MxMIndia

Tag: Amit Nair

  • The channel launched on Thursday, October 1

    Zee Entertainment launches Zee Zest

    By A Correspondent

     

    Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited launched its first lifestyle channel – Zee Zest on October 1. The channel will present content on food, travel, lifestyle, home improvement, wellness, culture, and DIY to enable one to UNLIMIT Life straight from the confines of your armchair.

     

    Said Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Zest: “Zee Zest is the promise of a new tomorrow with taking charge of life and experiencing newer journeys and amazing stories. Our carefully curated international shows and India originals will be an escape from the regular, a path to your aspirations, a catalyst to UNLIMIT the horizon of your experiences. The diverse content across sub-genres with a homegrown appeal will entertain, lead to discovery, and will liven up every moment of the viewer with the intent to UNLIMIT Life itself. We hope to inspire our audiences to take up their own journeys of joy, creativity and breaking boundaries by adding Zest to their lives”

     

    Added Amit Shah, Cluster Head – North, West & Premium Channels, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited: “Zee has always created strong curated brands that cater to the diverse entertainment needs of the consumer. We have been market leaders with our offerings, the pioneers in setting trends when it comes to content creation. Zee Zest’s unique proposition of offering an enhanced experience with a TV & digital presence ensures we engage with our viewers across all relevant touchpoints and are also able to provide more value to the advertisers with platform agnostic solutions. Zee Zest will capture the consumers’ mind space by offering the best of lifestyle content with shows that not only entertain but educate and add value to our viewers’ lives.”

     

    Zee Zest will be a 360-degree platform and will reach the audience via TV, Web, Events, and Social Media. While TV will bring interesting content, the social media platform will provide as a means to make it happen. Stay tuned as the Web platform and Events will become the two-way communication channel between the audience and the brand. With various recipes, itineraries for road trips, DIY hacks, articles on interesting cultural and historical facts will bring the audience a step close to the life they have always hoped to explore. To sum it up, UNLIMIT Life by joining Zee Zest to imagine and experience some of the never seen before, heard before ideas and stories as the channel offers shows revolving around travel, food, culture, home decor, health, relationships and more along with some exclusive global content featuring for the first time in India.

     

    Zee Zest will be available across all major cable, DTH, and digital platforms starting 1st October 2020. The channel will also be available on ZEEL’s digital and mobile entertainment platform, Zee5.

     

     

  • Awards paid ode to the country’s best fine-dining restaurants and lounges across India

    Living Foodz recognises achievers at the Epicurean Guild Awards 2018

    By A Correspondent

     

    Lifestyle channel Living Foodz organised the second edition of Epicurean Guild Awards that saluted the gamechangers in India’s fine-dining, nightlife and lifestyle entertainment space. Held on March 22 in Mumbai, restaurants and lounges in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Goa were recognised.

     

    While speaking about the evening, the channel’s business head Amit Nair said: “At Living Foodz, we have always stood for creating new formats and intellectual properties.The awards were curated by Chef Manu Chandra.

     

  • Ganga will document the journey of Dia Mirza through the many towns along the Ganges, starting from Gomukh in Himalayas to the Gangasagar delta where it meets the Bay of Bengal

    Dia Mirza gets on telly with Living Foodz

    By A Correspondent

     

    ‘When in doubt, travel’. Probably getting inspired by this quote, Living Foodz, the food and entertainment channel, launched its new travel show ‘Ganga- The Soul of India’. The target audience of the show is the urban youth, among whom solo trips are a huge hit. The show which is scheduled to star on May 1 will mark Dia Mirza’s debut on television.

     

    Speaking at the launch of the show, Amit Nair, Business Head, Living Foodz said this herald’s the channel’s “foray into factual entertainment”. “Our ambitions are bigger and showcase breakthrough concepts and ideas, keeping food as a strong component of our content. With this show we push ourselves further, we deliver a mesmerizing journey that will entertain, inform and inspire,” he added.

     

    Ganga will document  the journey of Dia Mirza through the many towns along the Ganges, starting from Gomukh in Himalayas to the Gangasagar delta where it meets the Bay of Bengal. It will give viewers a peek into the fascinating legacy that is shaped by the country’s longest river.

     

    A short promo at a press conference on Tuesday gave a quick preview of the host’s discovery of  all that the river has to offer, including the people, history, mythology, anthropology, adventure, music and of course the food.

     

    Said Piyush Sharma, CEO (APAC and India), Living Group, Zee Entertainment: “This show is the most ambitious and passionate project of the team till date. It takes us into a totally different domain.  You would need to watch the show to appreciate it. It raises the bar in terms of output, nothing like India has seen before”, when asked about how different is the show from other travel shows. A coffee table book has also been launched, having the same name as the show, featuring the details of the journey.

     

  • Srikant Malladi comes with over 14 years of diverse media experience

    Srikant Malladi appointed Head of Programming at Zee Khana Khazana

    By A Correspondent

     

    Zee Khana Khazana has appointed Srikant Malladi as Head of Programming. Formerly with Colosceum Media Pvt Ltd. as Head of Entertainment (Non-Fiction), Srikant played a pivotal to make MasterChef India one of the most popular shows in the Indian TV Industry.

