ITV

Tag: home videos

  • Cartoon Network Enterprises lines up birthday bashes, home videos and more

    MUMBAI: Kids are in for a treat this Diwali. From Cartoon Network, to Disney Channel to Hungama TV; channels are out there in full force to woo and seek the attention of capricious kids.

    With Diwali crackling in the festive season, Cartoon Network Enterprises (CNE) – the licensing division of Cartoon Network – is going the whole hog by making available more merchandising and fun things for kids this quarter.

    One of the things that CNE has up its sleeves is the Cartoon Network Birthday Blast. As of now, Cartoon Network provided kids with the opportunity of having their birthdays flashed on the channel. Now, it has gone a step further in order to leverage the equity of Cartoon Network Birthday Blast on ground too.

    Cartoon Network and Clockwork Events (a Mumbai based event management company) will be organising birthday parties for kids wherein the complete background and theme of the party will be strewn with the characters such as the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter and Johnny Bravo.

    Apart from this, the crockery, theme games, return gifts and the Emcee will also be stamped with the Cartoon Network branding. A party that has a minimum number of 30 guests will only be organised by CNE and Clockwork Events for a cost of Rs 13,000.

    Speaking on the same, Cartoon Network Enterprise director India and South Asia Jiggy George says, “If the number of guests increase from 30, then we will charge accordingly. But as of now, this is the price we have zeroed on. We will be starting these birthday parties in Mumbai from December and will eventually take it to Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad early next year.”

    Apart from this, the network is also ramping up merchandising aroundPowerpuff Girls, Dexter and Beyblade. CNE has tied up with stores like Lifestyle, Pantaloon and Shopper’s Stop, wherein a shop-in-shop experience will be created. The existing Powerpuff Girls and Dexter merchandising will see the addition of skipping ropes, scooters and skateboards.

    CNE has also tied up with Bombay Dyeing for Powerpuff Girls, Dexter and Johnny Bravo bed sheets, pillow covers, linen etc. While the Powerpuff Girls and Dexter range will be available by the end of November, Johnny Bravo products will make a splash in the market in summer next year. A notable fact here is that earlier this year, Nick had also tied up with Bombay Dyeing for SpongeBob SquarePants and Blue’s Clues linen.

    Liliput, which is a kids’ retail brand with a strong presence in Mumbai, Gujarat, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Rajashthan, will be pushing the apparels featuring Cartoon Network’s characters.

    On the other hand, Pyramid Plastics will be rolling out a range of plastic products like Buckets, dust bins, mugs, soap boxes, bath stool with Powerpuff Girls and Dexter branding.

    “All our deals are for a minimum of two to three years. We look at partners who can create a fantastic product and at the same time be able to distribute it widely. The focus is to look at the big licensees who can be our long term partners and also be sustainable,” said George.

    Speaking on the price of these new products, George said that while the products are premium, the prices are moderate and hence made accessible to as many people as possible.

    While the Beyblades have been a sold out success, CNE is now encashing on its popularity by introducing puzzles and board games around the property. When queried as to whether the spurious Beyblades (especially those from China) were impacting the sales of the original Funskool Beyblades, George said, “Yes, there are a lot of spurious Beybaldes in the market but that has in a way helped grown the market for Beyblades and has not impacted our sales. Kids today want the original product and are smart enough to recognise the fake ones.”

    And if that was not all, CNE will also be rolling out home videos of Pogo’s live action show – M.A.D. CNE has tied up with Excel Video for the same. The VCDs will be priced at Rs 199 and the DVDs at Rs 299. “The home videos of M.A.D.will be available at Planet M, Music World, Crossword, Lifestyle and Landmark. The concept of the show is such that it fosters creativity among kids. It is a show that can be watched over and over again because kids can learn a lot while watching it. So it seemed like a perfect fit to launch it on home video,” said George.

    He also informed that advertising campaigns by Bombay Dyeing and Liliput towards the end of the year will push the new range of merchandising that is going to be launched.

