The Hindu Business Line : Chandamama plans make-over

Plans ahead
Chandamama.com Website to be bought from its present owners.
Content to be made more contemporary.
‘Write your own story’ contests to be conducted.

Archana Venkat

Chennai, Aug. 23

Sitting amidst 60-year old illustrations of mythological creations evoke a sense of awe. Five months ago, Chandamama, an iconic children’s magazine of the yesteryears was acquired (94 per cent) by Mumbai-based technology firm Geodesic Information Systems, for approximately Rs 10 crore. The magazine currently has a total circulation of 1.6 lakh copies. During its peak in the mid-80s, it sold up to 11 lakh copies.

Mr L. Subramanyan, recently appointed as Chief Executive Officer spoke to Business Line about his plans on re-vitalizing the magazine.

Why did Geodesic takeover Chandamama?

We (Chandamama) had the content and Geodesic had the technology platforms to make the content accessible to more people on the internet and also make it interactive.

How will we see Chandamama transform in the next 12-18 months?

There will be multiple delivery mechanisms for content — print, Internet and mobile. The print product will undergo cosmetic changes — printed on glossy paper, have bookmarks and folio layout.

Anything non-print will be interactive in nature. We are planning to buy the chandamama.com Website from its present owners and make tools available for people to create online communities, stream audio and video content and produce animation and graphic sequences. Short gaming sequences will also be made for mobile users.

We will have contests like “write your own story” and may be one for grandparents, where they can answer some questions online about a story they read in Chandamama during their childhood.

We also plan to digitise our archives in similar fashion.

What about content?

We will tweak content to make it contemporary. Over the last 60 years, we have collected over 5,000 stories. These are rich in moral overtones and they will remain that way, but we plan to explore characters in the stories to suitably convey present day issues to children.

For instance, the story of Prahalad, currently centered on his devotion to God, could be re-told. We can focus on his being an abused child and tell readers how people who abuse their children (like Prahalad’s father) will be punished.

Similarly we can explore issues of women’s subjugation taking characters like Parashuram who hacked his mother’s head off.

The name Chandamama brings back many pleasant memories for a lot of people and we are banking on this to bring the magazine back into popularity.

Currently, Chandamama comes out in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Sanskrit and Santhali (an Eastern Indian language) editions. In September we will start in-house research on readership, circulation and purchase patterns.

Once these reports are available our edition-wise marketing strategy can be firmed up.