Zee America to foray into radio, events

The group perceives a huge opportunity in the market owing to the lack of Indian RJs or events of interest for the South Asian community

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | December 5, 2014

In 1998, Zee TV incubated the South Asian TV market in North America. Over the next 17 years, the brand has not only become synonymous with entertainment, but also an ambassador of Indian culture abroad. As per Nielsen US, a typical South Asian viewer spends an average of 2 hours and 13 minutes per day watching Zee TV, making it one of the most loved channels in the US, including the mainstream ones.

After being the consistent No. 1 TV network, Zee US successfully ventured into the digital space in 2012 with Zee Dil Se, a video-based social media, that allows people to record a 'broadcast quality' personalised video message and push it on TV with a click. The Dil Se platform was later on used to solve the local auditions problem, thus allowing thousands of NRIs to participate in reality shows like 'Dance India Dance' and 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'.

Later, in the fall of 2013, Zee US launched a localised version of www.india.com with a positioning of 'Proudly Indian'. In a short span of one year, the site garnered seven million unique visitors per month, from US and Canada alone, thus making it one of the top sites for NRIs in North America. The site already has all the leading advertisers from TV with annual spend commitments. India.com serves as a one-stop destination for news from India, community news from US and Canada, Bollywood, cricket, blogs, event ticketing and classifieds.

Zee is now all geared up to get into the radio and event management space. Initially, the services will be implemented in the top five South Asian DMAs. A respective business head supported by an operations team will head each of these verticals.

“As a market leader, we have to constantly reinvent and redefine our value proposition to our consumers. We have been looking at need gaps and the two most visible opportunities sprung up that matched our strengths. A strong 55% of South Asians use personal transport five times a week for an average of 28 minutes per day, either for work or leisure, and a strong 27 per cent of South Asian women are non-working (stay at home) at any given point in time, but do not have access to good Indian RJs. Of the 600 plus, small and large South Asian events that take place in USA, only a handful manage to put up a good show and attract a couple of blue chip sponsors. The rest struggle or depend on individual donations/sponsors to make ends meet. The most worrying sign at these events is the declining footfalls of the youth. The mainstream brands completely recognise the arrival of the Indian community in USA, but are hesitant to invest their dollars given the unorganised nature. These opportunities will allow us to not only bring companion-like RJs or entertain the South Asian community with exciting and enriching events (like an Indian rock concert or an Asian-Indian corporate leadership summit), but also bring bigger and better sponsors to the market, thus expanding the total market,” said Sameer Targe, Business Head – Zee Americas.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com