The Hindu Business Line : Lots for tots!

Childrens' channels are coming into their own, with the entry of five players last year. Their strategy is equal focus on programming and marketing, as well as drawing in a wide variety of advertisers.

"Unlike the news genre, the kids' genre saw a lot more pre-hype than post-!"

SPIDERMAN, a long-time favourite of children, on Disney channel

TURNER some time ago positioned its kids' channel, Cartoon Network, as a general entertainment (GE) channel for kids. It devised a new rate card driven by its individual show's ratings. The strategy seems to have worked well for the company, as it has also repositioned its second kids' offering, POGO, as a GE channel, with its highest rated shows such as MAD and Bum Bum Gir Pade Hum being sold at a premium.

While industry experts dismiss this as sales strategy, they do agree that with the entry of five new channels into the kids' genre last year, there definitely has been a lot of buzz. While existing players such as Turner have reworked their channel positioning, the newer ones such as Disney and Hungama are going all out to woo the younger audiences with their differential programming.

While Disney calls itself a family channel, Nickelodeon (number one in most markets abroad but yet to make it big in India) calls itself a `messy and noisy' channel, an attribute it feels attracts children immensely. The emergence of new channels has also enabled viewers to sample more of them; therefore, the inevitable quest of getting more eyeballs on to their channels has also begun, and they are spending crores on on-ground activities. While Turner did it with Toonz cricket, Disney flew in all-time favourites Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy all the way from the US. Similarly, Nickelodeon has launched the Nickster Club, and has its mascot Spongebob Squarepants doing a lot of school contact programmes in various cities.

The other significant trend is the focus on locally produced programmes. While Nickelodeon recently launched Gili Gili Gappa, Turner is quite excited about Gali Gali Sim Sim, its Hindi version of Sesame Street, to go on air in August.

Monica Tata, Vice-President, Advertising Sales, Turner India, says, "The kids' channels are finally getting the recognition they deserve. The genre's shares went up from 6.4 per cent between January and December 2004 to 10.1 per cent between January and December 2005 and correspondingly, the non-kids' channels shares went down from 93.6 per cent to 89.8 per cent. The airtime sold on kids' channels also went up by more than five times between January and December 2005, to 14.7 million from 2.4 million seconds."

Agreeing with Tata, Nachiket Pantvaidya, Director (Programming), Disney, says that kids' content has gone up by almost 90 per cent in the last one year. "Kids' viewership, which rested mostly on mass entertainment channels in 2004, has clearly moved towards kid-specific channels. The market share of kids' channels, just 10 per cent in late 2004, went up to 17 per cent by the end of 2005. I feel the market will stabilise at 30 per cent in the next 18 months."

Kids vs mass channels

Is the positive growth of the kids' genre at the expense of mass entertainment channels? Has it grown the same way mass entertainment channels did? Hema Govindan, Head, Nickelodeon, says the growth perhaps has not been on the same scale as the GE channels, "but there will definitely be growth as kids embrace programming that's meant for them. The increased variety on kids' channels drives this shift. In fact, several GE channels have added kid-focused shows to their programming mix in addition to the animation blocks they've already established, so it seems they've anticipated the shift."

Manish Porwal, Executive Director, Starcom, says viewership of kids' programmes on GE channels has already shown a steep decline. "No points for guessing that children prefer to go to the channels meant for them for such programmes," he says.

Jasmin Sohrabji, President, Mediacom, says, "Unlike the news genre which made `news' about its genre growth, the kids' genre saw a lot more pre-hype than post-! There were high expectations, but the genre grew steadily, not dramatically and suddenly. Having said that, the genre seems to be on track and headed in the right direction."

While the content has significantly improved over the last one year, Atul Phadnis, Chief Evangelist, Media e2e, says distribution plays an important role in increasing viewership numbers. "The focus of most kids' channels as of now is content-driven, but once the battle for distribution intensifies, one may see an increase in viewership, and only then can these channels eat into the share of mass GE channels. In most of the cable and satellite homes, kids' channels don't come on the prime band." He says only a handful are trying to get into the main band.

Phadnis also points out that the entry of DTH could lead to an increase in viewership of this segment, as the distribution advantage which most of the entertainment channels have will be neutralised.

Advertisers' delight

A couple of years ago, in a kids' channel the obvious advertisers would be companies such as Britannia or Cadbury, promoting their kid-specific products. But to the channels' delight, there have been a lot of non-traditional advertisers such as kitchen appliances and air-conditioner brands, as well as financial services companies such as ICICI Bank.

"Ad spends on kids' channels and kids' programmes on non-kids' channels went up by 23 per cent, from about Rs 130 crore in January-December 2004 to about Rs 160 crore in January-December 2005," says Tata of Turner.

"Viewing on kids' channels is not just restricted to kids. Most channels offer programming that encourages family viewing. In most cases the parents become secondary viewers. Moreover, kids are major influencers when it comes to important investments such as buying an air-conditioner or a car."

"Today, advertisers are open to reaching out to young mothers through kids' channels if there is relevance and we can demonstrate that amply. Among the younger kids, there is substantial `accompanied' adult viewing and if the environment is uncluttered and appealing, why not?" says Sohrabji of Mediacom.

Companies such as Turner, in fact, have a dedicated retail sales team to tap local advertisers, and Tata claims that these advertisers have added to the company's revenue by almost 15 per cent in 2005. "We got a number of local retailers to advertise on TV for the first time. These are brands such as Chennai Silks, a sari store in Chennai, or a kids' brand such as Lilliput."

More Stories on : Strategy | Radio/TV | Children & Parenting

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