Zee Telugu

By 2004, the Zee Network had a strong presence in northern, eastern and western India, with channels in Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, and Punjabi. Its proposed Telugu-language channel marked the network's first venture into the southern India entertainment market. Zee Network expected the channel to launch by August 2004,[2] but the launch did not take place until September.[3] The channel launched with the name Alpha TV Telugu, but was later renamed Zee Telugu. It initially featured a large number of American films dubbed into Telugu. In August 2007, the network also dubbed famous Bollywood film Sholay from Hindi into Telugu as an experiment.[4]

By December 2005, despite having popular programs such as the game show Gold Rush (game show), hosted by well-known female anchor Udayabhanu, as well as the soap opera Nishabdam, Zee Telugu had only achieved a 1.24% weekday and 1.86% weekend market share in Andhra Pradesh. As a result, it re-launched in order to shift the target market segment from a mass market to a segmented market of upwardly mobile young professionals.[3][5] The network suffered a loss of Rs.460 million in the fiscal year 2007.[1]

In late 2006, Zee Telugu began work on Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa, a Telugu-language singing competition. Anchored by Nandi Award winner Suneetha, the judges' panel included renowned Telugu music figures Koti (musician) and Ramana Gogula and was scheduled to run for 35 episodes.[6] The show was so successful that by February 2005, Zee Telugu announced plans to launch Little Champs, a version of the show aimed at viewers ages 6–13, hosted by former Indian Idol runner-up N. C. Karunya.[7]

Mee Inti Vanta, an instructional cooking show, has aired more than 1,000 episodes. It is hosted by the famous anchor Sumalatha. The program was extremely popular among female viewers and dominated the market share in the afternoon slot. Eventually, all other channels started their own instructional cooking shows.

Another show on the network is a steamy anthology serial called Midnight Masala and it gained popularity by broadcasting all of Vishnuvardhan's hot rain songs. It aired at 12 am and aired stories which contained many promiscuous scenes. It was widely watched by adults but some people criticized that it is too racy for Telugu TV. It aired from December 2007 – December 2008 and again in 2007–2008. Its highest TRP was 2.0, an all-time high in the midnight slot in Telugu television which even networks like Maa and Eenadu Entertainment (ETV) could not beat. Another program introduced recently was Sreekaram Subhakaram, an astrology based program with astrologer Vakkantham Chandramouli and popular anchor Sumalatha. This is a live program and the many other channels are trying to follow suit.

In September 2005, the channel announced after months of deliberations that Sanjay Reddy would be their new chief executive officer, succeeding Ajay Kumar (television executive), who had left several months previously. Reddy had previously worked at The Walt Disney Company and Pearl Media.[8] Reddy's plan in 2008 includes new soaps and children's programming.[9]

On May 22, 2015, Zee Telugu celebrated its 10-year anniversary. On 15 October 2017, along with other Zee channels, it changed to a Blue coloured Logo. On December 31, 2017, A refresh look of Zee Telugu and Sister Channel Zee Cinemalu along with their HD channels was revealed in Zee Golden Awards and launched by Chiranjeevi while Samantha Akkineni was made as the Brand Ambassador.

• Official site
• Zee Telugu on Zee5