AMIT GOENKA
CEO - INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
Q How do you think the digital market will evolve and at what stage is India in that evolution process?
A
Internet is dramatically changing the world
as we know it. Over half the world now uses
Internet, and technologies like AR and VR are fast
becoming commonplace. Internet has already
become an integral part of everyday life for
most of the world’s population. Over 60% of the
world’s population now owns a mobile phone
and is ‘digitally connected’ and we will see a
proliferation of this trend going forward. With
increasing online content consumption, media
businesses, content companies and advertisers
are also rapidly adapting to the new reality and
redefining their strategies accordingly to stay
ahead and stay relevant.
Given that Internet penetration in India is still
under 40%, there is a significant growth potential
for digital content consumption. We see the
growth momentum across digital increasingly
coming from smaller towns and rural areas, as
urban areas get saturated. Businesses, across
the board, will have to look at innovative ways
to reach and capture the rural market given its
propensity to consume content in vernacular
languages and lack of comfort with English.
Q What is ZEEL’s strategy for digital business?
A
As an entertainment content company, it remains
extremely important for us to be present where
our consumers are, and so having a digital
presence remains integral to our strategy for
future growth.
We launched the first Over-The-Top (OTT)
platform in India in 2012 - dittoTV, our aggregator
SVOD offering for live TV. We re-launched it last
year at a strategic and disruptive price of
₹ 20 per month. We also partnered with leading
telecom operators for both distribution and
payment, which has been a successful move for us. OZEE, our free-to-consumer AVOD
platform, has been showing excellent traction
and is a leader in engagement metrics. With the
launch of our global OTT platform Z5, we will
consolidate our SVOD and AVOD offerings. It will
be the single destination for all our content.
Q How do you see competition from local players like Hotstar, Voot and international players like Amazon Prime and Netflix?
A
The industry is still at a nascent stage. Though
the digital consumption has grown significantly
over the last couple of years, most of the
players are still experimenting with different
monetisation models. At this point, the entry of
new players, especially the international ones,
to my mind, is expanding the market size and
popularising the category. Players have raised
significant funds and are investing in content
creation.
These are also exciting times for users
who are being wooed across the board with a
plethora of choices and are getting to experiment
with different genres of content. We do see this
trend settling down in the future and expect a
degree of consolidation in the industry. This will
also lead to players finding their own content
niche in which they would want to operate.
We have our own strategy in place and are
geared to create a distinct positioning for
ourselves despite the cluttered market.
Q What would make your digital product stand out from the others?
A Content is the key to attract a sustainable viewer base across any platform. Our experience and understanding of content and consumer certainly gives us a natural edge. The content viewing pattern on digital platforms is different from television and we are tweaking our content strategy accordingly to suit these needs. In addition, a rich viewing experience aided by a highly intuitive UI across multiple languages is one of our key focus areas. Also, given our spread of channels across languages and geographies, a strong recommendation engine would help users to seamlessly navigate content suiting their needs.
Q Do you think digital will take away share of advertising from television?
A I think both would complement each other. In a market like India where television penetration will continue to grow for years, it will remain the primary medium of entertainment for majority of the population. Digital allows content consumption on the move and is adding to the overall video consumption. Even in evolved markets like the US, television advertising is still growing despite the increasing share of digital. While we see growth in both the mediums, digital will grow at a higher rate over the next few years in India.
Q Could you give a brief overview of ZEEL’s international business?
A
There are two parts of our international business
– the first part caters to the Indian and South
Asian diaspora and the second part, caters to
the foreign audience in their native languages.
As far as the diaspora is concerned, I think we
have reached most of the countries with sizeable
Indian population. The endeavour here is to
offer more channels and expand our distribution
reach.
We started targeting foreign audience having
affinity for Indian content in 2008, and have
significantly expanded our presence in the
last eighteen months. I think this journey has
just begun. Currently, we are offering content
made for Indian market, dubbed, subtitled or
repurposed as per the requirements of a country.
We have 13 channels in this category and as we
learn more about the needs of the audience, we will gradually make content for some of those
markets.
Q How would you describe your international journey so far?
A ZEEL forayed into the international business in 1994 with the launch of Zee TV in the Middle East & Pakistan. Following that, we commenced operations in Europe (UK) in 1995, Africa in 1996, US in 1998 and lastly APAC in 2004. Having reached Indian diaspora in all significant markets, we started targeting markets with a liking for Indian content. This journey commenced with the launch of Zee Aflam in MENA region. Our international presence makes us one of the largest Indian entertainment brands and we want to make this brand stronger going forward.
Q What are the factors you consider while launching a channel for non-Indian audience?
A The proposition to launch a new channel begins with identifying markets where a content gap exists and we can leverage the strength of our library to offer differentiated content. This involves extensive research to understand the market dynamics including learning about consumer preferences, competition and market size amongst others. This is a lengthy process and only a few of the markets meet our criteria for launch. We are happy that most of our launches targeted at the non-Indian audiences have been received well. Our channels in the Middle East - Zee Aflam and Zee Alwan - have been performing well for a long time. One of our recent launches, Zee World, consistently ranks amongst the top three channels in the South African market.