Those in fray for the accounts include Rediff DY&R, FCB Ulka, Lowe, Contract and Leo Burnett. According to advertising industry sources, various agencies, including existing ones, made presentations yesterday for the accounts up for grabs at Zee's office in Mumbai. Efforts made to elicit a response from Zee Telefilms proved futile.

Though the official budget is not known, but industry sources indicated that Zee's account, collectively, is one of the largest accounts in the media world. It is also estimated that the total account would be approximately Rs. 400 million.

At present, Rediff DY&R, along with Contract and other medium sized agencies handle Zee's creatives. Rediff's PR division also used to handle Zee TV's publicity, which it had bagged during the time Sandeep Goyal was the group broadcasting CEO. Earlier this year the PR contract came to an end and was not renewed.

Zee News recently signed on Leo Burnett as its creative agency, which was behind splashing a new look across Zee News logo and channel promotion with the tag `Hakikat Jaise, Khabar Waise'. The ad pitches are being made as Zee, led by the flagship channel Zee TV, has lined up various programming and marketing initiatives that kick off with the festive season in October.

One of the marketing and communication initiatives also include coming out with a new-look FPC (fixed point chart) for the main Zee channels, excluding the Alpha regional channels and the third-party ones like Trendz.

The FPC chart that now comes, beginning October, in the form of a magazine not only has the timings of various programmes, but highlights and pictures from serials and movies to make the experience of rummaging through pages more pleasant.