Pogo to air more local movies

Turner International's second kids channel, Pogo has decided to air more locally produced movies, which it calls 'longer format shows'.

For the Diwali season, the channel has line up six movies to be premiered in a single week. These include the home productions -- Chhota Bheem and The Rise of the Kirmada.

In a normal week, the channel airs 10-15 movies of which four to five movies are fresh content while remaining ones are repeats.

Krishna Desai, head, content and programming, mentions that the repeat value of any show is very high in case of kids.

Locally, the channel plans to make some key acquisitions of movies especially those which are not made for a theatrical release.

The channel has two movie slots branded as 'Lights Camera Pogo - Saturday, 2 PM and Sunday 12 PM which incidentally competes directly with the sister channel, Cartoon Network's Masala Popcorn at the same slot on Saturday. However, Cartoon Network has a break free movie slot at 12 PM.

"We are trying to build the Saturday movie block on Pogo, for a long time now. It has begun to gain momentum now and we would want to keep it that way. However, the Sunday slots for the two channels have always remained the same, and are doing well enough,"

says Desai.

He adds that recent statistics suggest that the channel has been earning about 30-40 per cent viewership from the adult (15 +) audiences. This is almost similar across short and long format shows. However, 60 per cent of the advertisers, as per the channel are the ones targeting kids directly, while the rest 40 per cent are non-traditional advertisers like FMCG, white goods, financial services and automobiles.