     

    Srikant Malladi comes with over 14 years of diverse media experience – web journalism, films (Bollywood & Hollywood) and television, he has donned multiple hats. In the last eight years he has focused and specialised in large format, prime time, non-fiction shows for a variety of Indian broadcasters.

     

    Commenting on the appointment, Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana, says, “Zee Khana Khazana has been growing at an incredible momentum and it is time we take it to the next level. We are honored to appoint Srikant Malladi as the Head of Programming for our channel. Srikant comes with a lot of valuable experience across the entertainment & media platform and we are happy to have him on-board. We are confident that he will help us take the brand to greater heights.”

     

  • Jaldi 5 with Amit Nair, Khana Khazana: There’s enough space for all and more channels to co-exist

    By Johnson Napier

     

    With plenty of options to toy around with, channels catering to food and lifestyle are leaving no stone unturned in offering programming of varying nature. Like Zee Khana Khazana that has announced the launch of its new show ‘World of Food’.

     

    According to Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana, the show will seek to offer inspirational stories about how food has changed the destiny of people. He converses with MxMIndia about the show and what more the channel has in store for its audiences in the coming months.

     

    01. What’s unique about ‘World of Food’ that you think will create a distinction in the marketplace?

    The kind of stories that we carry on our show is what makes it unique. There are inspirational stories about how food has changed the destiny of people. There are stories about landmark eating joints of Indian cities plus of course we are getting India’s best chefs to the fore front. We believe these kind of stories will resonate strongly with our audiences who like varied content in the food space.

     

    02. How has your channel handled competition being put up by other channels catering to food & lifestyle genre?

    There is a huge demand for food content and there is enough space for all and more channels to co-exist, what distinguishes us from the rest is the interactivity our shows have and the fact that we are in Hindi. We are also strong on the digital space with our website – www.zeekhanakhazana.com and on social. We also do regular ground connect activities across many cities where we have seen very high response.

     

    03. What has been the effect of digitization on your channel?

    Digitisation has helped us increasing our presence across all major digital cable networks in the country. This increased presence has shown a marked increased in our TVT numbers showing more tune in and time spent.

     

    04. Is the current economic scenario a cause for concern for your channel? What has been the response from advertisers/brands towards your channel?

    The business model of the channel is set as a subscription based channel. With our revamped content we have found very good traction from our viewers.

     

    05. What is the way forward in terms of programming for your channel?

    We have many exciting offerings planned for the consumers in the coming months both in the instructional and experiential space. In the near future we are launching “How se Wow tak” which seeks to demystify cooking and provide answers to queries that people have related to cooking , post that we will be coming out with a show targeted at the urban working audience. You can expect new launches practically every month.

     

  • Amit Nair, Business Head, Zee Khana Khazana, outlines plans for the cookery show with a difference

    Jaldi 5 with Amit Nair: Khana Khazana should do well with digitization

    Indians love food. Yes, it is a fact and Khana Khazana is a proof of that. In the early 1990s what started as a show with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor as host and in 2010 turned into a full-fledged channel just certifies it. India’s first-ever food channel is all set for re-branding and give its viewers better and new shows to look forward to. MxMIndia’s MEGHNA SHARMA quizzed the channel’s business head, Amit Nair, to get a taste of channel’s strategy. 

     

    1.After the new and refreshed content, what can the audiences expect from the channel?

    The content strategy is very info-entertainment oriented. All our shows are very chatty, conversational and interactive unlike regular cookery shows. We are delighted to announce the start of four new shows on air all back by research and by understanding the pulse of women by interacting with them extensively. These our shows are Food Ka Mood, Bacha party, Breakfast express and Ab Har Koi Chef. Each of them have been designed with specific needs in mind. In the coming months we plan to launch a lot of new shows that will also target a broader TG. There will be more travel + food related to reality shows and will dish out more theme based or concept driven shows every quarter keeping our TG in mind.

     

    2. So how has been the ride so far?

    Khana Khazana has always been synonymous with great food experiences and has a unique place in the heart of homemakers and cooking enthusiasts. Hence, since our evolvement to a 24-hour food channel the response has been very heartening.

     

    3.Is there enough audience for a food channel in India? Where do you see the genre in the next few years?

    Food as an offering on television has been growing since the days of Khana Khazana. GECs had cookery shows, then we started having food shows within the regional space. Subsequently even news channels got into it and on the GEC front it evolved from instructional cooking to food reality. With dedicated food bands on lifestyle channels the time was ripe for a dedicated food channel and Zee was the first to do so. In mature television markets, there are 3 -4 dedicated food channels so we are very bullish about this genre. With digitization and greater monetization, specialized offerings like food are expected to do very well.

     

    4.But given the limited viewership, do niche channels like yours see enough advertisers?

    While our core target audience is female, we have seen enough and more men venturing into the kitchen to try out recipes that are different from the norm. So while we may have FMCG and durables as main advertisers there is a lot of interest from home and lifestyle related brands to advertise.

     

    5. With competition growing, what is the marketing strategy of the channel?

    We will be closely working with our DTH/cable partners to increase interactions with consumers. Focus predominantly will be on digital and activations and build close viewer connect.