ZEEL's Zee5 get 11.4 million users in Q3 with regional-focused shows A user spent an average of 140 minutes on the streaming platform, watching television and film actor Vikrant Massey starrer Broken but Beautiful, murder mystery Chargesheet, and television actress Shweta Tiwari starrer Hum, Tum and Them among more than twenty original shows

Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd. (ZEEL)'s Zee5 has clocked in 11.4 million daily active users (DAU), in the December-ended quarter of FY2020, on the back of regionally focused content. The streaming platform produces movies and shows in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Oriya, among eight other regional languages.

A user spent an average of 140 minutes on the streaming platform, watching television and film actor Vikrant Massey starrer Broken but Beautiful, murder mystery Chargesheet, and television actress Shweta Tiwari starrer Hum, Tum and Them among more than twenty original shows and six original moves, according to a statement released by the company. The minutes viewed are 1.2 times higher than the quarter ended in September 2019, claims the over-the-top (OTT) platform.

"We also continue to invest in original content for ZEE5, to create a rich content library that will make it a really compelling offering for consumers," said, Mr. Punit Goenka, managing director, and chief executive officer, ZEEL.

Apart from original shows, which is created by Zee5's creative team, the OTT platform also lets viewer stream Zee's shows including Kundali Bhagya and Bhabhi Ji Ghar Par Hain that air on ZEEL's television channels Zee TV and & TV, respectively. The platform also has movies catering to the regional audiences including Ayushman Khurana's Dream Girl, Sand ki Aankh starring Tapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar, which is set in Haryana, and Jabariya Jodi, which is set in Bihar.

Availability of dirt-cheap data and mobile phones brought the next 200-300 million people, who reside beyond India's urban cities, as a new target audience for TV channels, which are losing interest from advertisers, and content producers. American streaming giant Netflix, Star India-owned Hotstar, Viacom18, which owns TV channel Colors, Voot, television producer Ekta Kapoor's Alt Balaji, among a dozen others, emerged to grab a piece of a bigger pie.

ZEEL posted a 37.9 per cent drop in profits for quarter ended in December on the back of falling advertisement revenue. Indian biggest listed entertainment conglomerate posted a consolidated profit of INR 349.94 crore from INR 562.4 crore in Q3 of the financial year 2019.

Reed Hastings-founded Netflix added 6.3 million subscribers, up 23% year-on-year, majorly from the international market including India. In December, Hastings announced an investment of INR 3,000 crore for 2019-20 to develop content catering to Indian taste. The premium content producer also introduced a mobile-only plan for INR 199 catering to people who do not have access to a television set or a laptop.