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Discovery Communications today formally launched its kids channel Discovery Kids in Andhra Pradesh, targeting children below the age of 11 years.
The channel, which is Discovery Communications’ eighth channel in India, was rolled out last month in three languages — English, Hindi and Tamil.
Discovery is today amongst the 10 most-viewed channels in India, with 140 million viewers clicking on to it every year.
Rajiv Bakshi, Vice-President (Marketing), South Asia, said the kids genre was third in terms of TV viewership, after entertainment and movies. “In terms of advertisement revenue, this genre had a market of Rs 300-400 crore, after the entertainment and movies genres,” he said.
Discovery Kids will be competing with some 10 channels in this genre, including Turner’s Cartoon Network and Pogo, Viacom’s Nickleodeon, Disney Channel and Hungama. “The market is huge as there are an estimated 380 million children below the age of 14,” he said.
Discovery has designed its content based on a research it undertook earlier that revealed that a majority of parents did not approve of what their kids were watching. .
Bakshi said Discovery Kids would be different from the rest of the channels. The content will be entertainment embedded with learning. Animation has a share of 70 per cent of the total content, the rest being live, he said, adding that this ratio will continue.
The channel will include animation serials such as Kim , adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Sally Bollywood , featuring the adventures of an intelligent girl detective, and Howzzatt based on ‘galli cricket’, which will be aired this month.
Bakshi said there were no immediate plans to air the kids channel in Telugu. The channel is also not mulling merchandising at the moment.
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