Zee5 strengthens Punjabi content lineup

Zee5 on Monday said it is bolstering its Punjabi content lineup with a series of movies, web-series and originals in the language as the homegrown video streaming platform looks to woo over 3 crore Punjabi native speakers in the country.Zee5, which competes with platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and DisneyHotstar in the country, aims to strengthen its footprint in Punjab and neighbouring areas of northern India and launching its Rajj Ke Vekho initiative.

Zee5 on Monday said it is bolstering its Punjabi content lineup with a series of movies, web series, and originals in the language as the homegrown video streaming platform looks to woo over 3 crore Punjabi native speakers in the country.

Zee5, which competes with platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+Hotstar in the country, aims to strengthen its footprint in Punjab and neighboring areas of northern India and launching its 'Rajj Ke Vekho' initiative. Under this, it will launch a series of Punjabi movies, web series, originals, and shows, starting with a set of titles from Zee Studios – Puaada, Qismat 2, Jinne Jamme Saare Nikamme, and Fufad Ji, starring actors like Ammy Virk, Sonam Bajwa, Sargun Mehta, Binnu Dhillon, Gurnam Bhullar, and others.

''We have been evaluating markets in India where we believe there's good potential and which can become the next frontiers of growth for us, and that's how the regionalization strategy is being formed. In terms of internet penetration, we realized that it (Punjab) is one of the most penetrated states with very good quality (Internet), second is the GDP per capita for Punjab is high and there is high propensity to buy,'' ZEE5 India Chief Business Officer Manish Kalra told PTI.

He added that ''there is a sizable audience of over three crore Punjabi-speaking people in India, and there's a significant population of Punjabis outside the country that also becomes the good benchmark for us to look at''.

Kalra said all these aspects - combined with the factor that the market is underserved in terms of content - make it a ''greenfield market'' to enter and ''start moving faster than others''.

The over-the-top (OTT) segment has seen massive growth in the Indian market in the past few years on the back of cheap data tariffs and the availability of affordable smartphones. The adoption of these digital platforms has further accelerated during the pandemic amid restricted social activities like visits to movie theatres.

Kalra said as the country's multilingual storyteller, Zee5 has continued its efforts to keep the audience entertained across various cohorts and demographics to achieve deeper regionalization and penetrate 'Bharat'. ''Our increased focus on Punjabi bespoke content will aim to cater to the rising demand for quality entertainment in local languages. This will help us become a one-stop destination for users to watch high-quality Punjabi content, bringing us one step closer to our larger vision of achieving entertainment inclusion for underserved markets,” Kalra added.

ZEE5 has a library of over 2 lakh hours of on-demand content and 100-plus live TV channels. It has a library of over 140-plus original shows and offers content in 12 Indian languages - English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, and Punjabi. The platform has a line-up of over 50 theatricals and more than 40 web series in 2021. In June, ZEE5's global MAUs (monthly active users) and DAUs (daily active users) were 80.2 million and 7.1 million, respectively - up from 72.6 million (MAU) and 6.1 million (DAU) in March 2021. The watch time per viewer per month has also increased to 190 minutes from 156 minutes during the quarter.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)