Enthused by the response to its locally created properties, Viacom18-owned kids channel Nickelodeon India is scaling its local content by creating its third home-grown animated character Shiva .

The company had earlier created properties such as Motu Patlu and Pakdam Pakdai .

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & Business Head, Kids Cluster, Viacom18 told BusinessLine , “The kid’s television category is growing. We realised we were under served in the action comedy space. With Shiva we are looking to engage with the kids”.

Shiva is the story of the nine-year-old boy who stays in Vedas city with his Nana & Nani. Every story in the show starts with an incident that threatens Vedas City.

Nickelodeon has also launched its HD channel in India for kids — Nick HD+.

Jaipuria said that the company will also look at monetising opportunities for Shiva as a brand.

“We are looking to monetise through licensing and customised on-air advertising solutions”.

Industry watchers point that the kids market is growing. The locally grown properties started gaining popularity with Chhota Bheem in 2008.

Since then, home-grown series like Roll No. 21, Mighty Raju, Little Krishna, Motu Patlu, Pakdam Pakdai have been vying for attention along with Doraemon and Shin Chan .

As per various estimates, kids television accounts for 7.5 per cent of the total time spent by Indians on television coming close to general entertainment and sports.

The number of channels in the space have also doubled to 20 from 10.

According to industry sources, a typical episode of Shiva cost an upward of ₹20 lakh to create.

Asked if kid’s channels were attracting revenue from the advertisers, Jaipuria said the stickiness of advertisers was increasing.

“We grew by 26 per cent on a year-on-year basis. We were under indexed in the space but now it is growing as advertisers increase their spent”.

Kid’s channel currently attract less than 5 per cent of the total ad spend of ₹1,4000 crore.

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