Zee's metaverse centre gets new talent - Boost for novel content

Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE), which is behind the popular streaming platform Zee5, unveiled last May its Technology and Innovation Centre at Bengaluru to build the metaverse network for the company with the help of AR, VR and NFT led delivery models. 

And yesterday, Zee onboarded more than 100 campus graduates from top tech institutes to its Technology and Innovation Centre.

The company, in a statement said, the Metaverse Induction was conducted by leveraging the Technology and Innovation Centre’s state of the art infrastructure and cutting-edge technology solutions: thereby offering an immersive mixed reality experience to the fresh recruits.

Zee's plans in metaverse

Amit Goenka, President – Digital Businesses & Platforms, Zee said, "we aim to provide intuitive experiences across all aspects of an individual’s consumption, creation and transactional journey, and the first-ever metaverse induction program at Zee, will not only help enhance our employee experience by boosting innovation and productivity, but also our consumer experience by several notches." 

Nitin Mittal, President – Technology & Data, Zee said, "our focus now remains on building capability for Zee by leveraging technology to provide our consumers with extraordinary entertainment experiences." Zee said it aims to enhance and widen its digital footprint, as it continues to cater to the global community.

Zee calls its metaverse as 'Zeeverse', and will be started from this center in about 6 months. The company said here will be many types of NFTs in Zeeverse. Viewers will also be able to meet their favourite and big stars through Zeeverse, and will change the way media and entertainment are consumed. 

Zeeverse will also have a part to play in the content creation and dissemination for Zee5. In May, Zee5 showcased its content slate for 2022 with over 80 titles spanning across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, and Bengali. It includes over 40 original shows  and over 40 movies across genres. In June, Zee5 unveiled a big slate of content in Telugu, and it included 11 original series.

Zee said that in recent years it had seen a significant transition in the viewing patterns of Indian audiences, who are now sampling and consuming a diverse range of content on OTT platforms. There is an uptick in South India for its content. Hence it is shifting its focus there. The new centre at Bengaluru is part of that new thinking in the company. 

Zee5 subscription is available for Rs. 599/year. Zee5 says it has over 5 lakh hours of on-demand content and over 160 live TV channels.

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