"Television is and will continue to be the major growth engine in building franchise affinity in India," says Rajat Jain, MD, Walt Disney Company (India).
"Our channels have built reach through strategic acquisition of local content, which has raised interest in and awareness of our global content. "
Hungama TV and Disney's two channels currently achieve similar ratings as Turner's Cartoon Network and Pogo, and analysts believe the buyout of Hungama will add variety to Disney's offerings in India. "Local language dubbing gave Disney the numbers and position that it enjoys," says Anupriya Acharya, president, The Media Edge (TME).
Disney was a late entrant to the Indian market. Internationally, Disney Channel was an extension of characters that the kids are familiar with, escalated by theme parks and so on. In India, the exposure of the younger generation to Disney characters is very limited.
For Disney, this has essentially meant starting from scratch and, therefore, competing with new characters like Doremon or Hungama's Hero.
The company's line extension beyond TV, in the form of merchandising and theme parks, is expected to accelerate growth. Indeed, Disney's biggest challenge in India is getting a new generation of kids familiar with Mickey Mouse, who is still not as attached to them as the brand would have hoped.
Acharya notes that Turner — which is planning to launch theme parks in India, having formalised several partnerships in this area — and other competitors such as Nickelodeon are bringing out the big guns to defend their positions. "A huge amount of on-ground activation is carried out by all kids channels, which reflects efforts to extend the life of content beyond the TV set," she explains.
Overall, Jain says, kids in India are a savvy and discerning bunch. With more than 35 per cent of the Indian population below the age of 14, there is a significant demand for children's TV programming. "The market thus far has been under-served. Statistics showed that only 19 per cent of kids' viewing time on an all-India basis was spent on kids' channels. The kids programming genre in India is still at an early stage," he says.
Post-acquisition, he says viewers should get more choice and advertisers will benefit from the substantial increase in 'kidpower' and the emergence of kids as consumers. "Research proves without a doubt that kids today influence buying in even non-traditional categories, such as insurance and cars. Indian families are far more democratic today and the younger members of the family are central to any media buyer's plan."
However, Acharya notes that viewers tend to watch content, rather than a channel. "For advertisers, of course, multiple options in any genre only leads to fragmentation."
