Zee shifts focus to cutting costs
March 6, 2024
By Chris Forrester
Zee Entertainment Enterprises, now that its merger with Sony’s India channels is dead, is focussing on cutting costs and, in the words of MD Punit Goenka, is “chopping off anything that doesn’t yield a return on investment”.
Those cost-cutting measures will include expensive sports rights some of which will be “economised”, he stated – as well as staffing. which Goenka said would see “optimisation of human capital” as the broadcaster starts to rebuild itself and restore credibility.
His comments were blunt, saying that any asset failing to generate profit will be divested from the media company’s portfolio.
Officially, the ZEEL/Sony merger is still – just about – alive with the Mumbai office of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directing that Zee must file its formal response to applications filed by Sony within two weeks. NCLT wants the response within that deadline, but has set a date for a further hearing on the merger on April 23rd.
However, this is just a tidying up operation of the one of the legal challenges. Sony Pictures Networks India last week withdrew the merger application it had filed with the NCLT for the merger.