Will the rise of the two Star regional channels hurt Zee Bangla and Zee Marathi?
In the Bengali GEC space, Zee Bangla has lost its leadership position to Star Jalsha, but, over the last couple of months, we have undertaken new initiatives and the channel is looking up again. More importantly, our focus has been to ensure profitability and towards that end we are, even today, writing much more revenues than Star Jalsha. This is primarily because of our two-pronged strategy: optimal inventory utilisation and appropriate pricing. One of the noteworthy propositions of Zee Bangla is its high unduplicated viewership. All of this has helped us ensure against loss of any campaign. Having grown, we now hope that Star Jalsha increases its rates to sustain the market expansion. In Marathi, we are almost three times that of our nearest competitor. Zee Marathi is a clear leader and is well complemented by Zee Talkies, both in terms of revenues and viewership.
