India’s popular online video streaming platform ZEE5 that is owned by Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) has expanded its services to 190 countries all across the globe. With this, the company has become the first Indian entertainment company to take its over-the-top (OTT) video service.
As of now, only Netflix and Amazon Prime Video were the only platforms that were global but now Indian platforms are also gearing up for global presence. The launch coincided with ZEE completing 26 years of operations on October 2.
“Since the time we launched ZEE5 in India earlier this year, our global viewers, as well as platform partners, have been asking us when we are going to launch globally. As our channels already reach across 72 countries outside India, we knew that a piecemeal approach is not going to work. So, on our 26th anniversary we opened up 190 countries,” Amit Goenka, CEO – ZEE International and Z5 Global stated.
As a part of this move, ZEE5 has been made available across the web, Android and iOS platforms. The company has also claimed that in a few weeks, they will probably launch the service across connected devices such as smart TVs, Amazon FireTV stick, and Apple TV.
Not following the unified pricing model across the world, ZEE5 will adopt different strategies for different markets. The service will be available as a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) for developed markets such as US and UK. On the other hand, in a few markets of the Middle East and North Africa, there will be a freemium model.
“For the premium content, ranging on market’s paying capacity, we have kept subscription between $2 and 10. For some markets, we have kept 100,000 hours of library and ZEE content as ad-supported and a small subscription fee for originals and premium movies,” said Goenka.
Currently, ZEE5 will offer multi-genre content including news and entertainment in languages like English, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Gujarati and Punjabi. It will also have English subtitles and live TV offering, along with the video-on-demand content.