Bharti Airtel and Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) have joined hands to drive entertainment content on mobile phones. Zee will curate and create video content, including TV shows, original series and movies, exclusively for Airtel TV and its own digital platform, Zee5.

“There are several levels to the partnership. The exclusive piece is the content created and curated by Zee for Airtel.

“While it sits on the Airtel TV App, it plays from the Zee5 API. So, Zee will get access to that subscriber fully – from his profile to the consumption pattern,” Punit Goenka, MD and CEO, ZEEL, told BusinessLine .

Zee will use Airtel’s depth of data to understand consumer statistics and handpick content to suit that demographic. “However, Zee5 and our linear content are not exclusive and will be available for all our partners,” he added.

Revenue deal

Zee will get a fixed per subscriber fee with a backed-up minimum guarantee because of the upfront content investment it will pump in.

On its part, Airtel will bundle Zee5 with its ₹499 data pack under which the consumer will getaccess to the entire content of Zee5, including originals, movies, TV shows, music videos, plays, among others.

Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said: “We want to build a world-class content ecosystem by partnering all players and enabling a differentiated digital entertainment experience for our customers. In Airtel TV, we have built a solid digital platform to curate top content from India and across the world and offer it to customers at one place.”

He said Zee’s content catalogue was vast and varied, and Airtel’s collaboration would help unlock that potential. The partnership will be a win-win for both as it will help Zee ramp up its OTT subscription much faster than it could have done on its own as Airtel commands about a third of the Indian mobile subscriber market. Airtel, in turn, will get access to one of India’s biggest content libraries.

Airtel’s rival Reliance Jio has picked up stakes in Balaji Telefilms (25 per cent) and Eros besides Saavn as it looks to strengthen content offerings in a data-driven market.

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