ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Limited Has Announced The Relaunch Of ZEE One In Germany Through A Strategic Partnership With Samsung TV Plus.

The Bollywood-centric channel uniquely tailored for German viewers, will provide audiences with thousands of hours of Bollywood films, including titles like ‘Happy New Year’, ‘Pardes’, ‘Rustom’, ‘Shamitabh’, and many more.

Furthermore, it offers highly successful Indian television series dubbed in the German language, such as ‘Jamai Raja’, ‘Kundali Bhagya’, and ‘Jodha Akbar’.

ZEE One promises to deliver high-quality entertainment from the cinematic Mecca of Asia: Bollywood. Zee One’s premium content is specially adapted for the German market. This fast channel will broadcast a highly curated mix of movies and series, starring Bollywood superstars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, and Deepika Padukone. The movies will span all genres, including romance, comedy, action, among others.

Punit Misra, President – Content & International Markets at ZEE Entertainment Enterprises, highlighted the strategic importance of this step: “We are delighted to collaborate with Samsung TV Plus to offer an enriched Indian entertainment experience for our viewers in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. As a global content company, ZEE is present in over 190 countries, entertaining over a billion viewers worldwide. With this partnership, we are recommitting ourselves to being Extraordinary Together in the service of one of the most competitive and leading content markets worldwide.”

Ashok Namboodiri, Chief Business Officer – International Business, said, “ZEE One is more than just a channel – it’s a cultural bridge that connects audiences in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria to the vibrant world of Bollywood. Our goal is to provide genuine and captivating viewing experiences that transcend borders while honoring the timeless universal language of storytelling. Partnering with Samsung TV Plus aligns perfectly with our vision of serving not just the South Asian diaspora with channels and programming in Indian languages but also the wider international audience in their native languages.”

Benedikt Frey, Country Lead DACH – Samsung TV Plus, says, “We are delighted to add ZEE One to Samsung TV Plus in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. This marks an exciting moment as we bring hours of Bollywood- centric content to the service in the DACH region. We look forward to bringing the vibrant world of Bollywood to new and existing audiences, in Indian languages.”

This new deal is another feather in the cap of Parul, who has demonstrated the might of ZEE UK and Europe by expediting its business and forging strong allegiances like this.

Samsung TV Plus is Samsung’s own FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) service; no subscription, sign-up, additional devices, or credit card are required. It comes pre-installed on Samsung Smart TVs from 2016 to 2023 and can be downloaded from the Google Play and Galaxy Store on Samsung Galaxy devices in select territories. With Samsung TV Plus, users can access numerous channels spanning news, sports, entertainment, along with a library of movies and popular shows for on-demand viewing. This ad-supported service is accessible in the UK and 15 other European regions, requiring only an internet connection.

Roundups #143: Zig & Sharko Renewed For A Fourth Season On Cartoonito, Young Rock To Make His Freemium Debut On e.tv And ITV Choice Has Been Relaunched On Samsung TV Plus

Zig and Sharko are back for more gags

Xilam Animation, an independent company for the production and distribution of animated programmes, Academy Award-nominated, has secured its first wave of deals for the upcoming fourth season of its iconic non-dialogue slapstick comedy series Zig & Sharko (78 x 7’), as the company prepares to debut the first episode to buyers at MIPCOM.

Launching in September 2023, season four has been acquired by longstanding partner Gulli (France), which has also renewed its partnership across the previous three seasons. Additionally, Xilam has sold the new instalment to existing partners, VRT (Belgium), Discovery (Italy), DeA (Italy), Nickelodeon (India) and Nova (Israel).

Zig & Sharko continues to generate impressive ratings internationally, particularly in India where the series resulted in Nickelodeon becoming the leading children’s channel in its evening slot, across all demos. In Q2 2022, Zig & Sharko was also the fourth best performing series among children aged 2-14 years and outperformed its lead in and lead out shows in all demos in terms of ratings.

The series is currently seen on Boomerang (soon to be Cartoonito). Apparently, the channel wasn't mentioned when news came it meaning the show could have ended after 3 seasons on the channel or they're just taking long to pick it up in any case further episodes are on Boing.

Regular Nick:
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Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson expresses his charm in new sitcom

e.tv, South Africa's most reliable and free source for English entertainment at the moment home to various local and international productions has acquired rights to NBC's Young Rock currently viewed on M-Net and sister channel, Me.

The sitcom is set in a frame story where Johnson is running as a candidate in the 2032 United States presidential election. Each episode involves Johnson participating in an interview or other conversation which leads him to flashback to a story from one of three periods of Johnson's life (with occasional episodes where all three periods are shown).

In the first season, Johnson is depicted as a ten-year-old in Hawaii; as a high school student in Pennsylvania; and as a college student and football player at the University of Miami.

The series stars Dwayne Johnson, Joseph Lee Anderson, Stacey Leilua, Ana Tuisila, Adrian Groulx, Bradley Constant, Uli Latukefu and Matthew Willig. It is expected to air Saturdays at 19:30 replacing Superstore from March 4th - no update on Grown-ish yet.

Openview Plus:
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ITV Studios and Samsung TV Plus collaborate to launch a number of projects across Europe

ITV Studios had announced a raft of sales and pre-sales deals across its catalogue of scripted and non-scripted content. One of which, Samsung TV Plus launched ITV Choice showcasing the best of ITV Studios including Hell’s Kitchen, Four Weddings and Come Dine With Me.

During the week, ITV Studios expanded their partnership to include a bouquet of channels.

One of the channels is a ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ channel, which will air episodes round-the-clock from the popular U.S. Gordon Ramsay show. The other channel – Storylands – will “become the home for the best European drama” according to ITV Studios. Shows on the channel will be produced by labels which are part of ITV Studios and include dramas such as Norwegian legal series Aber Bergen, the period drama Un Village Français, and the procedural crime drama from the producers of Gomorrah, called Masantonio.

The move follows ITV Studios’ launch of four non-scripted YouTube channels last year – Our World, Our Life, Our Stories and Our Histories. The agreement will see Samsung TV Plus –  Samsung’s free ad-supported app – broadcast content from the ITV Studios catalogue 24/7 across all Samsung Smart TVs made in 2016 and onwards, as well as select Galaxy devices.

Ruth Berry, Managing Director at ITV Studios Global Distribution, commented: “We are very excited to partner with Samsung TV Plus to launch FAST channels in EMEA. We have an amazing library of 90,000+ hours of IP and the FAST/AVOD space is a key strategic focus for ITV Studios as we look to provide global audiences with new ways to access some of our best-known scripted brands, formats and non-scripted entertainment content.”

Video Entertainment:
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- Triggerfish working with Disney+ on a Star Wars project