WatchIndia Adds Three Zee Channels To Its Portfolio
By Nikhil Pahwa - Thu 16 Aug 2007 11:23 PM PST
WatchIndia, a online TV service, has launched three new Zee channels - Zee Cinema, Zee Punjabi and Zee Gujarati. The release claims that the service had over 1 lakh unique visitors, and over 500 signups a day within a month of it’s launch, albeit for its free trial. Conversion will be an issue, with the service priced at $25 per month for the basic package of Times Now, Zee TV, Zoom, Zee Sports, IOL and Aastha. Interesting to see IOL Broadband involved in this service - it seems this is another distribution channel for the content it has acquired for its IPTV service.
The release doesn’t mention whether Watch India has acquired an exclusive license for the content...highly unlikely in my opinion. Firstly, the content provider wouldn’t like to limit distribution to only one service, and an exclusive license might make the service unviable for Watch India. Have NDTV and CNN-IBN missed a trick by webcasting their channels for free, and apparently at a huge cost?
