ZEE5 has announced their Telugu programming lineup for 2022, including 11 films. Thrillers, humour, drama, and romance are among the genres represented in the slate. Viewers may also watch Telugu dubbed films and original material from the ZEE5 collection.
This is part of the platform’s growing emphasis on the southern market. It revealed its Tamil programming slate for 2022 in April, which included 20 films and programmes.
“South is a key market for us at ZEE5, and we’ve been steadily expanding our footprint in this area across languages since the beginning,” Manish Kalra, ZEE5 India’s chief business officer, said. We’ve significantly increased our efforts in this area and are eager to work with producers to bring exceptional entertainment to ZEE5 viewers.”
The platform has been expanding its regional library to strengthen its position in regional markets, which includes both purchased and original material. Valimai, a Tamil film, was recently released on the platform and received the quickest 500-million streaming minutes on ZEE5. It also launched the magnum opus ‘RRR’ for its multilingual fans, which got 1000 million streaming minutes in less than ten days and has been trending ever since.
“RRR’s introduction nearly quadrupled our Telugu language membership base in less than a month. The allure of outstanding films is a rather widespread phenomenon. However, the storylines, storytelling, and execution shown in several Telugu films have transcended language barriers. Punit Misra, head of ZEE Entertainment Enterprises’ content and foreign markets, adds, “It plays a key element in our regional strategy.”
The south Indian sector is bringing in a growing number of subscribers. 70 per cent of users came from the Hindi markets 18 months ago. However, the language markets now account for half of the revenue.
“At this time, we haven’t yet released the full power of our original series.” We would have done what we are doing today a year ago in an ideal world. However, it was postponed due to COVID and some creative issues. He predicts that there will be more material from language markets in the coming 12 to 18 months,” he predicts.
While the Telugu cinema industry, often known as Tollywood, has become India’s most significant in terms of box office receipts, its presence on OTT platforms is just now beginning to grow. Many streaming services are expanding their Telugu content slate to expand their South Indian offering. However, there was aha before these major platforms joined the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana sector. It is a Telugu-only portal that will be launched in 2020. It has recently expanded into Tamil as well. Misra states, “Our objective is to be the best player in the world.”
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