NEW DELHI: Zee Telefilms today announced the launch of Trendz, a 24-hour fashion and style channel from 1 May (reported first by indiantelevision.com on Friday). Subhash Chandra's network plans to add more such channels to the Zee Turner bouquet, the aim being to be able to offer viewers of its DTH service something extra.
 
 
"We are definitely looking at adding some more channels to the bouquet," Zee Turner chief executive Sunil Khanna said today at a press conference to announce the launch of Trendz, a "global brand that is being built by Zee."

According to Khanna, who is slated to head the DTH initiative of Zee, the group has also decided to get more recent titles for Zee MGM and build up the brand rather than introduce a new movie brand, something that was talked about after HBO moved out of the Zee Turner bouquet to One Alliance.

Khanna also sounded confident that the group's proposed DTH service should be up and running by July-August. "The work on the infrastructure is going on (at Noida on the outskirts of Delhi from where the Zee channels uplink) and we hope to be on air by August," he said.

Khanna also said that over the next few days Zee would be signing a letter of intent with a vendor for the subscriber management system for CAS and DTH.

Meanwhile, the international programming for Trendz - that would be 100 per cent to begin with - has been sourced from Video Fashion Network of the US and over a period of time Indian content too would be introduced, Khanna said.

Can it be India's answer to FTV? Well nobody at Zee is ready to hold forth on this, but the success of FTV - controversies surrounding it notwithstanding - even in India, probably, could be a reason behind investing ina fashion and style channel.

"Given the channel focus and the opportunity that conditional access and DTH will open up for niche channels like Trendz, we are confident that it will emerge a leading source of infotainment for the fashion conscious Indian audience," Zee Telefilms director Deb Naganand said.