(1 December 2005 8:00 pm)

NEW DELH: Zee Muzic channel is once again in a revamp mode. This time it’s glossier and positioning itself as an “aspirational channel”, riding the Hindi film bandwagon in a big way, according to a TV executive.

According to Balvani, SEC A audiences too are being targeted now along with those in SEC B and C in tune with the channel’s repositioning. The music channel has access to a huge number of Hindi film songs owing to the network’s big movie library.

Speaking to journalists at an event here on Wednesday, organised to unveil an all-new programming line-up, Balvani said that the distribution problem is being “addressed very aggressively” keeping the ground realities in mind.

“If the all-India market share of Zee Muzic is to be seen, then it would be in the region of 65 per cent, but easy visibility is an issue because of lack of adequate bandwidth with cable operators everywhere.In some pockets of the country the channel is very strong, while in some others it’s not on tunable bandwidth at all, he explained, adding that in Chennai, for example, because of conditional access the music channel has almost 100 per cent presence in cable homes.

According to information available with Indiantelevision.com, the Zee management has given the music channel managers approximately nine months to turn around the channel into a decent competition for the likes of MTV and Channel V, both of which have big groups backing it.

“Of course, there is competition and we must strategise accordingly, but to say Zee Muzic is a forgotten product would be wrong,” said Balvani, who’s been brought in from Zoom TV after Pradeep Guha (a Times of India group strongman) took over as the CEO of Zee Telefilms some time back.

So, what does the new line-up at Zee Muzic look like? It’s certainly packaged well with lots of gloss, loads of Bollywood and increased interactivity.

Model-turned-TV anchor Nina Manuel, model Aparna Kumar, Roshni Chopra , Mayank Anand and actor-singer Vikas Bhalla form the hip anchors of Zee Muzic.

Nina, who could also be seen on some other channels like NDTV 24x7, hosts Midnite Manual, Aparna is the presenter for Bollywood Tonight, while self confessed movie buff Roshni anchors Cinemascope. Vikas hosts Bollywood This Week and Mayank will be the anchor for the soon-to-be-launched Cine Song.

Zee Muzic is a 24-hour free-to-air music channel from the Zee stable. The channel is available in places like Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Fiji, Hong King, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Japan, Maldives, Thailand and the Middle East. A separate beam of Zee Muzic is also available in the UK and the US.