Zee Telugu is an Indian

Telugu-language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian langua ...

general entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands ...

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

channel in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It was launched on 12 September 2004 as '' Alpha TV Telugu''. and was rebranded as ''Zee Telugu'' on 18 May 2005. The channel is owned by

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, and businesses related to mobile content, and operates 45 c ...

also launched a Telugu movie channel named

Zee Cinemalu Zee Telugu is an Indian Telugu-language general entertainment pay television channel in India. It was launched on 12 September 2004 as '' Alpha TV Telugu''. and was rebranded as ''Zee Telugu'' on 18 May 2005. The channel is owned by Zee Ente ...

in September 2016.

Establishment

In 2004,

Zee Network Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, and businesses related to mobile content, and operates 45 c ...

had channels in

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

, and

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabis, Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a ...

. Its proposed Telugu-language channel making its first entry in southern region was expected to launch by August 2004, but the launch did not take place until September. The channel launched with the name Alpha TV Telugu, but was later renamed to Zee Telugu. It initially featured a large number of

American films This is a list of films produced by the American film industry from the earliest films of the 1890s to the present. 1890s * List of American films of the 1890s 1900s * List of American films of 1900 * List of American films of 1901 * List ...

dubbed into Telugu. In August 2007, the network also dubbed

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

film ''

Sholay ''Sholay'' (, ) is a 1975 Indian epic action-adventure film directed by Ramesh Sippy, produced by his father G. P. Sippy, and written by Salim–Javed. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), hired ...

'' from Hindi into Telugu as an experiment.

History

In September 2005, the channel announced that Sanjay Reddy would be their new

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

, succeeding Ajay Kumar, who had left several months previously. Reddy had previously worked at

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

and Pearl Media.

By December 2005, Zee Telugu had only achieved a 1.24% weekday and 1.86% weekend market share in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. As a result, it re-launched in order to shift the

target market A target market, also known as serviceable obtainable market (SOM), is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total m ...

from a mass market to a segmented market of young professionals. In late 2006, Zee Telugu began work on ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'', a Telugu-language singing competition scheduled to run for 35 episodes. Zee Telugu announced plans to launch ''Little Champs'', a version of the show aimed at viewers ages 6–13, hosted by N. C. Karunya.

Sister channel

Zee Cinemalu

Zee Cinemalu is an Indian Telugu movies pay television channel offers

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of ...

movies. It launched on 4 September 2016 and it is the sister channel of

Zee Telugu Zee Telugu is an Indian Telugu-language general entertainment pay television channel in India. It was launched on 12 September 2004 as '' Alpha TV Telugu''. and was rebranded as ''Zee Telugu'' on 18 May 2005. The channel is owned by Zee Entert ...

. The channel is owned by

Programming

References

External links

Official siteZee Telugu
on

Zee5 ZEE5 or Z5 is an Indian subscription video on demand and over-the-top streaming service, owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on We ...

{{Telugu Language Television Telugu-language television channels Television channels and stations established in 2004 Zee Entertainment Enterprises Television stations in Hyderabad 2004 establishments in Andhra Pradesh