Why Zee TV's Mangesh Kulkarni believes television still has the last word

New Delhi: Every few years, Hindi GECs (General Entertainment Channels) get accused of déjà vu. Viewers have time and again noticed the shows being similar in premise and context, but with different settings. The conflict plays out on autopilot, and switching between channels feels like watching the same story in a different costume. 

So, when Zee TV insists it is chasing freshness, the obvious question arises - fresh compared to what? 

Mangesh Kulkarni, Chief Channel Officer, Zee TV, does not shy away from the charge but defends that the channel has consciously stayed away from replicating what works elsewhere. 

“What viewers find with Zee TV that’s not interchangeable is shown through ‘Saru’ becoming a slot leader. Tumm Se Tumm Tak became slot leader within four weeks of its launch. Chhoriyan Chali Gaon reached more than 45 million viewers or added another 5 million viewers to Zee TV within the week of launch,” he stated. 

The numbers, he insists, are not cosmetic. They are proof that Zee’s shows are “crafted to engage and entertain our viewers in a really deep way.”

The case for linear

Start with the medium itself. Zee continues to double down on television even as the industry whispers about cord-cutting and digital migration. For Kulkarni, the logic is blunt. “When we engage with viewers, those conversations are still dominated by television. We’ve been interacting with our viewers for a very long time,” he said.

The reason, he argued, is attention. Kulkarni elaborated, “Our research showed TV coming out on top when it comes to engagement and finding an attentive viewer. You can always reach people, but the real question is how distracted the viewer is when you reach them and how engaged they remain. That makes all the difference, and that’s where TV shines.”

Even cricket, the perennial TV disruptor, is not invincible. Kulkanri added, “We have been able to not only sustain but also grow our viewership during the IPL season. Every business is about trying to break conventions and find new avenues. Part of our responsibility will always be to hold the bastion strongly.”

Festive tightrope

If television is about reach, the festive season is about the frenzy of reach compressed into weeks. “Our ability to deliver viewers, our ability to deliver in a fruitful way the clients’ campaigns is what will decide how long the festive period is going to be. As far as we are concerned at the moment, our lineup goes right from Navratris to all the way up in the list of festivals because that’s how people and our viewers will be engaging with us and celebrating festivals,” Kulkarni said. 

The advertiser mix is also visibly evolving, from platforms to industrial brands participating in the content slate offered by the channel. Cautious pre-selling of inventory, a strategy Zee has used in the past, remains on the table. But Kulkarni prefers nuance over a one-line position. “These conversations are at a different stage with different stakeholders, different client partners,” he said. 

Non-fiction gamble

For a channel that built its fortunes on long-running dramas, Zee’s decision to launch a daily non-fiction format is not just programming but provocation. Kahaani Har Ghar Ki aims to surface the kind of conversations that rarely leave the four walls of Indian homes.

“Increasingly what we feel is gaps in communication, lack in communication and the need for increasing unheardness among people’s minds,” Kulkarni noted. 

He frames it as a continuation of Zee’s legacy of turning ordinary people into protagonists. “Zee TV has really been fantastic in making heroes out of common man. All our non-fiction formats, whether it was Dance India Dance, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa before that or India’s Best Dramebaaz, are testimony to the fact of our ability to make common man the hero and celebrate that rootedness, that relatability among common people,” he told BestMediaInfo.com.  

Beyond interchangeability

The challenge for Hindi GECs is sameness. Every festival, every launch window is crowded with similar offerings. Zee’s defense rests on performance. “We’ve grown by more than 30% in recent times where competition has been doing really good also. Those efforts are always on, whether it is us, whether it is competition, and our numbers stacking up show testimony to the way we are doing and the way we are getting the response from our viewers,” said Kulkarni. 

The differentiation, he argues, is not only about the show but also about the engagement layered around it, such as on-ground events, film premieres, and scaled-up non-fiction spectacles.

Fiction as bedrock, non-fiction as disruptor

Looking ahead, Kulkarni envisions a two-track future. He explained, “The bedrock continues to be a strong fiction foundation and presently we are banking on non-fiction to give us that ability to disrupt and bring in a new set of viewers because we do operate at a certain reach gap compared to our competition.” 

That duality, he believes, is already showing dividends. “Our reach numbers have been growing consistently over the past few weeks, few months and that is what we will continue, disrupt with non-fiction and do a non-fiction that comes with its own ability to differentiate,” he said. 

There is also a hint of nostalgia being retooled for the present. Zee is preparing to revive one of its iconic properties as a weekend show, “tailored to today’s audience in a very exciting way.”

For now, Kulkarni remains bullish on the medium that everyone else loves to write obituaries for. 

“Our ability to understand consumers, our ability to shape up contentment to their needs and monetise and take it to the best way possible to our client partners is right now, not only everybody’s focus right now.”

In other words, television may look familiar, but Zee wants to prove it still has new stories left to tell.