Zee Entertainment has forayed into 190 countries with its digital entertainment platform, ZEE5, as it looks to grow its OTT subscriber base, especially the South Asian diaspora, around the world.
The entertainment giant had launched ZEE5 in India in February this year. “We were focusing on the Indian market and preparing for our global launch. We have a strong sense of each of these markets and already have a presence there through our offerings. ZEE5 has been launched in a beta stage and will offer both on-demand and live TV across devices,” Amit Goenka, CEO – ZEE International and Z5 Global, told BusinessLine .
ZEE5 offers multi-genre content, including news and entertainment, across 12 languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada. The platform will offer both paid and free content. “In more evolved markets such as the UK or US, where subscribers are already paying for content, we will follow only the paid model. But in countries which are just getting on to the OTT system, like Bangladesh, it makes sense to have an ad-supported version,” he said.
Subscribers will get access to the entire library of content at a special introductory offer price ranging from $2 to $10 per month, depending on the region. ZEE5 also offers display language personalisation in 11 languages, besides voice search, and download to watch offline option. It also has an extensive Live TV offering with more than 60 live TV channels.
“With over 1,00,000 hours of content across genres and languages, ZEE5 is the singular platform that Indians and South Asians have been waiting for. With the launch of ZEE5 globally, we intend owning the India peg completely and being the unequivocal go to destination for Indian content for South Asians and beyond, wherever they may be,” Archana Anand, Chief Business Officer- ZEE5 Global said.