Zee’s South African channel to promote local content in local language

Johannesburg: After capturing the imagination of South African viewers with Indian content dubbed in Zulu, the Zee Zonke now plans to go for stories that are “made here by the locals for the locals,” according to a senior executive of the channel.

Zee Zonke, which translates as ‘Zee for All’ in isiZulu, is a channel started by Indian telecaster Zee Limited in South Africa to cater to the majority isiZulu-speaking community.

The channel, which completes one year this month, had already achieved the highest ranking among the scores of pay-tv channels in the country in the first seven to eight months; the only TV channels with higher viewership being those of the national public broadcaster and commercial broadcaster e-tv, both carrying free-to-air channels.

Almost 27.5 million people out of the 62 million population of South Africa speak or understand the isiZulu language. “Nobody else had ever taken the risk of launching an exclusive isiZulu channel ...We took the plunge, and the rest is history,” Somnath Malakar, CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Sub-Saharan Africa & Indian Ocean Islands), told PTI.

Explaining the mix of content on the channel, he said, Zee had a lot of content available in almost all Indian regional languages and they could be dubbed into isiZulu.

“Not only did we want to bring more stories from India and to be told in a language that people converse in their lounges, but we also want to pick up stories that are made here by the locals for the locals,” Malakar said.

ZeeZonkeAfrica’s social media channels are full of familiar Indian television faces of long-running popular serials in multiple languages. Zee already has a lot of content available in almost all Indian regional languages and that is easily dubbed into isiZulu.