MUMBAI: A few days ago Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) had pulled out all its content from Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio. Soon after scrapping the deal with Jio, ZEEL entered into a partnership with another telco operator Airtel . While there were many questions regarding the development, ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka has cleared the air. In an interview with CNBC, he said conversations are still on with Jio.

“We did have a deal with Reliance Jio and it was up for renewal and our negotiations failed. Hence, we had to pull our content out. Conversations are still on, and I am sure we will find an amicable solution with them as well,” Goenka commented.

Goenka expects the company’s new big bet ZEE5 to emerge as the number one entertainment app at the end of 12 months from now. Though he did not comment on the number of subscribers, he said that since the platform started showing original content in July, the number of subscribers doubled month-on-month.

"We are seeing a lot of traction on the OTT platforms and there is no worry yet on the television side of consumption. If you look at the television growth itself, over the last year, we have seen growth in number of television households. We have seen growth in time consumption per consumer on a daily basis," he also said commenting on the TV business .

Goenka on a confident note said, TV itself is growing both on advertising as well as on the subscription side. He also added phase three monetisation has started and the company is seeing good traction coming on the subscription from there.