| MUMBAI:
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) will dump its second Hindi general entertainment
channel (GEC) Zee Next if it fails to line up an investor before 1 April, 2009.
Zee
TV's sibling channel, which was to be hived off to a wholly owned subsidiary company
of Zeel, has been unable to get an investor interest so far. Zee Next is expected
to suffer losses in the region of Rs 600 million for the full-fiscal ended 31
March 2009.
The
channel has been starved of fresh content and is kept in "maintenance
mode" to keep the losses under control. While the first
quarter losses stood at around Rs 380 million, Zeel has been
able to bring this down to Rs 82 million and Rs 81 million
for the second and third quarters.
"We
will scrap the channel if we don't get an investor. We have already capped Zee
Next's losses and are not investing in the channel's content," says a source
in the company.
Zeel
had plans to hive off Zee Next to its wholly-owed subsidiary Asia Today Limited
so that it would not capture the startup losses of the channel. The company has
been unable to rope in an investor for Zee Next due to poor environment for fund
raising, feeble audience ratings, and excessive competition in the Hindi GEC genre.
Zee had earlier announced it would be shutting down its loss-making
Gujarati general entertainment channel from 30 April. Zee
Gujarati is housed under Zee News Ltd, the company that runs
a clutch of news and regional entertainment channels.
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