MUMBAI: The Zee group has a reputation for reinventing itself from time to time.

The latest is Zee Media Corporation’s flagship news channel, Zee News, is all set to get a cousin in the newly-rebranded Zee Sangam, which will be a national channel 16 April onwards. Before this, Zee Sangam was called Zee UP/Uttarakhand.

The new-look Zee Sangam will air 40 per cent news from Uttar Pradesh with the remaining news from the rest of the nation including regional stories. 

 When contacted, Zee Media CEO Alok Agrawal confirmed that the channel has decided to drop the Terrestrial Entertainment Network (TEN) format that it had wanted to give to Sangam and has now embarked on making it a national channel.

 The differentiating factor between Zee News and Zee Sangam is that while the flagship channel will focus on news from the globe, Sangam will be regional-focused with a national perspective. Since the channel is known in Uttar Pradesh, the focus will be on stories from UP. Operating out of Noida, Vasindra Mishra will be the editor and Vinod Das the business head of the channel.

 Currently, the network is lining up the various programmes and beefing up on manpower as well as distribution. The channel will be available on all leading cable TV and direct to home (DTH) platforms in Mumbai and Delhi and other parts of the country.