NEW DELHI: Pogo and Cartoon Network, the kids‘ channels from the Turner stable, have hit upon films as the best formula for creating stickiness. Hence, big films like Krrish will be shown for the first time on Pogo, Turner International VP ad sales (India and South Asia) Monica Tata told indiantelevision.com.
Also aired will be Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Gulliver‘s Travels and action-packed Trouble in Tokyo, as well as Ninja Turtles III and Bal Ganesh.
Indian mythological animation content Chhota Bheem, acquired from the Hyderabad-based Green Gold Studios, will also be premiered this summer.
"Basically, children are a difficult audience to control and please, and the issue was how to make them stick around on our channel for a longer time, which is why we were looking at ‘long form content‘ and strategically found movies to be the solution for fragmentation," Tata said.
"Summer for us is akin to the festive season for GECs, and though we also do very well during the festive seasons, but during the last summer Cartoon Network and Pogo contributed 60 per cent of the total growth of the genre," added Tata.
"Seeing this trend over the last two years, we had decided to launch itself on a major initiative that would include a lot of Indian content in the kids channels," explained Tata.
She likened Indian summer to what in the US is called the "fresh content season," which for that country is during fall time.
"We believe we shall have a very strong population on the channels because of this, who would stay connected to our network," Tata said.
She also said that humour as a part of content is important, which is why a new show called Thumb Wrestling Federation will be aired. She expects this to become a "phenomenon," as kids are likely to get into this sport in schools amongst peers.
As for marketing, it will primarily be on air as the maximum eyeballs we get are on our own network, Tata added.
Speaking about some programme promotional tie-ups, Tata said, "Pogo has tied up with Singapore Tourism to shoot MAD over there. This will help creating solutions for the network‘s clients to boost their marketing initiatives."
"We have done ‘advertiser-funded programming‘, like the Bournvita Quiz Contest in the past but this Singapore Tourism tie-up with Pogo is the new one," added Tata.
Asked about competition and the fact that on certain occasions rivals like Hungama TV are neck to neck with Cartoon Network, Tata said that it would not be fair to compare on a week to week or even hour to hour rating.
"Comparison should be on an annual basis and there if you see, we have been and are still the number one, with 99 out of 100 top programmes being with Cartoon Network and Pogo," said Tata.
She backed up her claim by saying that Kids channel viewing (consumption) increased by 25 per cent for Cartoon Network and Pogo and only 15 per cent for rest of all the kids channels put together.
