GECs
UTV Motion Pictures COO Bhattacharjee resigns
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures has lost a good resource. Its chief operating officer (COO) Sanjay Bhattacharjee will be leaving the organisation after 11 years on 10 May 2003.
While speaking to indiantelevision.com, Bhattacharjee refused to talk about his future plans as well as the reasons for leaving UTV Motion Pictures.
“My association with the motion picture division of UTV has been an eventful journey and one of great pride. Established in 1994, when the organisation had no knowledge of the unorganised Indian film industry, I helped set up the division. Despite being the division with the leanest structure at UTV, we distributed 16 films in the last 30 months, of which 12 films were super hits and one got an Oscar nomination,” says Bhattacharjee.
Bhattacharjee adds that UTV Motion Pictures – an independent company – will account for 30 to 50 per cent of the organisation’s revenues in the forthcoming year.
Looks as if HR consultants are going to hover around Bhattacharjee for some time.
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.
