Shemaroo Entertainment is all set to launch its free-to-air Hindi general entertainment channel on May 1. This is despite challenging times due to the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions on shooting for new content, due to the lockdown.

The media and entertainment company, which had launched its Marathi movie channel in January, hopes to strengthen its presence across the entire entertainment value chain, with this move.

The TV channel, called Shemaroo TV will initially be available on DD Free Dish, and the company is working on making the Hindi GEC channel available across all the key DTH and cable platforms in the next one month.

Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment told BusinessLine , " The decision to enter TV broadcasting space was taken a few quarters ago. We began by acquiring a slot for our Marathi movie channel on DD Free Dish in November last year and in February acquired the slot for Hindi GEC on the platform. Despite the current crisis, we felt that as consumers stay-at-home and TV content is one of their few sources of joy and comfort, this is the right time for us to launch the Hindi GEC channel to offer them a holistic entertainment option."

Stating that Hindi GEC is one of the highest viewed categories, he said although intense competition in the segment, the Free-to-air viewership segment is still highly under-served and there is enough potential for new players to offer a differentiated proposition to TV viewers.

For now, the company will be leveraging on its own library of film and non-film content, acquired and aggregated shows as well as licensed shows from existing broadcasters and plans to enhance the original programming slate in the next phase on its Hindi GEC TV channel.

“We feel there is still a large free-to-air content consuming viewers, who have not been exposed to some of these shows. At the same time, there has been a rise in viewership for old shows during this lockdown period,” he added.

For Shemaroo, the company is known for content creation, aggregation and distribution operations, a strong broadcast play, had so far been the missing piece." We wanted to have a full-fledged presence across the entire entertainment value chain. At the same time, this gives us direct access to the advertising revenue pie, and complements are digital offerings," Gada said.

But since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, companies have cut down on ad spends and growth in advertising is expected to be muted in the short term." Our foray in the Hindi GEC space is a long-term strategy. We have worked our investment and cash flow strategies, to ensure that even if there is some delay in the revival of ad spends, we should be able to sustain our investments," Gada added.

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