The Business Head of Essel Vision Production Ltd (EVPL) Akash Chawla has spoken exclusively with Vijay Viswanath Founder, of tvnews4u.com on the back drop of EVPL’s entry in to the South market with their maiden fiction show “Thirumangalyam” being produced for the Zee Group’s Tamil GEC “Zee Tamizh” which went on air on 10th November 2014. During the following detailed l-chat he has briefed us about EVPL’s plans for South Regional language Market:
1) Could you give us an insight on EVPL as an Organization?
Essel Vision is a creative and production studio, owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL), which produces quality and cost effective television content exclusive for Zee Group of Channels in multiple languages. We have created successful programs like ‘Fear Files’, ‘Dance India Dance’ and ‘India’s Best Dramebaaz’, ‘Saregama’, ‘DID L’il Masters’, ‘DID Super Moms’ on Hindi TV, and ‘Eka Peksha Ek’ and ‘Fu Bai Fu’ on Marathi TV. We have also been producing and distributing Hindi and Marathi movies. The company has made films like ‘Gadar’,’D-Day’, ‘Gulaal’, ‘Natrang’, ‘Kaaksparsh’, ‘Lunch Box’ etc. Our upcoming feature films include ‘Mad About Dance’, promoted by Shah Rukh Khan, and ‘3AM’ (a horror film)
2) EVPL is entering south television market for the first time, Could you brief us your plans for South Indian Market in terms of content offering.?
After our successful entry in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali market, we are happy to explore south regional entertainment space (Tamil, Telugu and Kannada). We started our South operations in Chennai and began making content for Tamil GEC-Zee Tamizh. In the coming days, we are looking to explore other markets like Telugu and Kannada as well.
3) Can you give us an insight of your maiden project in South?
The new fiction daily soap “Thirumangalyam” marks our entry into the Tamil entertainment space. This show is only the first amongst several other properties on TV and films that we have planned to bring to the audiences of South Market.. The show is being aired on “Zee Tamizh” prime time from 10th November, every Monday to Friday, at 7:30PM.
The story revolves around the journey of the lead protagonist, who is the daughter of the Asst. Commissioner of Police. Having witnessed a lot of trauma, she decides not to marry a cop in her entire life. But destiny clearly has other plans for her, as she falls in love with an ordinary constable. The show is already receiving good reviews from various corners and we wish to position it as one among the best performing programs of Zee Tamizh.
4) EVPL is into Feature Films Business in Hindi and Marathi, Do you have Plans of Venturing into Feature Films In South India?
Having produced movies in regional languages like Marathi and Bengali, we do have plans of venturing into South Indian Film Industry. South Indian film market is the next biggest space after Bollywood and it naturally becomes our next option and we will be announcing few other projects sooner.
5) Zee TV has plenty of successful scripts in Hindi, Will you be having a free hand to remake those scripts in Regional languages.
EVPL always believes in the concept of ‘Cross Pollination’, as India has Cultural similarities on family values and human emotions, this common factor always support the concept of remake of a successful script from one language to the other. So, we always think of utilizing a successful script in multiple languages. Having said that, it need not be always from Hindi to other languages. It can be a regional langue to Hindi as well.
EVPL being a part of Zee Group will always enjoys freehand on remaking such successful scripts of Zee Group channels, however, we will decide on such remakes purely based on the needs and necessity of the Programming department of the respective Zee Group channels.
6) Where would you see EVPL in South down the line in 3 year?
EVPL wishes to be a reasonable player in South entertainment business down the line. In Television side, I wish to have ourselves fully expanded in all South markets (Tamil, Telugu and Kannada) with a handful of successful properties in our kitty, both fiction and nonfiction arena. On the film business side, we will be making our foot print in production and distribution of films in all major south languages.
EVPL wishes to work in all the regional languages and looking to associate with many local talents to make plenty of successful projects in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada market. We wish to grow with the growth of Zee Group channel in respective markets with immense contribution in providing best quality content in cost effective manner.
7) What kind of content offering EVPL is looking to specialize in South..?
EVPL is specialised in both Fiction and Non Fiction content. We are creating many fiction shows in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali market. Similarly, we are producing all leading talent and reality shows for Zee TV. Hence, we wish to bring all those successful formats of Hindi to regional channels also. Moreover, We also openly welcome new scripts for fiction shows and unique formats for nonfiction shows from local individual talents.
Similarly, We at EVPL willing to study the market in South and open to adopt any new path breaking formats and concepts that might emerge from talents in this market.
8) EVPL being a group Company of Zee Channels, will there be a threat for incumbent Producers due to prioritization…?
EVPL being a production arm of Zee Group, we will be working exclusively with Zee Channels only. However, as far as pitching the projects from the Zee Group channels are concerned, we need to follow the same rule of any other production house and assigning of projects to EVPL will be purely based on the discretion of the programming department of the respective group channel.
For instance, even though, we are working with channels like Zee TV, Zee Marathi and Zee Bangla. all these channels work with other leading private production houses also and we have to compete with them to keep ourselves in better positions. So, EVPL’s entry in a market shouldn’t be perceived as a threat to others, the concept of mutual co-existence will always prevail to keep a healthy competition among each other production houses.
9) South regional television markets are considered as much small industry in terms of production budgets, what kind of Top-line are you looking to achieve from South Productions..?
The principle of EVPL is to deliver the best possible content to our group channels. Apart from this principle I do have certain objectives, Primarily as a group entity we need to grow with the growth of our group channel by extending our best creative and production support. Secondly, Less margin also means lesser growth, so initially we wish to deliver quality content without much stress on the margins to support the channel to grow and we wish to harvest the benefit of growing together at later stage.
10) Could you brief us on your core talent team in South..?
We have roped in Prashanth Jadhav as our Creative person for “Thirumangalyam”, in fact he is the one who is writing story and screenplay for this fresh concept. He has a very strong exposure in South market, as he had worked in more than 50 successful projects across the South languages.
EVPL is a company that has always encouraged many fresh talents in our projects and we wish to work with more new talents in this market based on the increase in the no. of projects and our expansion to other language markets.
Akash Chawla was associated with Zee Media since the year 2005 and he worked at various functional levels and he was moved to the Essel Vision as Business Head during the month of August. Prior to that he played important role in launch of Zee Group’s channels like & Pictures, Zindagi and Free to Air channel Zee Anmol. He has more than 15 years of experience in various functions of Media. Before joining Zee, he was working for TAM.
