Zee launches ZeeQ: an edutainment channel for children

Zee announced the launch of its 32nd channel: ‘Zee Q’ for children in the 4 to 14 years age group. The 24-hour channel will be available on leading DTH and digital cable platforms as a paid channel and will air in India. The channel will be operated in association with Zee Learn Ltd., Zee’s education division that runs pre-schools and K-12 schools across the country.

Zee has invested around Rs. 100 crores for the channel with a large percentage marked off for content creation and marketing the channel across platforms. The marketing efforts will be concentrated on the 38 cities that will be digitised in the next phase of digitisation.

The programming line up comprises of an equal proportion of internationally acquired shows dubbed in Hindi and locally produced shows in Hinglish. The local shows will target kids in the 8 to 14 years segment and will be in the participative format where kids across schools can participate. The bilingual channel will have 70 per cent Hindi and 30 per cent English content.

ZeeQ claims to be different from other existing children's channels because it offers a combination of entertainment and education programming. Further, it claims that academicians and experts in early childhood development have validated every show that it has acquired.

On the marketing strategies of the channel, Subhadarshi Tripathi, business head, ZeeQ, said, “We have a huge brick and mortar structure across the country in 330 cities; we have half a million kids of our own, 1000 pre-schools and 400 schools to whom we provide educational solutions. That is our primary target to whom we will market our channel.  We are targeting parents across all digital platforms; for example, if we are on Tata Sky, we would like to inform the parents of our presence on Tata Sky by showing our content.. There will be on ground activities that will involve both parents and kids. We will push the channel in the online space as well through our portal. “