"If you want audiences to resonate with the content, localisation is the way": Krishna Desai

In the Indian television space, the specialised genre on kids emerged in 1995 when Turner International's Cartoon Network (CN) entered India. Post that, there have been major broadcasters banking heavily on the genre. Viacom18, Disney, Zee and Discovery have all forayed into the space. The genre - pegged at Rs 300-350 crore - is largely ruled by Pogo and Cartoon Network, both from Turner International India.

While Pogo has completed 10 years, Cartoon Network will complete two decades of its presence in India next year. afaqs! chats with Krishna Desai to see what lies ahead. Excerpts:

Edited Excerpts

Though both CN and Pogo cater to 4-14 years, the differentiation for us is clear. From the demographic point of view, the target audience of Pogo is slightly younger than that of CN. Pogo is girls inclusive while CN tilts a bit more towards boys. Otherwise, Pogo is like a "feel good" channel while CN is a naughtier one and makes you laugh out loud. CN is slightly edgier in the kid's sense.

Put together, both CN and Pogo have about 40 per cent in the genre. We are clearly dominating right now. Separately, they have roughly equal shares - CN beats Pogo by 2 or 3 per cent. Last year, Pogo was at about 23-24 per cent and CN was at about 20 per cent. According to the TAM ratings, we have had both our channels occupying the top two positions for the last two years. In India, the kids' genre is the only one to have the top two channels from same network.

While it has grown large in terms of percentage growth, it still remains a very small number in our business. Even in the overall retail business, there is a polarisation towards disorganised markets. The organised market is growing fast, but is tiny in percentage terms. The biggest trouble with L&M - and the reason why it is not big - is piracy. The day we launch an Omnitrix watch (of Ben10 fame), there will be 10 other rip offs of the same in the market at half the price within a few days.

In 1995, the genre had a two per cent share, with the launch of CN. In 2004, when Pogo was launched, the viewership share of the genre went up to 6.5 per cent. The current share of the kids' genre in the 4+ market is 7.7 per cent. The kids' genre is the third largest nationally after Hindi GECs (30. 5 per cent) and Hindi Movies (13.9 per cent). In the 4-14 audience (its core TG), we were in single digits in 2005-2006. We are now about 20 per cent.

Not as yet. Pre-school is, by definition, less than four years and TAM measures only the 4+ age-group. Also, kids have evolved over the years. Shows like Noddy or Oswald, which kids used to watch with a lot of interest in 2007-2008, are not working well with them today. Kids are growing older a lot faster now. What a 10-year-old used to watch six to seven years ago is what a five-year-old will like today. While it is possible to draw a strategy for the younger lot, how will you know whether that strategy is working or not? Since you cannot measure it, it's a shot in the dark.

Amongst our audiences, the core target group (4-14 years) comprises 60 per cent, while 40 per cent of the viewership comes from the 15+ viewers. A lot of co-viewing happens with kids - with either parents or elder siblings.

The reasons for this could be that the others also like what is being aired or they want to monitor what the kids are watching. Even if we don't actively go for them, our 15+ ratings on CN and Pogo are bigger than several niche genres put together. And that attracts advertisers. Also, advertisers are targeting 4-14-year-olds as their secondary audience since the new generation does exert an influence on the purchase decision of the family.

Television is a unique medium where your product is the same as your communication vehicle. How will you distinguish between the two? We promote our shows on our own channels mostly and the strategy has worked beautifully for us. We do on-ground activities like school contact programmes, but that's a branding exercise. When we do non-TV activities we don't expect those things to increase our TV ratings.

If you want the audiences to resonate with the content, localisation is the way. We had a show called 'Billy and Mandy' that ran on its own in four languages. We localised it further and rewrote the script and dubbed it in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The show started giving much better results. Its 'transcreation' - where we add dubbing which is different from the original script - makes it funnier and more relatable.

The other logical step is to produce or co-produce shows. We have co-produced Chota Bheem, for instance. Localisation cannot be done in isolation. It also depends on how the animation industry is maturing in the country.

CN is 100 per cent animation while 15-20 per cent of the content on Pogo is live action. What we have seen is that series-based live action content doesn't have good repeat value. A good animation show has repeat value for 6-7 years, but kids don't like watching games shows, art and craft or drama multiple times.

Therefore, in the live action space we have moved towards creating 60-90 minute movies, the repeat value of which is matching that of animation content. More than 15 short movies have been produced in the past five years. But in the live action format we started producing tele features only from 2012.