Zee Enters U.S. Hispanic Market

MIAMI/MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) is making its foray into the U.S. Hispanic market with the launch of the Spanish-language Bollywood movie channel Zee Mundo.

The HD movie channel will be presenting the best of modern Bollywood cinema, dubbed in Spanish. The network is named Zee Mundo – ¡Te encanta! (‘Mundo’ means ‘World’ and ‘¡Te Encanta!’ means ‘You’ll Love It!’ in Spanish.)

Amit Goenka, CEO of the international broadcast business at ZEEL, said, “Both the markets share strong cultural similarities in terms of family structure, socio-economic conditions, food, music, art and culture. We are confident that Zee Mundo’s programming will cross frontiers with story lines and themes that are relatable to the Hispanic audiences. With Zee Mundo, we have an exclusive Hollywood-quality product that is designed to attract and captivate pay-TV subscribers through the best of Bollywood productions.”

Rajeev Kheror, the president of strategy for international business at ZEEL, said, “With top-rated, worldwide blockbuster masterpieces, our goal is to make Zee Mundo an entertainment destination like nothing the Hispanic market has ever witnessed or imagined before. Zee Mundo will bring ZEE’s entire library of HD movie titles to Latino audiences across the U.S., meticulously dubbed in Spanish, crossing five genres (action, romance, suspense, drama and comedy) and featuring some of the world’s biggest movie stars, including Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan.”

Javier Lopez Casella, the head of business for U.S. Hispanic and Latin America at ZEEL, added, “Showcasing a sensational foreign-film genre that is feverishly adored by more than a billion fans, Zee Mundo will premiere global blockbusters and feature the biggest worldwide stars the Americas have yet to fully discover. After successfully capturing the U.S. Spanish market, we will be expanding over the next few months into other LatAm markets, including Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile. Zee Mundo is available on DISH Latino, the first of several planned distribution deals in the U.S. Hispanic market, which will eventually take the channel to other LatAm countries as well.”