Not even half the TV viewers of kerala are aware of the existence of this channel from Zee group. They have priced the SD for 10 paisa and HD channel for 8 rupees. Even then, actually no good % of viewers show much interest in subscribing for the SD channel for 10 paisa per month rate.
According to my friends who own dth sales/recharge shops and also my cable operator friends confirm that the malayali customers are selecting only the Star malayalam value pack (for Asianet group channels, costs ₹46) and the Sun network malayalam pack (for Surya tv channels, costs ₹24) apart from the ₹154 NCF for FTA package (So the total monthly subscription comes to ₹224)
Even though it costs only ₹0.1 for Zee Keralam SD and ₹0.25 for News18 Kerala channels, most of the subscribers who picks by ala Carta method, opt to avoid these two channels (may be as their protest for not giving those as FTA). Zee has made tie-up with the cable operators and dth that the channel is included in all the Suggestive Packs. Some MSOs like ACV offers the Zee Keralam channel as free for the purely ala Carta selected customers also. Then also, there are a lot of factors which makes the Zee Keralam not that attractive for the viewers.
Malayalam is a language where a big number of popular channels are available as FTA, including Mazhavil Manorama HD, Flowers, 15 other GECs and almost all the news channels (except News18 Kerala). Since Flowers tv and Mazhavil channels are the most popular for entertainment programs (reality shows, stage programs, talent shows, game shows), the viewers are not minding the similar genre programs in Zee Keralam. Regrading the soap serials, its Asianet ruling the field and no other channels are coming near to it. So there also Zee Keralam is not able to score. Most of the ardent soap fans are watching only Asianet.
As it was correctly pointed out in the first post, Zee Keralam doesn't have a good library of Movies, which also makes it non attractive.
Altogether, it's now fine for a malayalam TV viewer to skip that channel. There's not ay attractive. Zee should do something to revamp the entire content and rise up from this shame situation.
