Variety; ZEE5 Chief Amit Goenka Maps Global Expansion Strategy Around Multilingual Content Push: ‘You Will See a Different Experience Altogether’

Story from Variety:

ZEE5 is making a bold bet on its multilingual roots as the Indian streaming giant undergoes a major brand refresh and strategic pivot designed to capture the next wave of digital entertainment consumption.

The platform has unveiled a new brand identity, anchored by the promise “Apni Bhasha, Apni Kahaniyan” (Multiple Languages, Infinite Stories), marking what Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd president of digital businesses and platforms Amit Goenka calls a return to the service’s original DNA after years of focusing primarily on Hindi-language national content.

“When we launched ZEE5 back in 2018, we always had language at the heart of our offering,” Goenka tells Variety. “The market was what it was back then. And now, the market has shifted. The smaller towns, tier two, tier three cities have started adopting OTT [streaming], and that’s when we really thought that this is the right time to go back to our original positioning of deep language focus.”

The strategic shift comes as ZEE5 dramatically ramps up content production. The platform plans to launch over 120 content pieces in FY26 — more than double the roughly 60 titles it is launching in FY25.

“Bollywood still works across the world, and I think that’s ZEE’s strength. We do a lot of movie launches every year which are exclusive to ZEE5,” Goenka says.

The language-focused strategy extends beyond India’s borders, with ZEE5 tailoring its international offerings to diaspora communities worldwide. Goenka breaks down the geographic preferences: “Middle East is geared towards the south Indian languages, Malayalam being the most dominant. When I look at the U.S. Bay Area, again, we’re talking about primarily Telugu and Tamil speaking audiences. When I look at the tri-state area, I will look at more of a mix of Hindi, Marathi, and other languages. Canada will be more Punjabi focused.”

The platform’s technology now adapts to location automatically. “By default, if somebody as a new user is coming in from Chennai, for example, would see Tamil,” Goenka explains. “The interface would be in Tamil, but they would get a quick pop-up to say, ‘Please select your language of your choice,’ and then the content obviously shifts to whichever language they select.”

The transformation goes beyond just content curation. “Not only from a content perspective, but the overall experience of the platform will be shifted towards languages going forward,” Goenka notes. “If you see ZEE5 in different regions, you will see a different experience altogether.”

ZEE5 is expanding into previously underserved languages, with Kannada launches beginning just weeks ago with “Ayyana Mane,” originals coming up in the Marathi, Malayalam and Bengali languages and the company also leveraging its television heritage. The upcoming slate spans diverse genres, including “Detective Sherdil” (Hindi), “Sattamum Neethiyum” (Tamil), “Mothubaru Love Story” (Telugu), “Inspection Bungalow” (Malayalam), “Maarigallu” (Kannada), “Aata Thambhahya Naay” (Marathi) and “Vibhishan” (Bengali).

The content strategy deliberately moves beyond comfort zones. “We are exploring new genres beyond what ZEE is known for, which is family drama,” Goenka explains. “We are focusing on genres which will work in international markets, which are crime and other genres.”

Unlike many streaming competitors burning cash for market share, ZEE5 has achieved positive cash flow in its global markets — a significant milestone given the high customer acquisition costs plaguing the industry.

“Zee is a very profit-focused organization, and has always been a profit-focused organization,” Goenka emphasizes. “The first one is, clearly, we have to become EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization] positive, which we have done in the global market. We are already EBITDA positive on the digital side, which is a huge achievement, especially with the kind of customer acquisition cost that exists.”

The financial discipline is paying off. “For example, last year, we cut our losses by half. This year, also, we expect to do much better than that. And maybe hopefully, we are targeting great numbers this year,” Goenka reveals.

Success metrics vary by market structure. “Internationally, we are not a unified product,” he explains. “There are markets where we are only subscription-based, and there are markets where we have both ad and subscription business models, so it changes from market to market. From an ad perspective, engagement becomes more important. From a subscription perspective, clearly the subscription is the higher metric to go after.”

ZEE5 is also positioning itself for the next battleground: vertical storytelling. The platform announced a strategic partnership with startup Bullet, taking an equity stake in the micro-drama specialist that will integrate its platform within the ZEE5 ecosystem.

“We have no choice as a content company — we have to cater to all our audiences. So it’s not a question of if, but it’s a question of when,” Goenka says about entering vertical storytelling.

India is relatively new to the micro-drama trend compared to neighbor China, where revenue from the format was $6.9 billion, exceeding local box office for the first time, per DataEye statistics. Multiple projections point to the market size for micro-dramas rising to $14 billion by 2028 in China alone.

“It’s a debate we’ve had for a while internally, and I think we have all agreed that this is an important segment to go after,” Goenka says about entering the segment. “If I want to go to the younger audiences, that is the next battleground.”

The Bullet partnership represents ZEE5’s first foray into ultra-short content. “We have never done 90-second episodes from start to finish, or two-minute episodes,” Goenka admits. “So it’s going to be the first time for us. We are hoping that these capabilities are brought in by this company that we have invested in.” 20-His personal perspective on the format is candid: “I am not of that generation, so I don’t get the appeal of it. But as a company, we have never done this before. So I think it will be experimental, and we’ll see what works.”

A major UI/UX revamp is scheduled for later this year — the first in seven years — with enhanced recommendation and personalization features powered by AI.

“Technology is a very big focus for the company overall,” Goenka explains. “You will see towards the end of the year a lot of recommendation personalization coming in, which hasn’t been a big focus for us. We’ve just been focusing on delivering great content so far, but I think we’re going to start focusing a lot more on the experience.”

The shift reflects evolving consumer expectations. “Earlier, it was just about delivering good quality video. Now the consumer wants a better experience. The consumer wants the ability to search for content. Content discovery becomes very, very critical going forward.”

The platform is accelerating partnership integrations after solving previous technical bottlenecks. “Earlier, the challenge was really integrating with a lot of these partners,” Goenka notes. “Because of our technology focus, we sort of categorize partners: there’s the telco ISP [Internet Service Provider] category, which is a big number. Then you have the other online players, or OTT players, e-commerce players that we can partner with. And then you have everybody else, which could be a simple marketing tie-up with a bank.”

The improved infrastructure is paying dividends. “We sort of created the technology to integrate much faster with these people. So you’ll see us launching a lot more partnerships going forward, much faster. It’s easier to close commercials, whereas it’s harder to do technical integrations. I think we mostly solved for that.”

The international strategy is partnership-heavy by necessity. “Marketing, especially outside of India, is very, very expensive, and because the markets are mostly fragmented, it is very hard to get to the audience,” Goenka explains. “So partnerships is the right strategy and right way to go.”

“We can’t focus on the world — we have to pick and choose,” Goenka says of ZEE5’s direct-to-consumer expansion strategy. “Obviously, we’re picking the big, heavy, concentrated markets where Indian diaspora or South Asian diaspora is available.”

With profitability achieved globally and content production doubling, ZEE5’s return to its multilingual origins represents a calculated bet that authentic, localized storytelling combined with technological innovation will differentiate it in an increasingly crowded streaming landscape.