GECs
Ashish Redij joining UTV as GM TV content
MUMBAI: The announcements made around the management restructuring at United Television had left out one name. Ashish Redij, currently with Sahara TV, is joining the Ronnie Screwvala-promoted media company as GM TV content.
UTV had recently announced that while three top management officers had left the company, five top corporate executives were stepping in. Make that six. Redij will be reporting directly to Manish Popat, COO UTV TV content.
Redij, who is presently assistant V-P marketing at Sahara TV, put in his papers on Monday (2 June). Before Sahara, Redij’s last stint in the television business was with Sony Entertainment Television India, which he joined in 1995 as head of research. He was part of the original team that set up SET India under Arun Arora.
Redij left Sony in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom and worked with Pradeep Kar at Microland. He began his career at Mudra in 1989.
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.
