Zee Telugu
Encyclopedia
Zee Telugu is a Telugu-language
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

 cable television channel in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is offered by Zee Network
Zee Network
The Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is the largest Indian media and entertainment company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a subsidiary of the Essel Group...

, part of the Essel Group
Essel Group
Essel Group is a media conglomerate company headed by Subhash Chandra based in Mumbai, Maharashtra .The companies under the group are:*Media** Zee Entertainment Enterprises** Zee News** DNA *Technology** Dish TV...

.

By 2004, the Zee Network already had a strong presence in northern and eastern India, with channels in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

, Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...

, Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

, and Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...

; their proposed Telugu-language channel marked their first venture into the southern India entertainment market. In June 2004, they expected the channel to launch by August. Their actual launch finally arrived in September. They initially featured a large amount of American films
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 dubbed into Telugu; in August 2005, they also dubbed popular Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 film Sholay
Sholay
Sholay is a 1975 Indian action-adventure film produced by G.P. Sippy and directed by his son Ramesh Sippy. It is considered among the greatest films in the history of Indian cinema. Released on 15 August 1975, it stars Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri and...

from Hindi into Telugu as an experiment.

By December 2005, despite having some popular programmes such as game show Gold Rush, hosted by popular female anchor Udayabhanu, as well as soap opera Nishabdam, overall Zee Telugu had only achieved a 1.24% weekday and 1.86% weekend market share in Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

. As a result, they re-launched themselves in order to shift their target market segment from mass market to that of upwardly mobile young professionals. They suffered a loss of Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....

 460 million in fiscal year 2005.

In late 2006, Zee Telugu began work on Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa, a Telugu-language singing competition. Anchored by Nandi Award
Nandi Awards
The Nandi Awards is the most Prominent award ceremony for Telugu films, Telugu Theater & Television, presented annually in Andhra Pradesh, India. "Nandi" means "bull", the awards being named after the big granite bull at Lepakshi — a cultural and historical symbol of Andhra Pradesh.Nandi...

 winner Suneetha, the judges panel included renowned Telugu music figures Koti and Ramana Gogula
Ramana Gogula
Ramana Kumar Gogula is a music director in Telugu films. He formed his own rock-and-roll band in Vizag at the age of 17. Since then, he has traveled around the world as a software professional and music director. His most famous albums are the musical scores to the movies Thammudu,adavilo anna,...

, and was scheduled to run for 35 episodes. The show was so successful that by February 2007, they announced plans to launch Little Champs, a version of the show aimed at the ages six to thirteen market, hosted by former Indian Idol
Indian Idol
Indian Idol is an adaptation of the Pop Idol format. It started airing in India with the first season in 2004-2005 and followed that with second , third and fourth seasons...

runner up N. C. Karunya.

Additionally, Mee Inti Vanta, a cookery show has also ran successfully for more than 1000 episodes. It is hosted by the famous anchor Sumalatha. This program was a huge hit with the women audience and had grabbed the market share in the afternoon slot. Eventually all the other channels started their own cookery shows.

Another program introduced recently was Sreekaram Subhakaram. It's an astrology based program with astrologer Vakkantham Chandramouli and popular anchor Sumalatha. This is a live program and the many other channels are trying to follow suit.

In September 2007, the channel announced after months of deliberations that Sanjay Reddy would be their new chief executive officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

, succeeding Ajay Kumar
Ajay Kumar
Ajay Kumar, a former Indian Police Service officer, was elected as the new MP to the 15th Lok Sabha, from the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha constituency, for Jharkhand Vikas Morcha party, during the 2011 Jamshedpur by-elections. The by-election was held on 1 July 2011, and the result for the same was...

, who had left several months previously. Reddy had previously worked at The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

 and Pearl Media. Reddy's plan in 2008 includes new soaps and children's programming.

External links

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