GECs
Zee Sports test signals on; targets May-end full launch
MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: Cricket or no cricket, the Subhash Chandra promoted Zee Telefilms is ready to play ball and much more with its proposed sports channel.
Zee Sports, which began running test signals from midnight Sunday, is poised for a formal launch May end-July beginning. It would be an encrypted channel beaming off the PAS-10 satellite.
Contacted by Indiantelevision.com, Zee Telefilms executive vice-president Himanshu Modi confirmed the development, saying, “At the moment we are running test signals to check out the technical aspects of broadcasting a channel.”
Asked about the formal launch of Zee Sports, Modi, while admitting that fine-tuning of the project is on, indicated that by early June the sports channel should be on air in its full-fledged avatar, if not earlier in May.
Though the 24-hour sports channel will be encrypted, it is still not clear whether it would be available to cable operators in a free-to-air mode or as a pay channel. The process of seeding the market with boxes would gain momentum in about 10 days time. In the initial phase, the bigger and more urban-centric cities would be targeted through cable networks and Dish TV’s DTH service.
As far as programming is concerned, Zee Sports — whose executives these days are huddled in a series of meetings in Delhi discussing various aspects of launching a sports channel — is aiming to showcase hot sporting properties from the fields of soccer, motor sports and tennis.
As far as available properties in these three areas are concerned, however, there is very little to go around as of now, information available with indiantelevision.com indicates. In soccer, there are the Dutch, French and Indian football leagues; in motor sports there is the A1 series and in tennis are the Tennis Masters, ATP and WTA events.
There are two high value properties that will reportedly become available for bidding in the course of this year though. These are Champions League soccer and Formula One (F1) in motor sports. Both of these A-list events are currently with ESPN Star Sports.
F1 becomes available from November while ESS’ deal on Champions League runs till the finals of this year’s tournament, which is to be played in Istanbul, Turkey, on 25 May. But what needs noting here is that even if Zee Sports were to make a strong play for these two properties, it would only be in the 2006 season that it could look to showcase the events.
Cricket would have been a natural choice to drive a sports channel in India, but most cricketing properties Indian sub-continent rights have already been snapped up by existing major sports broadcasters like ESPN Star Sports, Sony Entertainment Television India and Ten Sports. In recent times, home series have been telecast on pubcaster Doordarshan owing to continuing telecast imbroglio and pending court cases.
Earlier talking to Indiantelevision.com, Chandra had said that the sports channel would require a working capital of approximately Rs 2 billion. There were also talks of forming a joint venture with an Indian media company for the purpose.
Time Warner, which has an existing 26:74 per cent distribution joint venture with Zee Telefilms, had also expressed willingness to partner in the sports channel venture last year. Zee is understood to have kept the proposal under active consideration.
GECs
EPIC Company unifies all brands under single EPIC identity
IN10 Media rebrand aligns TV, digital and films into one ecosystem
MUMBAI: The EPIC Company, formerly known as IN10 Media Network, has announced a sweeping brand consolidation, bringing its television channels, digital platforms and content IPs under a single identity, EPIC.
The move is aimed at simplifying the company’s structure while creating a more connected content ecosystem spanning television, digital and films. By aligning multiple verticals under one umbrella, the company is looking to present a sharper, more cohesive face to both audiences and partners.
As part of the transition, several channels have been rebranded to align with the EPIC identity. EPIC will now operate as EPIC TV, while Nazara becomes EPIC Bharat, Filamchi is now EPIC Bhojpuri, Gubbare transitions to EPIC Kids, and ShowBox is reintroduced as EPIC Music. Ishara will continue under the identity EPIC Parivaar, maintaining its core positioning.
The company has also refreshed EPICON, its streaming platform, to reflect a more unified and modern brand experience. The overhaul is designed to improve content discovery and create a seamless experience across platforms.
This consolidation follows the recent launch of EPIC Studio, a unified production arm that brings together Juggernaut Productions and MovieVerse Studio, as the company expands its footprint across films, OTT and television.
The EPIC Company managing director Aditya Pittie said, “As our scale has grown, it has become important to simplify how we operate and how we present ourselves to the ecosystem. This consolidation gives us a clearer, more future-ready structure to partner, invest, and build at scale, while ensuring that for viewers, the experience is more seamless and intuitive.”
With the rebrand, The EPIC Company is positioning itself as a platform-agnostic content network, focused on scale, simplicity and integrated storytelling. By bringing everything under one banner, it is aiming to make its content universe easier to navigate and harder to ignore.
