ZEE Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL), in order to contribute in the nation’s fight against Covid-19, has announced to offer financial relief to over 5000 daily wage earners, working directly or indirectly for the company in its overall production ecosystem.
Gauging the unprecedented impact caused to all daily wage earners due to the lockdown, as a responsible player in the media & entertainment sector, ZEEL has taken this step ensuring that the families of daily wage earners do not get impacted during this challenging phase.
In order to further support prime ministers’ Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund), ZEEL will leverage the strength of its media network across the nation and world at large, encouraging over 1.3 billion people to contribute.
Over and above this step, ZEEL has also provided an opportunity to all of its 3500 employees to offer voluntary contributions towards the PM CARES Fund through an intranet portal. The company will match the corpus collected from the employee contribution and the collective amount will be donated to PM CARES Fund.
Commenting on this initiative, ZEEL managing director and chief executive officer Punit Goenka said, “We stand committed to financially support all the daily wage earners working in our production ecosystem. We firmly believe in the extraordinary power of coming together and fighting against a situation. In these challenging times, it is extremely critical for India Inc to come together and support the national level initiative undertaken by prime minister Narendra Modi.”
The collective strength of all verticals of the company, including its television channels, digital platforms and social media platforms, will be leveraged to urge people across the globe to join this movement. Being a responsible brand, ZEEL, in order to keep its consumers informed and sensitized about the safety and precautionary measures, had implemented a first-of-its-kind initiative, titled #BreakTheCoronaOutbreak.
Goenka further said, “Apart from the financial support, we will also contribute in creating nationwide awareness about the noble initiative. Leveraging our strong reach across the nation and world at large, we are urging our esteemed viewers to join this movement. This is a time where the entire nation needs to come together as one family.”
Under this initiative, content across 40+ channels was paused for a 30-second break throughout the day, encouraging viewers to wash their hands. In line with the decision undertaken by Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), television channel Zee Anmol was made available free of cost to all viewers across all DTH platforms and cable TV networks for a period of two months.
On the digital side, ZEE5 ensured that the internet bandwidth across the country was optimised by replacing high definition (HD) content to standard definition (SD) content. It also ensured that the viewers remained calm and composed during the lockdown phase with its #BeCalmBeEntertained initiative.