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Ajita Shashidhar

Children's channels are perceived as indispensable for kids' and household brands.

SPONGEBOB ON NICKELODEON

Kids' channels have come in handy for brands that want to approach kids and their parents in the hope that pester power will work. Starcom's Manish Porwal says it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that the availability of these channels has now made it possible to launch many a "kid's brand" based solely on pester power. "Brands now dare to launch a kids-only theme.

A reverse trend, noticeable at the same time, is that many brands talking to mothers and families (cars, bikes, paints, kitchen products and tabletop consumption products) are also putting some effort and investment into these channels.

This decision also gets eased by the fact that the absolute amounts required to make a connect through these channels is modest.

All in all, these channels are seen as indispensable for kids' brands and another opportunity for household brands," he observes.

More channels?

With the genre witnessing such impressive growth rates, will the future coming months see the entry of more channels entering the genre? Nachiket Pantvaidya of Disney says, "We already have seven kids' channels and all the major international players in the Indian market.

What would now happen is that these channels would look at launching multilingual channels. For instance, Disney already has a presence in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi."

"We expect some new genres and language feeds to be introduced. Rather than new launches, when CAS seems imminent, we expect there to be some consolidation in the kids' space. We also anticipate some existing players to reposition in order to better differentiate themselves in a cluttered market," adds Hema Govindan of Nickelodeon. Manish Porwal of Starcom says the channels are in the consolidation phase and that the next 12 months would be critical for that.

While both Pantvaidya and Govindan expect the existing players to come up with regional feeds, Atul Phadnis of media e2e expects even regional mass entertainment channels such as a Sun TV or Surya to launch their own kids' channels. Watch this space.

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

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