By Johnson Napier
While increasing importance is being given to Hindi GECs and sports broadcasting in India, a genre that has been steadily pushing itself up the growth chain is children’s entertainment. Accounting for nearly 7 per cent of the growth pie, kids’ channels in India have been throwing up interesting growth trends over the past few years.
At the session on ‘Trends in Children’s Entertainment’, panelists presented their viewpoints on the genre and what was the way forward. The panelists comprised Harpreet S Tibb of Kellogg India, Vijay Subramaniam of Disney UTV, Ashish Karnad of IMRB, Krishna Desai of Turner, and Pradeep Hejmadi of TAM.
Harpreet S Tibb, Marketing Director, India & South Asia, Kellogg said, “The focus for marketers is to strengthen our brand and also that the message gets conveyed to the desired TG. The thing about kids today is that they are increasingly gravitating to newer mediums and it is therefore essential that the broadcasters come up with content that is valuable and meaningful. There is also a need for players to create content that is interactive and relevant.”
- Vijay Subramaniam
Vijay Subramaniam, Executive Director, Kids Network, Disney UTV highlighted how the focus by his group was to tell stories that are great.” We have always been known to present stories that are innovative and pioneering. While much of our content is centred around kids, it is also made keeping the family audience in mind. The challenge facing the genre is of financial viability.”
Ashish Karnad, Group Business Director, IMRB International presented his outlook as he said that boys consumed different content while the girls too consumed content that was different from boys. “There was not much differentiation that was observed between the two subsets earlier but that is seeing a change now. And as we all would be aware, there is a huge demand for locally produced content.”
- Krishna Desai
Krishna Desai, Director-Content, South Asia, Turner International India elaborated on how the broadcast players were waking up to providing new content options for the kids of today. “Admitting that animation as an industry is still in its infancy, Mr Desai said that it was indeed picking up in growth. “Overall the kids’ genre is still small compared to the other genres as the ad spends around the medium are still very low. But there are other positives that are emerging inclusing its ability to ship content to outside markets. The industry is evolving and it is up to us to unite and take it to the next level.”
Earlier Pradeep Hejmadi of TAM went on to present his perspective of the kids’ genre in India and what was in store for the players in the years to come.