NEW DELHI: Zee Media Corporation Limited – one of the largest media houses in the country - took a giant stride in expanding its regional footprint further by virtually launching the digital versions of its four South Indian news channels - Zee Tamil News, Zee Telugu News, Zee Kannada News and Zee Malayalam News - on Tuesday (January 25, 2022).
The four new digital news channels were virtually launched by Dr Subhash Chandra, Chairman of Essel Group and founder of Zee Media Corporation.
Initially, the four channels will broadcast in digital form, as a live stream on YouTube and other digital platforms, as well as on their respective websites. With this, Zee Media also plans to launch satellite versions of these channels in the coming months, which will pose a stiff challenge to existing news broadcasters in an already crowded regional news media landscape.
These channels’ social media pages were originally known as Zee Hindustan Tamil/Telugu/Kannada/Malayalam, but since they are shifting to dedicated news channels - even if only digitally for now — they will be getting their own brand identities.
Zee Media is a 26 years old news network with 14 News channels in 6 different languages, touching more than 220 million viewers and over 362 million users across its digital properties.
It is one of the fastest-growing news channels in the country, with news bureaus and correspondents with a pan-India presence, equipped with updated technology in content creation, packaging and broadcasting.
The Zee Media is also the No. 1 news network in India, digitally according to Comscore (digital data analysis company) in the general news category. Therefore, ZEE Media takes pride in being one of the most trusted news networks by the people of India.
With this launch, Zee Media hopes to expand its outreach among each and every south Indian household and connect with them in their own language bringing them news from not only the country and world at large but from every corner of their states.
The launch of these new digital news channels will greatly augment the nationwide reach of Zee Media Corporation, which has a vast presence in North, West and East Indian states but thus far lacked a presence in the South Indian market.
News channels such as Zee 24 Taas (Marathi), Zee 24 Ghanta (Bengali) and Zee Punjab/Haryana/Himachal have been established for more than a decade now but Zee Media was yet to taste that success in South India.
This ambitious project will help Zee make inroads into the largely untapped news market in the South of the Vindhyas. Zee Kannada News, Zee Malayalam News, Zee Tamil News and Zee Telugu News are the latest offerings from the Zee Media Corporation umbrella.
Zee Media hopes that its brands in the South will stand for ‘Fearless’ and ‘Unbiased’ journalism that is being anticipated by the masses. For those looking for accurate, unbiased and timely reporting of facts and views, Zee Media will bring a refreshing change in a market dominated by political parties or media houses having a political lineage.
The Zee Media aims to present to its users comprehensive and impartial news coverage on social, political issues along with varied entertainment and lifestyle programs from the South, nationally and worldwide.
The revenue possibilities are immense as the purchasing power of the users on average will be higher than the rest of the country. With huge local brands in each of the 5 states and national brands looking for new avenues for growth, Zee Media hopes to be in a pole position to exploit this opportunity.
Digital will be the growth engine that will drive these new properties forward. This will provide Zee Media with plenty of elbow room in terms of content strategy and revenue prospects. As the new players in the digital news space, the Zee Group will have the first-movers advantage.
Zee Media, as a group, remains highly confident of making this project a grand success in future.
