Movie Channels
South Indian films dominate airtime on TV
MUMBAI: With larger-than-life and good stories, the southern movies industry has been spurting to a new high as around 860 hours of the run time of movies have been consumed by the audience on the small screen in the last one year period from November 2018 to October 2019.
The report released by THiNK in association with BARC focuses on the movies released from four southern states of India – Andhra Pradesh/Telangana (Tollywood), Tamil Nadu/Pondicherry (Kollywood), Karnataka (Sandalwood) and Kerala (Mollywood).
The report said that around 43 per cent of movies belonged to the south – Telugu (11 per cent), Tamil (9 per cent), Kannada (6.1 per cent) and Malayalam (5.6 per cent), whereas the dubbed Hindi movies contributed to at least 11 per cent.
Meanwhile, the report also mentioned that the movies originating from south clocked at least 135 billion hours of viewing minutes annually, which is 2.6 billion hours per week on average. And, 26000 unique movies were broadcasted over 279 channels across 16 languages last year, the report added.
The report quotes that the overall movies clocked 17 per cent of airtime out of 4.9 millions of programming hours on television annually, in which the south languages have taken the larger share from the overall air time in terms of movie that contributed 23 per cent.
Contribution of movies to total viewership on television is around 30 per cent from 17 per cent of airtime, and alone south languages movies contribute to 42 per cent viewership from 23 per cent airtime, also added the report.
With one third viewership of movies, it is a winning content on television as it is positively indexed over airtime and this index is higher for some languages vis-à-vis others given the differing nature of television viewing and content preference across audiences and geographies.
Meanwhile, the report also suggests the reasons how viewership is southern India is different from others. It said: “Average daily tune-ins in each of the southern states are higher than the national average; number of channels showing movies are higher than in other regional languages.”
Similarly, “Regional language viewership share is highest in the southern states; and almost half of total unique titles (12429 out of 26143) aired are from the four south languages,” the report also said.
Apparently, out of the total 193 channels that telecast movies on television, more than half (104) belong to the four South languages; the major share came from Tamil and Telugu movies.
When comparing the per capita movie consumption across movies of different languages, southern languages topped the list with each of the four clocking more than 200 hours per capita per annum (PCPA). In which, Telugu was highest at 415 hours, which roughly translated into 2- 3 movies weekly per person in the universe, on an average, followed by Tamil at 293 hours.
Movie Channels
Zee5 launches five free FAST channels on Samsung TV Plus India
New genre-led channels bring comedy, drama, horror, classics and South films to Smart TVs.
MUMBAI: Zee5 just turned Samsung Smart TVs into a free entertainment buffet because when premium content costs nothing, even the remote control starts smiling. Zee5 has launched five curated free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus India, making high-quality, genre-specific entertainment available subscription-free to millions of Samsung Smart TV owners across the country.
The five channels now live are:
Zee Comedy Nation – Popular comedy shows and movies
Zee Dil Se – Compelling drama series
ZEE Horror Nights – Horror and supernatural content
ZEE Cine Classic – Timeless Indian films
ZEE South Flix – High-energy South Indian films dubbed in Hindi
All content is drawn from Zee5’s extensive library and programmed in a lean-back, always-on format ideal for large-screen viewing. This launch strengthens Zee5’s Connected TV strategy at a time when 64 per cent of its premium content watch time already comes from connected devices.
Zee5 chief business officer Siju Prabhakaran said, “At Zee5, we believe accessibility and scale will define the next phase of digital entertainment growth in India. Our presence on Samsung TV Plus strengthens our Connected TV strategy, enabling viewers to discover curated, genre-led content in a seamless, free, and premium environment.”
Samsung TV Plus India head of partnerships Kunal Mehta added, “Local partnerships are at the heart of how we grow Samsung TV Plus in India. Zee Entertainment is one of India’s most iconic media brands, and bringing their channels to our service means millions more Samsung Smart TV owners can enjoy premium local content, subscription-free.”
The channels are available directly through the pre-installed Samsung TV Plus app with no login or subscription required. This marks another milestone in Zee5’s CTV expansion and builds on its growing international presence, with Zee channels already available on Samsung TV Plus across Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
In a streaming world where paywalls often block the fun, Zee5 and Samsung have quietly opened the gates, proving that sometimes the best things in life (and on your TV) really are free especially when they come with a side of comedy, drama, horror, classics and South Indian blockbuster energy.
