MUMBAI: Zee took a bold step when it decided to launch channels under a different brand name ‘&’ five years ago. The bet worked and the brand lived. Now, &TV, the GEC, is undergoing a brand refresh with a new lineup of shows as well.
In 2015, &TV was launched with the philosophy 'Jashn Jeene Ka' - celebrating the spirit of life. Now, the channel is bringing up yet another thought ‘Hai Khaas Har Andaaz’, created by Lowe Lintas that premieres this weekend, breaking first on its new live singing reality show for kids Love Me India at 9 pm. &TV has two more shows in the bouquet named Perfect Pati and Vikram and Betaal.
ZEEL CEO Punit Misra said, “We believe &TV, the youngest GEC in the ZEEL portfolio, is best suited to cater to &dians - the multifaceted, progressive, young urban viewers who want to be more. With our unique brand point-of-view led content creation approach, the &TV team has crafted stories and characters that &dians will fall in love with.”
Apart from its flagship show Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain, that helped the channel gain immense traction from the viewers, it didn’t shy away from going against the tide and introducing a 100kg bahu on television with Badho Bahu or presenting kanha and radha differently. It pushed the envelope further by introducing supernatural-romance in Laal Ishq.
Commenting on the advertisers’ growth since its launch, ZEEL CMO Pratyusha Agarwal said that the growth has been phenomenal and ad inventories are already sold out for the upcoming shows. “Since the past three years, advertisers have grown up to 55 per cent,” she added.
&TV head Vishnu Shankar has been associated with Zee for more than seven years now. He started working with Zee in February 2010 as the programming head of Zing, Zee ETC and Zee Trendz. A year ago he filled Rajesh Iyer’s shoes with a vision to scale-up the cluster’s growth in a bid to entertain audiences. He said, “In the last three years, we have created many marquee properties and the channel had a good 4.5 per cent market share and now we have 7.8 per cent market share.”
We will soon get to see if the change will pay off.