    Speaking on the revenue growth that CNE has seen since it launched new merchandising in May this year, George said, “We are expecting a growth of at least 30 per cent by the end of December. On the other hand, if we talk about the one property that has seen a 30 per cent month on month growth in sales, it is Beyblade.”

    What one has to look out for in the new year is apparels, linen and toys’ range from the Johnny Bravo property and also merchandising for the pre-schoolers from the CNE kitty.

  • Sahara One Motion Pictures to foray into music, home videos

    NEW DELHI / MUMBAI: Sahara One Motion Pictures is planning to start its own music and home video labels as a natural extension to Sahara’s ambitious movie production business where it plans to invest Rs 3 billion.

    “We plan to have our own music and home video labels as we see it’s a natural extension to the type of business that we do,” Sahara India Entertainment Management’s Motion Pictures division chief operating officer Sandeep Bhargava tells Indiantelevision.com.

    According to him, the music label, which is likely to carry the Sahara One brand name, will get formalized towards the end of the year. “Considering that in a year we make so many films, it suits our business model to have our own record
    label,” Bhargava adds.

    Sahara, independently, and along with partners like K Sera Sera and Ram Gopal Verma’s company, plans 40 movie productions (average cost ranges between Rs 20 million to Rs 90 million) of which around 22 are currently in various stages of production. That is why it feels the time has come to spread into the value chain of distributing its own audio and home video labels.

    Movie production houses like Mukta Arts are now finding value in distributing their music labels. The acquisition price for music rights has fallen sharply with music companies reluctant to take risks in a highly volatile market.

    In the coming months, Sahara One Motion Pictures line-up of releases include BSK’s (Boney Kapoor’s company) No Entry, K Sera Sera’s My Wife’s Murder, the critically acclaimed Yahaan, Pyar Main Twist, animation film Hanuman, Home Delivery and MalaaMaal Weekly.

    As part of the restructuring plan to expand the movie business as well as de-risk it, from now on all co-productions would have one person from Sahara overseeing each movie as an executive producer.

    “We do vet scripts in the initial stage, but sometimes it just happens that the end product doesn’t turn out as envisaged in the beginning. Keeping that in mind, we would now be involved in every step of the film’s making,” Bhargava explains.

    Bhargava points out that keeping in mind the distribution revenue stream, Sahara One Motion Pictures is not only setting up a full-fledged distribution team (for both domestic and international markets), but is also not selling home video rights of its movies to others to exploit if fully when its own label is in place.

    The restructuring that Sahara One Motion Pictures is witnessing will also translate into putting in place a strong distribution team for the international market where rights are hawked not only for theatrical releases, but also for satellite and terrestrial TV, broadband, home video and other modes of content delivery.

    “In the CIS countries, South East Asia (Malaysia, for example), Middle East, the UK and US, there is a huge demand for Hindi films and we feel that international markets could contribute as much as 40-50 per cent revenue to the overall kitty,” Bhargava says.

    However, Sahara is not going overboard with selling film rights in the international and the domestic market. In a wait-and-watch game, the films division is keeping the home video, broadband and mobile phone rights with itself to see how the markets for these modes of delivery shape up.

    “These are early days for broadband and other technologies. So we are not selling the rights for these segments yet,” Bhargava says, adding that Sahara One and the proposed Filmy channel would always reserve the right of first refusal for any film produced or co-produced by Sahara One Motion
    Pictures that is also producing some Bengali films.

    Meanwhile, Bhargava says that the Filmy channel is scheduled for a festival time launch around September. Sahara One Motion Pictures, which claims to be India’s biggest film studio,
    deals with not just established film production houses, but also with low profile, but creative film makers. It provides them with the best and professional and hassle-free production, marketing and distribution support.

    In a short span of eight months, Sahara One Motion Pictures has released 12 films and won as many as five National Awards.

    Sahara-One Motion Pictures is managed by the Sahara India Entertainment Management Company Limited (SIEMCL) where at the helm are MD Shailendra Singh, CEO Shantonu Aditya and COO (films division) Bhargava.