a new channel – ZeeQ - which will cater to the needs of children in India. Speaking on the launch of ZeeQ, Goenka said, “ZEE as a group stands by its principle of improvement of human capital, and so is the initiative, ZeeQ. It is a step ahead in fostering the curiosity amongst children through fun and entertainment.”

ZeeQ will have mix of home produced and acquired content.

The experiences of education division Zee Learn Ltd, which is the fastest growing education chain of preschools and K-12, will come handy to ZeeQ. On Zee Learn's backing, Goenka informed, “During production and acquisition of content, we took into consideration the learnings from the 18 years that Zee Learn Limited has been interacting with as many as 300000 students, parents and teachers across India. And this has helped us make its edutainment content engaging and relevant to the needs of Indian children.”

ZeeQ will address the educational need gaps through engaging content. The 24-hour channel will be available on Leading DTH & Digital Cable Platforms as a paid-for channel.

ZeeQ is the 32nd channel from ZEE, which will manage ZeeQ's broadcast operations, while Zee Learn will look after the content and channel management.

(Left to Right) Subhadarshi Tripathi, Navneet Anhal and Punit Goenka

Navneet Anhal, COO – Zee Learn Limited, said, “ZeeQ is based on our core operating principle of 'What is Right for the Child'. We are confident that the channel will benefit school-going children and help their parents and teachers in the collective effort to facilitate emotional, social, academic and behavioral development of the children. ZeeQ, will further strengthen the endeavor of Zee Learn to prepare children for 21st Century by inculcating much needed knowledge, life skills and values.

Subhadarshi Tripathi, Business Head of ZeeQ, said, “The programming and scheduling approach of ZeeQ's content is geared to help children with subliminal education while keeping them engaged in never-before edu-tainment fashion.” To achieve this, ZeeQ has a mix of programs that its programming team has especially designed and produced.

Some of the shows on ZeeQ include specially produced programs like:

• Teenovation  -- a show in association with The National Innovation Foundation about Children innovators who display brilliance and create utility items for problems they see around them
• Wordmatch  --  a National level Hindi game show for children, which enhances their knowledge of English spelling, word usage, sentence construction and vocabulary
• Brain Café   -- a super cool café with anything and everything to do with Science, Brain Café is the perfect hang out to learn all about science theories, concepts and their applications in a fun way.

Another important part of the ZeeQ programming is its acquired programs, carefully handpicked by its programming team from amongst numerous available concepts. Even the acquired programs have been adapted to the taste of Indian kids.

Speaking on the strengths of ZeeQ, Tripathi observed, “We believe that the need for and relevance of a channel such as ZeeQ with its quality content will help us in digitization post-Phase 1.  The fact that it is being distributed on India's leading DTH & Digital Cable Platforms DTH platforms that will help us reach and educates millions of potential viewers, enthuses us.”

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