GECs
Discussions on about Nayak’s exit terms
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: Star India and its executive vice-president sales and marketing, LS ‘Raj’ Nayak, are still grappling with the issue of making the latter’s exit from the company as amicable as possible. The next 48 hours will decide whether any of the parties concerned will knock on the doors of the court or not.
Industry sources told indiantelevision.com that several rounds of talks have been held between Nayak and the top honchos of Star India (read chief executive Peter Mukerjea). A few more rounds are scheduled over the next two days to hammer out a solution.
But one thing seems certain: after having spent over nine years in Star’s Indian operations, Nayak wants to test the waters solo.
When contacted today, a spokesperson for Star India said: “We have no comment to offer. It is something between an employee and the employer and is a private affair.”
Still, industry sources said L’affair Nayak may be tricky and has the potential of throwing up many twists and turns before coming to an end, a la one of the Star Plus soaps that Nayak has been aggressively selling to advertisers.
The grey areas emerge from the fact that Nayak, as other senior executives of Star India, including Mukerjea, had signed a three-year contract with Star early last year. Nayak’s imminent departure from Star now, almost 18 months before the contract comes to an end, may have legal implications.
A legal expert in Delhi, being posed this question, said even though she is not aware of the details of the contract, but on the face of it, the employer (that is Star India) can take legal recourse if the employee (Nayak) is adamant on leaving the company much before the contract signed between them expires.
The flip side, the legal expert pointed out, is that it is highly unlikely to assume that a contract will not have exit clauses for the employee too. This means that it is unusual for a contract to be signed, which possibly states that an employer can fire an employee, but the latter cannot quit the company before the expiry of the contract period, the expert explained.
It is probably this scenario that both Star and Nayak are trying to avoid. What does the contract, signed between Nayak and Star, state is not known to indiantelevision.com. And nobody is holding forth on the details either.
GECs
Zee scales syndication with global tie-ups, 350 plus channel MCN
Vertical, dubbed and audio formats boost digital reach
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is giving its content library a fresh passport. The company has stepped up its syndication push, signing global partnerships, experimenting with new-age formats and building a multi-channel network that now spans more than 350 channels.
With the newly secured MCN licence, Zee can manage, distribute and monetise content across leading digital platforms at scale, strengthening its presence in the fast-growing creator and short-form ecosystem.
To keep pace with changing viewing habits, the company is also reshaping its content into formats built for the small screen in your hand. In a tie-up with micro-drama platform Story TV, select titles are being reworked into vertical, short-duration episodes tailored for mobile-first audiences.
Beyond India, the syndication team is widening its global footprint with foreign-language dubbing and regional partnerships across Europe, Africa and Latin America, opening up fresh markets for Indian stories.
Zee is also tapping into the audio boom. It has begun licensing audio remake rights for legacy properties such as Zee Horror Show, with several more titles lined up for audio-first adaptations.
On the digital front, the company has made progress in monetising non-exclusive rights for library films, while converting select shows and movies from horizontal to vertical formats to improve discoverability on short-form platforms.
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. business head syndication Vinod Johri, said syndication has emerged as a strong growth lever for the company. He noted that the combination of a large MCN network, global partnerships and new formats such as vertical video and audio is helping build a future-ready engine that extracts more value from the content library.
Together, these moves signal a platform-agnostic approach to storytelling, as Zee repackages, localises and redistributes its IP across geographies, formats and screens, ensuring its catalogue keeps working long after the first broadcast.
