KOLKATA: ZEEL is working towards creating a digital dominance in the Indian media and entertainment market. Their plan has been on track as ZEE5 has significantly grown in the last one year.

At the second leg of APOS2020, ZEEL MD & CEO Punit Goenka reported the last quarter’s financial results of ZEE5 for the first time since its launch. He mentioned that 80 per cent of ZEE5’s revenue is currently attributed to India, and the rest comes in from Asia.

Goenka shared that the platform has not seen a lot of revenue coming in from the western world till now as ZEEL’s linear business is pre-dominantly still running there. Goenka thinks this part of the world could offer the next phase of growth for ZEE5.

ZEEL will shut its linear business in the UK and Europe sometime around the end of this year and ZEE5 will carry the content instead. Later, the move will be repeated in the US and other developed markets. Given the Indian diasporas demand for content, it is presumable that ZEE5 will certainly see fair traction in traffic.

However, the plan is not similar in APAC, MEA, and Africa due to different market dynamics. As TV and digital co-exist in these markets yet, ZEEL is not planning complete digital migration immediately. But, Singapore and Hong Kong exceptionally provide an opportunity for such migration although the timing is not decided yet.

“We have to understand ZEE5 will be played out in the Indian context very differently compared to the developed world. In India, we are still a 97 per cent single TV household market. Therefore, the consumption of television still remains prime. What happens in the digital world or on ZEE5 is that we get consumption in individual capacity which is private consumption. We don’t have enough penetration of alternate screens like PCs or laptops that you see around the world which can replace television,” he states.

“In India, the second screen is usually a mobile phone. You can never replace the TV experience on the phone. Therefore, the consumption of ZEE5 while at home will be replacing television for all people who are either not TV consumers or have moved out of television because of the sheer kind of content. I look at ZEE5 or digital content consumption as an incremental consumption of content. It is not TV versus digital,” he further opines.

ZEE5’s advertising revenue has been impacted in the second quarter of the calendar year as well due to the unprecedented situation as it largely depends on television content. But like the linear business, Goenka is confident that ZEE5 will see a resurgence in advertising from the second or third quarter onwards as it comes out of the Covid2019 situation.

“The biggest thing I had said as a part of the agenda last year was to take ZEE5 ahead and build ZEE5. I put a five-year horizon where it could be as much as 30 per cent of the total business of the company. The business of the company is growing at healthy 12-13 per cent on a CAGR over five year period. That would mean, even on today’s context, ZEE5 revenue could potentially go up by 4x or 5x in the next four years,” Goenka puts it as.