BY TAFADZWA KACHIKO
ZEE Africa and Asia Pacific chief executive officer Harish Goyal early this week expressed Zee World’s commitment to providing exciting and innovative content, adding they would subsequently rope in local actors for future productions.
Goyal was speaking in Harare at the inaugural content upfront dinner for the world’s first Bollywood English Channel available in 48 African countries, the Zee World.
“Mehek presents an important and evolutionary part of Zee World’s commitment to providing relevant, exciting and innovative content to its viewers. Zee is proud of its production and of our African actors,” he said.
“We are really excited about wide acceptance and appreciation of our programmes here in Zimbabwe. We are constantly improving our content to keep our viewers happy with new programmes from the best of Bollywood. You never know, a Zimbabwean star is going to appear on screen in future. Look at opportunities, look at the gap, we have a lot more we can do in Zimbabwe.”
Zee World, which was launched by Zee Entertainment enterprises in 2015, has since premiered the first series, Mehek, that introduces African actors like Shonisani Musutha who plays Nora, Kamogelo Mogale as Dennis, Ndaba ka Ngwane as Eddie Gabela, and Nomava Kibare as Leleti.
Business head for Zee Africa, Ratna Siriah, said the decision to include African actors emanated from Zee World’s remarkable growth in African viewership.
“The decision to develop a Bollywood production with African actors stemmed from Zee World’s unequivocal success in Africa and the love showered by our audiences for the channel. Zee World has enjoyed tremendous growth throughout the years and Mehek was the obvious next step,” she said.
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Siriah said the channel was for mainstream African people and catered for those that did not understand Hindi.
“A lot of the time people don’t read subtitles because it is too much work. It’s the safe channel for children too because it doesn’t have sex, violence or abusive language.”
Sariah said Zee Entertainment had a show with Nigerian actors, storyline and it’s being produced there.
Before the content, upfront dinner Zee TV Africa met with potential advertisers and advertising agencies to engage them on how they could flight adverts on Zee World.
Zee World is available on DStv Channel 166.
