It makes business sense to have a channel like Nick Junior now: Nina Elavia Jaipuria

The kids broadcasting space has just witnessed the launch of one more player with Nick Junior, the seventh television channel from the Viacom18 stable and the third under the Nickelodeon brand, after Nick and Sonic. Viacom18 decided to tap into the pre-school segment soon after the launch of Disney Junior in November. Does this indicate that the kids' space is opening up to more segmented viewing?

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, executive vice-president and business head, kids cluster, Viacom18, talks to afaqs! about how the ecosystem is changing:

Edited Excerpts

There was a very clear need gap that had to be filled. It existed because filling it did not make any business sense. However, digitisation has allowed the broadcasters to segment their offering based on the genre as well as on the demographic; in fact, you can do it both ways now. And it makes business sense now.

In today's competitive world, parents are bending backwards to do anything for their children so that they emerge winners. And, while about 12 years ago there were no options available to them (at least on television), today parents can make a choice and figure out where to get what they want. Nick Junior works on the insight that most parents want the best for their children.

Internationally, Nick Junior does not create country-specific content. Few companies can create content specially for the 2-6-year-old segment. Therefore, worldwide the content is created at a one-stop shop and then distributed across countries.

Also, I don't think at this particular age we need localisation of content. We are rather looking to develop children and that development is universal across the world. So, Nick Junior will actually be the last one to do any 'desi' content - if at all we do it. Sonic and Nick will probably go first.

Animation is the only way to transport children in this age group into their imaginary world. Live action can never do that. Therefore, I totally believe that it is only animation and fictitious characters that help children to live voyeuristically in their own imaginary world. Live action might perhaps work for older kids.

Not to forget, the Teen Nick block that takes over from 7 pm onwards will be live action content (a lot of which is currently being watched on YouTube) wherein the genres will include sitcoms, drama and comedy; also, it is more stylised, contemporary and music-based.

The same team from Nick and Sonic will work on the new channel as well. We will only get incremental people on board. This is because we understand the genre now and we already have relationships that are being built with clients and brands. And typically, since all these brands are ideally talking to children from all age groups, there is no need to separate the teams.

We are going to start small and we are going to start in-house. So the fact that we want to start promoting the channel purely to moms will clearly be from Colors' perspective because you have a lot of moms right in-house viewing a lot of Viacom18 channels. We will also, of course, talk to the older siblings who are already on Nick.

Also, since a lot of young moms today are in the online space, trying to surf and look for their kids, we will use online aggressively as a marketing vehicle to reach out to the requisite audience.

Additionally, since print is not obsolete yet, we will also use newspapers and magazines to some extent to market the channel.

We are not going to promote Teen Nick as much. We are hoping that in a one-television household, the older siblings will get to know of it and therefore come and watch Teen Nick as well. It is just about utilising a bandwidth that is available to you, which will automatically get switched off otherwise. So, in order to keep it switched on and hopefully with the remote getting passed on to older children post 7 pm, we are hoping that if we offer content to that particular segment at that time of the night, it will be watched. The blocks - Nick Junior and Teen Nick - will, however, not get cross-pollinated.

Currently, we actually do not have any brand advertising on the. But we will have to rely on ad sales to some extent until a balance develops between advertising and subscription revenue. That is the way it works in India currently. In the western world, the revenue from subscription makes up more than 70 per cent of the total for any broadcaster.

Nick Junior will, however, be supported more through subscription as well as consumer products. So I would imagine that you are creating ancillary revenue streams from the channel, which otherwise you are not able to do on other channels. So, for Nick Junior, the reliance on ad sales will be the least from the perspective of a franchise.

I don't think strategically one would plan it that way. It just so happens that a couple of shows stand out and capture the hearts and minds of children more than the rest; but I would rather depend on more than one show to deliver entertainment to children. It's about not putting all your eggs into one basket, after all. That's not how Nickelodeon has been planned either. We probably have the largest depth and width of content and therefore, our dependence on one single show is not so great.