Zee Live Plans To Take 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' And 'Kerala Underground' On The Road

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, the longest-running singing talent show on Indian television, is set to become a concert series. Gareth Eswin Thomas, chief business officer at Zee Live, revealed the plan during an on-stage conversation at the All About Music conference in Mumbai in late August.

The show returned to Zee TV in late September, and also streams on Zee5. Thomas said Zee Live would stage Sa Re Ga Ma Pa nights once the season's finale has aired.

Who would perform

The concerts would feature the top contestants from the season along with one of its mentors. This year the mentors are four playback singers: Shankar Mahadevan, Kumar Sanu, Neeti Mohan and Javed Ali.

The 2026 season looks to have been designed with a stage in mind. It features a 100-member orchestra and a choral ensemble, which the channel's announcement says creates "the scale and energy of a live concert on television".

That is a sensible bit of planning. Reality show contestants usually get a few weeks of prime-time attention and then have to find an audience on their own. A touring format with a familiar mentor attached keeps them in front of crowds after the cameras switch off, and gives Zee a second income line from the same show.

A rap version too

Zee Live is the arm of Zee Entertainment Enterprises that runs live, on-ground events. Thomas said it was also working on a gig series built around Kerala Underground, the Malayalam-language rap competition streaming on Zee5.

That plan is pitched at audiences outside the state. The idea is to send contestants, a mentor and a second big-name rapper to cities with large Malayali communities, including Dubai and parts of South-East Asia.

Malayalam rap has been one of the more lively regional scenes in recent years, and Kerala's diaspora is large and loyal to music from home. A touring package built from a streaming show is a fairly low-risk way to test that demand.

No dates or venues for either series had been announced when the plans were revealed.

Television as a talent pipeline

Singing shows have long been a route into playback. What has changed is how much value a broadcaster can capture directly. Zee already runs a record label in Zee Music Company. Adding a live arm that tours its own shows lets the group follow a contestant from audition to concert ticket without handing them on to anyone else.

(Source: Music Ally, Zee TV press announcement)