Zomato enters video streaming segment, shows to be available from September 16

Restaurant discovery and food delivery firm Zomato on September 13 announced its foray into the content space with the launch of 18 original shows. These shows can be watched on the videos tab in the app.

"Biryani and Salan. Bacon and Eggs. Salt and Pepper. Pinot Noir and Caviar. Some things go together, and so does food and streaming videos. So Zomato is jumping right in, redefining food prime time. Starting September 16, Zomato will launch 18 original shows over the course of the next three months," the company said in a statement.

All the shows will be around food but across multiple genres like comedy, reality, fiction etc. The duration of the videos will be 3-15 minutes.

The shows will be hosted by celebrities such as chef Sanjeev Kapoor, comedians Sumukhi Suresh and Sahil Shah and social media personalities like Janice Sequeira, among others.

"We are constantly looking for new ways to engage our users around food. Most of our users visit our app several times a week. This presents us with an opportunity to further delight our users using Zomato Originals," said Deepinder Goyal, chief executive officer and founder of Zomato.

"We have invested in the original shows. We have commissioned production houses that sppecialises in different kinds of formats across non-fiction and fiction," Durga Raghunath, senior Vice-President, growth, Zomato, told Moneycontrol without sharing the investment amount.

"With shows in both Hindi and English, we hope every corner of India will tune in to Zomato to hone their taste buds," she added.

The company claims it has over 70 million monthly active users with 1.4 million premium Gold subscribers. It has expanded its online ordering service to 500 cities in India and claims to be generating 1.3 million orders a day.

Interestingly, the development happens at a time when e-commerce companies such as Flipkart and Amazon are already locking horns with presence in the video content space. US-based Netflix is also eyeing the Indian market with aggressive offerings.

However unlike Amazon Prime or Netflix, Flipkart and Zomato are not charging their customers for access to these shows.

And while Flipkart doesn't have original content, Zomato claims that its 18 shows will be exclusive to Zomato users.

Original Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/zomato-enters-video-streaming-segment-shows-to-be-available-from-september-16-4434541.html