WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks’ Cartoon Network was one of the channels almost every 90s kid in India grew up watching. As the number of players in the indigenous ecosystem increased gradually, the race to create top-notch, sticky content also played along.
It is not a secret that homegrown IPs have been dominating the kids’ genere in the past few years. While the number of IPs being pushed out by India’s kids’ broadcasters has somewhat decreased in recent times, WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks seems to be looking to up the ante.
“WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks has been a pioneer in creating local content. We were the first ones to start 
producing local content in India. In the past two years we have produced content like Kalari Kids, Andy Pirki, Krish Trish. But what you would see />this year(2020) in terms of volumes would be much larger than what we have done in the past two or three years. Whatever need- gaps are existing on that channel, we are filling all those need gaps.” says the newly appointed Cartoon Network and Pogo, South Asia Network head and senior director Abhishek Dutta.
POGO recently commissioned two IPs, Titoo and Lambuji Tinguji, produced by Cosmos Maya, and Cartoon Network will air Bandbudh Aur Budbak, from Paperboat Studios which has been a huge traction earner for Discovery Kids.
Says Dutta, “Bandbudh aur Budbak has been available in the category since the past couple of months and there were multiple parties who were trying to get that show. We had a need-gap in that genre and we found it to be the best fit for our channel.”
However, resonating his aforementioned comments, he further stated, apart from the acquired one, they are trying to fill in the gaps with multiple genres of content with the two other shows, Lambuji Tinguji and Titoo.
Some might find the title of Lambuji Tinguji familiar with another hit kids’ show aired in the country. However, apparently although the genre is very close to that, it being a slapstick dialogue based comedy, it’s pacy. There is a lot of humour in it. Not just visual but verbal as well. And there are some inherent powers in these two gentlemen who are the lead characters of this show.
Titoo on the other hand lies in the genre of slice of life. But the stories don’t just revolve around the titular character. There’s a series of characters in the show which apparently play key roles. While Titoo is at the forefront of the stories but there’s his father, mother, the secretary of the society he lives in and multiple other kids from the same society. Apart from them, there’s a rival group of kids, school teachers and the character’s own brother as well.
Currently plans of the channel include 52 half an hour episodes in the current year which will be 104 stories. Apart from that, feature films around the IPs are slated for release later this year as well which can be critical for the IPs themselves.
Once a show is launched, the kids start resonating with the characters and once the show is popular among them movies really help garner high viewership, so if top trends in the category are to be taken into account, the 80 minutes, 90 minutes, 120 minutes formats do really well. Even better than the episodes. Reason being that once the kids get attached to the characters, the larger storyline will actually engage you in a much better way.
The broadcaster will be continuing with a gamut of both homegrown and international shows.
Says Dutta, “We are very bullish on the economic revival story that is coming in and we are really hoping that this year will be much better in comparison to what 2019 was. There have been ups and downs in the category. There is no denying that. But going forward, we are really hoping that this year is going to be much better than the past two years.”
As the lockdown across the country continues, television viewership has seen an evident growth. Furthermore, as schools are shut and the kids are staying at home, the channels catering to kids content are experiencing a viewership spike as well.
According to the recently released BARC data kids’ channels are trailing right behind news amid the lockdown.
Even though the channel mentioned having plans of school and more ground activations around their new IPs, it is uncertain on how they will go through with it given the current lockdown scenario. We caught up with Dutta before the Coronavirus outbreak intensified, hence it would not be surprising to see if some of the plans mentioned by him in regards to the broadcaster are amended in tandem with the measures being taken to contain the outbreak.
However, says the head, “We are focusing on width and depth in the market so it’s not just the number of shows but the number of stories that we are preparing. So the overall idea is to create a huge library for us with multiple shows and multiple storylines which could engage with the kids.”
He also stated that the channel is working on and will be announcing multiple IPs in the second half of the year.
Concludes Dutta, “A lot of challenges have been there throughout the years but our focus has been completely fixated on what we are going to do on our shows, with our platforms that we could overcome these challenges and stay at the forefront in the kids’ genre, irrespective of whatever changes are happening. We would continue to focus on building our own properties and reaching out to as many kids as possible throughout the country.”