ZEE5 to focus more on the South

Encouraged by the fast growing subscriber base and the grand success of its recent Tamil and Telugu content releases, OTT platform ZEE5 is planning to invest aggressively on scaling up its content offering for these two South Indian markets.

“This year, our primary focus will be on Tamil and Telugu for original productions. We are planning to launch 10-12 original web series each in Tamil and Telugu and that’s where the big investment is going to happen,” Manish Kalra, chief business officer, ZEE5 India, told BusinessLine.

“We also noticed that Tamil and Telugu audiences love their stars and that’s why theatrical releases in these markets are doing pretty well. So, we will also find a way to bring some of these blockbusters to our platform,” Kalra added.

Premiere films
In addition to 10-12 original series in Tamil and Telugu, ZEE5 has also planned to premiere 8-10 films in these two languages during the year.

Currently, close to 50 per cent of ZEE5 subscription comes from the non-Hindi markets, with Tamil and Telugu markets driving the major part of the non-Hindi subscription growth.

Some of the recent releases like Tamil original web series ‘Vilangu’ in Tamil and Telugu original ‘Oka Chinna Family Story’ have been a great success for the platform. While ‘Vilangu’ became the most-watched Tamil original web series on the platform, actor Ajith Kumar’s recent film ‘Valimai’, which premiered on the platform last month, recorded 500-million streaming minutes on ZEE5 worldwide.

The platform is planning to launch more content in these languages to further increase its subscription base

“Not just Tamil and Telugu, the entire Southern market is important to us. We have good quality theatrical movies in Kannada and Malayalam on ZEE5 and it helps us keep engaging with our audiences in the south,” Kalra said..

In a star-studded event earlier this week, ZEE5 announced a big slate of Tamil original web series and movie premieres for the year. The compelling content line up includes National Award winning director Vetrimaaran’s first original series, a drama series by actor-director Prakash Raj, film premieres of actor Arun Vijay and Vijay Antony among others.

In Q3FY22, ZEE5 reported global monthly active users of 101.9 million, with a year-on-year growth of 36 million active users. The platform saw 51 shows and movies (including 11 originals) releases during the third quarter. The Hindu BusinessLine