Evening television viewing in the vernacular is set to get a more differentiated offering with the launch of another Bengali GEC from the Zee stable on Sunday, with focus on the male audience and smaller towns. Samrat Ghosh, chief cluster officer — east, north and premium cluster, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, shares the company’s plans for Zee BanglaSonar, its second GEC offering in Bengali after Zee Bangla.
What is the need for a second Bengali entertainment channel from your stable?
The Bengali television space is attributed mainly to three categories — GEC (general entertainment channel), news and movies. In Bengal, the categories put together contribute to 63 per cent of the market. Out of this, 43 per cent is attributed to Bengali GEC. That is why we are keen to launch a second GEC, in the form of Zee BanglaSonar. Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world with a population of nearly 10 crore in West Bengal. If we add Bangladesh, that’s another 17 crore. Then there are the neighbouring states of Assam, with over 30 per cent, and Tripura with over 68 per cent Bangla speakers.
Television penetration in Bengal is under-indexed. At 66 per cent, it is less than the national average of 71 per cent. In Tamil Nadu, television penetration is 99 per cent. So, for us, there is headroom to grow. Television has always been an aspirational medium because it caters to the entertainment needs of the entire family, unlike OTT, which is individualistic in nature. More than 60 per cent OTT consumption happens on handheld devices. If you look at rural markets, they gather at a place where a TV set is on for community viewing.
There is a robust growth story being witnessed in Indian villages, and West Bengal is no different. However, in the television space there is a rural-urban divide, which stands at 47:53. This means there is still an under-served population which is yet to see its stories being told on screen. We are missing out on those audiences.
How is the viewership pie divided in the Bengali GEC market?
The Bengali GEC market has always functioned as a duopoly. The top two players, Zee Bangla and Star Jalsha, together account for 85 per cent of the viewership in the Bengali GEC space. In India, 98 per cent homes are still single-television homes. In Bengal, consumer loyalty and inertia are very high. If they like something, they stick to the brand. The two top players are at 500-plus GRP (gross rating points) while the third player is at sub-50. So there is space for a strong third player in the market. So we planned for Zee BanglaSonar.
Will this new channel not eat into the viewership of Zee Bangla?
The launch is aimed to complement Zee Bangla, which has a legacy of 25 years. It will continue with the shows which cater to housewives aged 25-plus, particularly in urban areas. This new channel will experiment in format innovation, new ways of story-telling and we are looking at primarily 30-plus male audiences, though we are not alienating women. The channel will focus on people from smaller towns, tier 2 and tier 3 cities, whose stories have not been told on television so far and who are therefore finding it a bit less relevant to watch TV. The two channels together will help us consolidate our leadership portfolio.
What kind of programming have you planned?
When we say this new channel should complement Zee Bangla we have to ensure that it should not cannibalise Zee Bangla. This new channel should help the category grow. The new channel should not fight it out with the existing channels for the same viewership. We want to attract viewers who are not coming to television or spending less time for lack of relevant content in the current GEC space. Today, Bengali television is at 1200 GRP. We want it to grow to maybe 1500 GRP in the course of time.
Is that a hypothetical figure?
Three years ago, Bengali television was hovering around that 1500 GRP figure.
Perhaps that was an after-effect of lockdown when people used to consume more television.
That is possible. Where did that audience go? It means there is that potential. If there is a dip in viewership, it means there was an audience who are not watching TV anymore or as much. How do we bring them back? It will not happen through the existing content offering from Zee Bangla or Star Jalsha. It will require differentiated content. Take our new show, Shriman Bhagaban Das, with Biswanath Basu…
The name itself is different as your Zee Bangla shows are named after women.
When we design content for Zee Bangla, we think of middle-class women. We create a female character and deal with their goals, their aspirations, their financial security… Here we are looking through a male lens. Bhagaban Das works as a hosiery company salesman. He is based in the suburbs. We are also bringing a show (SIT Bengal) to cater to the audience that likes action. Rishi Kaushik is playing the lead as a cop with his team. We are trying to build a cop universe. The story will be a balance of his work life and his family life, where a super cop also has to attend to crises at home, like missing a parent-teacher meeting at his son’s school. He is cracking cases outside but hearing a mouthful from his wife. In non-fiction, we have a legacy of Dadagiri, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa…. Here, too, we are offering a musical show called Sonar Jalshaghar. The format will be different from Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. Any singing reality show has singers at the forefront. The musicians garnish their performance but stay at the background. This show is for children under 15. And they will compete as a duo of a singer and an instrumentalist. Equal prominence will be given to both gayen and bayen. Pandit Tanmoy Bose will be our guru, Aneek Dhar will be the host. We have created the concept of five didis, who will mentor the children, like June Banerjee and former Zee Bangla Sa Re Ga Ma Pa contestants Aditi Munshi, Mekhla, Poushali and Chandrima. There will be three pillars of judgment. One is Tanmoy da and the five didis. In every episode, there will be celebrity singers and in-studio voting. The combined score of the three layers is what the contestant will get.
Will the serials on this new channel be finite, unlike those on Zee Bangla?
We envision the life cycle for a show depending on the story. In some shows, like Rani Rashmoni, initially, we knew only of her Dakshineswar temple. After the research, we realised there is so much to show. From Day 1, we knew it would run for over a year. It did so for four years. Again, another super hit show, Trinayani, we thought would run for a year, and it ran for a year and half. Sriman Bhagaban Das has been envisioned to run for a year while SIT Bengal can have seasons, like Goenda Ginni (starring Indrani Halder).
Are you doing away with Zee Bangla Cinema as it was not doing well?
The FPC of Zee BanglaSonar will be on the back of movies. Movie consumption does very well among male consumers. While Zee Bangla Cinema showed 100 per cent movies, we will show 70 per cent movies on this new channel. The other 30 per cent, the time band of 7pm to 10pm to start with, will have serials and non-fiction. Over the period of time, our library has over 800 titles — Bohurupi, Dostoji, among new films. We have two films coming up under the banner of Zee Bangla Cinema Originals — Tejpata with Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Ishaa Saha, and Debi with Anjana Basu and Ranieeta Dash. They will release in theatres and then come on this channel.
Will these shows come simultaneously on OTT?
We have both an OTT platform in Zee5 and two TV channels. In India, the television audience is still double that of OTT. We are trying to win the hearts of audiences who are now scattered. We want to reach them with good content. At the end of the day, the platform will not matter.
