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Barring a few kids' channels, broadcasters in India have not really explored the licensing and merchandising (L&M) avenue. Can it emerge as a substantial source of revenue for them?
What could be the impediments that broadcasters face? Can it emerge as a substantial source of revenue for them?
Sandeep Dahiya, senior VP, Communications and Consumer Products, Viacom18
Viacom, globally, is a serious player. Characters like Dora and SpongeBob in certain markets make more money from licensing than from ad sales. Today, a kid can watch his favourite character for half an hour, sleep, play and interact with the character 24 hours. So, there's a great opportunity here.
Jehil Thakkar, executive director and head, Media & Entertainment, KPMG India
Another issue is brand and characters. While we have show brands, we have very few 'character' brands. In the West, there are strong character brands. Some examples are Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, Hannah Montana, Mr T from A team or even Kramer from Seinfeld. Much of our television shows are still Bollywood-driven. A third inhibitor is that, outside of the kids' space, we don't really buy (or I am guessing?) or desire licensed products, since it's still seen as a kid-centric domain.
Dulce Lim Chen, V-P, Asia Pacific, Cartoon Network Enterprises
Ajit Thakur, EVP and business head, Sony Entertainment Television
It took us six months to make a proper plan to extend CID into comics. It's important to get likeminded partners who understand distribution and can fill up the gaps. For Indian Idol, we launched a range of T-shirts with Reebok. While I don't think L&M can contribute substantially to a channel's revenues in the short term, I do see that happening some years down the line. We are looking at extending three of our properties -- CID, Indian Idol and KBC -- to the L&M space.
(Points of View (POV) is a regular column which carries opinions of industry professionals on a current topic of discussion in the advertising, media and marketing industry.)