MUMBAI: Zee Americas in partnership with Ethnic Channels Group Limited (ECG), Canada’s largest distributor of third language television services, launched Zee Cinema, Zee Salaam and Zee Tamizh on Cogeco Cable on 12 December.

Aimed at Ontario’s South Asian communities, these channels will serve to add great content to Cogeco’s third language services and help the Canadian multi-ethnic majority watch TV.

Zee Americas CEO Suresh Bala said, “Canada is a dynamic market and we are happy to serve viewers in Ontario quality programming in the form of Zee Cinema, Zee Tamizh and Zee Salam. Ethnic Channels Group has been a pioneer in Canada bringing South Asians the kind of content that they most desire, this is a great partnership for us to offer Zee’s brand of top notch dramas, reality shows, news, Bollywood movies and music to our Canadian viewers.”
Zee Cinema is a Bollywood channel in the US that includes a privately held Bollywood video library with more than 5000 hours of premium content.

Zee Salaam is Zee’s first Islamic general entertainment channel targeting the Muslim community and the Urdu listening audiences, while Zee Tamizh is a general entertainment channel that offers a variety of programmes targeting the Tamil-Canadian audience.

Cogeco Cable marketing and strategic planning VP Ron Perrotta said, “For Cogeco Cable, the second largest hybrid fibre coaxial cable system operator in Ontario, adding 23 services in 8 different languages distributed by Ethnic Channels Group allows Cogeco Cable to respond to a variety of customer tastes and needs and to enhance our already engaging multicultural TV offering.”