On the heels of the launch of its second Hindi movie channel ‘&Pictures’, Zee Entertainment Enterprises is launching a free-to-air channel on September 1 called Zee Anmol.
The media house has said that it would be the first Indian television channel to launch simultaneously on mobile and television platforms.
With a tagline like ‘Dil Choo Jaye’, Anmol aims to showcase hand-picked content including popular shows from Zee TV’s repository, as well as current popular fiction and non-fiction properties of Zee TV and movies and kids’ content.
The Zee network already runs four movies channels - Zee Cinema, Zee Premier, Zee Action and Zee Classic, and holds the rights to over 4,000 Hindi films. Its new offering ‘&Pictures’ is to primarily run on a premier model with big new release titles.
The channel has acquired some big movie titles including Chennai Express starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone and directed by Rohit Shetty, the Ranbir Kapoor starrer Besharam , produced by Reliance Entertainment, the Priyanka Chopra and Ram Charan starrer Zanjeer , and UTV’s Vidya Balan and Emraan Hashmi starrer Ghanchakkar .
Similar to Star’s ‘Ok’ channels, Zee is building a new brand with ‘&’ as a pre-fix to showcase new movies and shows.
Bharat Kumar Ranga, Chief Creative and Content Officer, said: “Zee has built a legacy of entertainment. We have easily the richest library of content in the country. Our insight strongly indicates that the audiences today are craving for some of their all-time favourite shows from Zee’s library and Zee Anmol is an attempt to bring these popular shows back into their lives.’’'
Moreover, with the television viewing universe expanding by leaps and bounds, Ranga said the new channel will also cater to first-time consumption for a vast majority of viewers across smaller towns, where cable and satellite penetration is still picking up.
On the channel’s simultaneous launch on mobile, Akash Chawla, Marketing Head, National Channels, said: “With mobile internet penetration in India reaching almost 100 million, a simultaneous mobile launch will significantly aid in increasing the reach of the brand. Viewers, even with 2G connections and non-smartphones, will be able to keep up with the channel through its WAP site.’’