MUMBAI: Marathi will become the first regional-language market where Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) will have two general entertainment channels (GECs).
ZEEL will launch its second Marathi GEC, Zee Yuva, on 22 August. Targeted at the age group of below 40 years, Zee Yuva will be the second GEC in that market. ZEEL already runs the top-rated channel, Zee Marathi.
Zee Marathi is a dominant player in the Marathi GEC space with a share of more than 60%. The Marathi TV ad market is pegged at Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).
Zee Yuva business head Bavesh Janavlekar said that the new channel is a youthful GEC and not a youth GEC like MTV or Bindass. He also asserted that Zee Yuva would be one of the biggest launches in the Marathi genre.
“Zee Yuva is not a youth GEC; it is a youthful GEC. The channel is not about age but about mindset. It’s not an MTV or a Bindass; it is much beyond that. It’s about youthfulness and hence Zee Yuva,” Janavlekar said.
The new channel will have a mix of fiction, non-fiction and movie content. What will differentiate Zee Yuva from other channels is that it will not be female skewed. The shows on Zee Yuva will have a mix of drama and comedy.
“In Marathi GECs, the story starts when the women get married. The premise of fiction shows on GECs is family, whereas our fiction shows are non-family based. The shows will centre around college and friends. It will also have family, but the take is slightly different. There is a lot of light humour. It will have drama, but it will also have comedy,” he added.
According to Janavlekar, lots of films are catering to youth, but there is a gap as far as television content for youth is concerned. He further stated that the mainline Marathi GECs are heavily skewed towards female audience above 40 years.
“In Maharashtra, there is a huge opportunity for providing content that caters to the youth. In the last few years, 8 out of 10 films have been youth driven. In films, the Marathi audience got a lot of variety, whereas on TV three GECs offer primarily women-centric and family kind of content. Hence, we saw an opportunity to create that kind of content for audience with progressive taste. Most of the GECs have a skew towards 40+ females; this channel will be skewed towards below 40,” he noted.
Zee Yuva will have five fiction shows in the primetime band. It will also have a weekend show besides a weekly hosted music band for one hour. The films will be aired daily either in non-prime- or late primetime.
The non-fiction content on the channel will have a different flavour from what is offered by the mainline GECs. “In non-fiction, we will be experimenting with a lot of ideas. There is a staggered approach to the entire content strategy. The basic premise is to make Zee Yuva a platform for everything that appeals to the youth of Maharashtra. Our reality shows will be different from what is on offer currently on TV,” Janavlekar stated.
Even the films on the channel will appeal to the youth. “We will demarcate our movie library in such a way that all the movies that appeal to people aged 35–40 years will be given preference,” he said.
Zee Yuva will not just focus on urban audiences but also the masses. “The target audience is the masses. It is not just targeted at urban areas; it will cater to all geographies that ‘Sairat’ catered to,” he further stated.
The distribution team at ZEEL is negotiating deals with distribution platforms to carry the channel. Zee Yuva will be a pay channel. However, the price has not been finalised.
The marketing campaign to promote the channel has kicked off on digital. “We have rolled out the digital strategy. Around two days back, we trended at number 1 with around 5.1 million reach and 28.6 million impressions in a day. We ran a contest called ‘Yuva Mhanje’. We have got a lot of digital traction,” Janavlekar informed.
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