GECs
“It’s all about Happy Dancing!”, says Shah Rukh Khan
MUMBAI: Having scaled the pinnacle of dancing with Dance India Dance (DID), Zee TV has now launched another talent show ‘Maruti Suzuki Alto K 10 Dil Se Naache Indiawale co-powered by Askmebazaar.com & L’Oreal Paris Fall Repair 3X’, in partnership with Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment & ZEEL’s production arm Essel Vision.
To be hosted by the King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan, the show is positioned as India’s first ever multi-city dance tour in search of the ‘happiest dancer’. Conducted through a joyride on a special ‘Happy Dancing’ bus, the tour will reach Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Indore in the coming days.
Present on the road-shows with the contestants will be the cast of the Happy New Year called the ‘Agents of Happiness’ including Shah Rukh Khan, DeepikaPadukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Farah Khan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani and Vivaan Shah.
The tour will kick off in Mumbai on October 7 and the show will go on air from the first week of the month. Spanning across five weeks, the show selected contestants from each city will compete in a finale to win the title.
Coming up with yet another creative technique for marketing and promotion of his latest flick, King Khan said, “For our film, Happy New Year, we wanted to move away from the conventional format of city tours. This time we wanted to go out there and thank them by entertaining them and giving back the love they always give us. When Zee approached us with the concept of a show that celebrates the sheer happiness of dancing as against selecting the most trained and technically sound dancers, it instantly appealed.”
“The concept also holds well with our film. This will be our unique way of promoting our film in different cities. All of us will be performing and judging in this show. The idea is to spread cheer and happiness wherever we all go!” he added.
The participants on the show will be shortlisted from the ‘Happy Dancing’ videos that dance enthusiasts send in from across the country.
These dancers will then get the opportunity to showcase their acts in front of the star-studded panel. The show will serve the dual purpose of promotion for Happy New Year and festive entertainment for viewers.
Talking about the exclusive show, Zee TV programming head Namit Sharma said, “With Dance India Dance, we celebrated dance as an art form. With ‘Dil Se Naachein Indiawaale’, we celebrate it as a ‘heart’ form. We’re extremely pleased to partner with Shah Rukh in bringing this proposition alive.”
“The core idea behind the show is to look at dance as a means and an outlet to express all the joy, life, spunk and happiness you have within you. We are not looking for trained dancers who’re perfect with their technique, we’re looking for that contestant who can bring a smile on to people’s faces with their happy dancing,” he added.
With the hottest celebrity panel ever on Indian television, an all-new genre of dancing and the first-of-its-kind dance tour with a mission to spread joy and happiness across the country, the show promises to be the biggest entertainment extravaganza this Diwali.
Red Chilies will be returning to television production after almost three years. It has in the past produced shows like ‘Tere Mere Beach Mein’ (on Star Plus), the talk show hosted by director-choreographer Farah Khan, ‘Ye Parindey’ on Channel V, a chat show hosted by the designer duo of Abu Jaani and Sandeep Khosla on NDTV Good Times and ‘Ghar ki Baat’ on NDTV Imagine.
GECs
ZEEL overhauls sales structure to chase growth across TV and digital platforms
New structure sharpens digital push as viewing habits fragment fast
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is reshuffling its sales playbook as it looks to keep pace with a fast-changing media landscape, where audiences are scattered, screens are multiplying and advertisers are following the data.
According to media reports, the rejig is anchored in the company’s push to build a more integrated, data-led monetisation engine, one that can straddle both traditional television and fast-growing digital platforms with equal ease.
At the heart of the move is a reworked sales architecture designed to deliver cross-platform solutions. With connected TV gaining ground and digital consumption surging, ZEEL is aligning its teams to move quicker, think broader and sell smarter.
The restructuring is being led by chief operating officer, advertisement revenue, Sandeep Mehrotra, at a time when the company says it is seeing tremendous growth. The idea is simple: match the right talent to the right opportunity in a market that is anything but static.
As part of the overhaul, several long-serving executives have been elevated to chief sales officer roles across regions and content clusters. Sanjoy Chatterjee will head the east market, while Gunjarav Nayak takes charge of the west along with high-margin verticals such as hmg, brand works, intellectual properties and digital sales. Rajnish Gupta will oversee bengaluru and chennai markets alongside the kannada and tamil clusters.
In other key moves, Divjyot Dhanda will lead hyderabad and kochi markets and manage zee tv, zee keralam and the telugu cluster. Roshan Vasu Kotian will supervise a diverse portfolio including Zee Marathi, &tv, Zee Punjabi, Zee Anmol, Big Magic and Zee Biskope.
The company is also strengthening its bench, appointing national sales heads across retail, regional clusters, digital and brand solutions. Ankur Kapila’s appointment to lead digital sales signals a sharper push into a segment that continues to outpace traditional formats.
Behind the scenes, dedicated strategy and operations roles have been carved out for both linear and digital businesses. Nitin Shetty, Rajkiran Shrivastav and Priya Nambiar will take on key responsibilities to ensure the new structure runs with precision.
The broader aim is clear. ZEEL wants a bigger slice of advertising budgets that are steadily drifting towards digital and connected TV ecosystems. By integrating its offerings, the company hopes to deepen client relationships while unlocking new revenue streams.
The new structure takes effect immediately, with Mehrotra continuing to report to chief executive officer Punit Goenka and steer the company’s advertising revenue strategy. Senior executive Laxmi Shetty will support the transition, with her revised role expected to be announced soon.
In a market where content is everywhere but attention is scarce, ZEEL’s latest move is less about rearranging the org chart and more about staying in the game.
