UK‘s No.1 Asian Lifestyle Channel Zing is all set to broadcast a locally produced drama series in an initiative never seen before on UK Asian Television. With the onset of the festive mood and bringing in the new year, the channel will launch a soap called Cloud 9 on 7th January 2013, occupying the weekday prime time slot of 6:30pm.
Cloud 9 represents a milestone in Asian entertainment as it is the very first daily soap-series to be produced in the UK, specifically catering to the UK Asian audiences. This soap highlights the British Asian lifestyle, drawing on themes relevant to their way of life. In a never-before-seen method, the soap showcases the British Asian community in its true form, taking away stereotype perceptions regarding the UK’s largest ethnic group – the South Asians.
The new soap encompasses the lives of the residents of a London town, presenting a range of characters, explored by the soap’s pivotal star Ajay – a young Brit-Asian finding his way in life. Following his story and spiraling the highs of love, dreams and reality – the soap highlights various aspects that make this a special town called ‘Cloud 9’, which brings to life important British Asian values of family life, aspirations, tradition and modernity.
Keeping in line with the elements of multi-cultural British life, the cast will feature a mix of Brit Asian, English, plus true ‘desi’ characters. There will be high-brow names in the casting and the production, with the on-air quality not falling short of mainstream standards. The series will be entirely in English.
Archana Kanade, Zing Business Head says “The future of British Asian TV is here! With Cloud 9, Zing is taking Asian entertainment in the UK to the next level. Zing strives to give its target audience what they want plus more. Cloud 9 is the product of extensive research and background work enabling us to tailor the soap to the taste of the Brit-Asian psyche, presenting their world to them on the small screen for the first time. This soap comes at a time when the Asian population is growing rapidly and is the largest ethnic population in the UK. Numbers have gone up phenomenally since the last Census and it is this audience that Cloud 9 will cater to.”
Zing has always been a trendsetter with initiatives such as the first local Bollywood and Hollywood news and magazine show Brit’s Bollywood. It also aired its Brit-Asian talk-show Rock The Vibe earlier this year. Its fast paced entertainment means the channel already scores highly amongst the 16-40 year old audience and with Cloud 9, it will be taking a step further in strengthening its commitment of relevant quality content for the local audiences.
The show will start with a huge marketing push, with the first teaser promos already running across the ZEE channels. Look forward to the show, starting from 7th January 2013, Mon-Fri 6:30pm on Zing – Sky 789 and Freesat 509.
For the latest on Cloud 9, follow Zing UK on Facebook and Zing TV UK on Twitter.