Unveiling the Living brand offerings in Mumbai on Thursday, Dr Chandra termed the new initiative as a 2.0 version in terms of media business of Essel Group.
Dr Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group has set a target of making ‘Living’ — its newest offering to the Indian television industry — a Rs 1,000 crore topline company in the next five years.
The group’s new initiative —christened Living Entertainment — will make a big splash by launching new channels under the ‘Living’ banner that will focus on factual and cognitive content appealing to the global audience. Living Entertainment in India will be an extension of the Living network belonging to the Essel Group, which exists in the international markets.
Unveiling the Living brand offerings in Mumbai on Thursday, Dr Chandra termed the new initiative as a 2.0 version in terms of media business of Essel Group.
“We are the first Asian-Indian company to venture into this space of factual or cognitive content that is dominated by international players at the moment. The first channel to hit the television screens will be ‘Living Foodz’ that will focus on food and lifestyle. Z Living, our existing offering for the US market will be the next to launch, followed by three new properties called ‘Living Travelz’, ‘Living Rootz’ and ‘Living Homez’. The programming across these channels will be such that it appeals to a global audience,” he said, adding that everything that the group will do going forward will be done keeping the global audience in mind.
On the size of viewership for lifestyle, cognitive or reality television globally, Dr Chandra said it was about 12% to 13% of the total television viewership. “However, revenue-wise this category is over 18% to 20% (Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh crore) of the total size of television and film entertainment industry pegged at Rs 10 lakh crore,” he said.
The group is projecting revenues of over Rs 100 crore from the new entity in the first year.
“While it will be difficult to say which of the five brands will contribute how much at this stage, as the company that owns ‘Living’ will target to make it a Rs 1,000 crore in five years from now,” said Punit Goenka, managing director and CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.
With ‘Living’ brand, the company intends to make Indian content for global audiences. “This will be for the first time that original content from India will be available to audiences across the globe,” Goenka said.
Launching pan-India on September 11, 2015, Living Foodz will explore the social status of food, moving out of the confines of the conventional kitchen into a world of entertainment and adventure with food. The new channel will be available across DTH providers like Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel, Videocon and all other leading cable networks in Hindi and English feed. Accordingly, Zee’s existing food channel Zee Khana Khazana will cease operations from September 10, 2015.
Goenka said a budget of Rs 15 crore has been earmarked for the launch of Living Foodz channel in India. “The channel will become profitable in the first year of operations,” he said.
Piyush Sharma, CEO, Zee Living – India APAC, said the company plans to beam Living Foodz in at least 45 countries within the first year of launching the channel in India.
Some of the prime-time shows on Living Foodz include ‘Food Xpress: Rocky and Mayur’, ‘Chef on Wheels’, ‘Vickypedia’, ‘The Great Indian Rasoi’, ‘Pickle Nation’, ‘Good Food America’ and ‘Peggy’s Kitchen Cures’.
And keeping the advent of digital media in mind, Living Foodz will adopt the multi-platform programming strategy wherein content will be made available across online and mobile platforms for consumption. A web address is in the making and will be launched in a couple of months from now followed by a mobile application that will hit the market in six months.
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