MUMBAI: Week 18 of TAM Media Research’s weekly TV ratings monitor turned up a surprise for Turner International India which runs the kids channels Pogo and Cartoon Network.
Pogo notched up 183 GRPs (4-14 all C&S homes), the highest GRPs for any kids channels in the past seven years. Cartoon Network (CN) on its part also reported high GRPs of 134 placing it at the number 2 spot. They also grabbed a combined near 50 per cent of the viewership share of the kids channel genre – Pogo had a share of 28.7 per cent and Cartoon Network of 21.1 per cent. This data was provided to indiantelevision.com by a channel.
What happened? What got it those unexpected numbers at a time of an intense focus on cricket courtesy the IPL and when the GEC genre has been losing ratings and viewer share?
“The kids genre on the whole did really well in week 18. The summer vacations are on and kids are home from school,” explains Turner senior director & head of kids vertical south Asia Krishna Desai. “Also, Chota Bheem did very well for us on Pogo. We had Chota Bheem’s birthday celebrations in week18 which ran through the week like previous years. On 1 May, we premiered the movie ‘Chota Bheem and The Crown of Valhalla’ which also contributed to the record setting GRPs.”
“Kids like to watch marathons of two to three of their favourite shows. Increasing the frequency of these shows leads to higher viewership for the channel,” adds Turner vice president ad sales south Asia Juhi Ravindranath.
Juhi says the high viewership despite, the kids channel genre and pricing for it needs to be looked at with a different set of eyeglasses.
“The kids channel genre accounts for approximately six per cent of overall viewership (CS 4+ All India). In terms of revenue share, it is around 2.5 to three per cent,” she highlights. “So yes, it is definitely underpriced as a genre. If one looks at the past few weeks’ data, Pogo and CN are ranked at number 11 and number 12 respectively in terms of viewership amongst all channels. Unfortunately the rates commanded by the genre are not at par. However, year on year, there is growth in effective rates for the genre. We are, however, pushing for very aggressive rate hikes this year and are seeing success.”
She says her team is increasingly getting aggressive on bringing in non-traditional advertisers to hoick revenues. “While kids form the core audience, any household with kids would also see substantial viewership coming from parents. For example, Pogo and Cartoon Network would be ahead of most news channels in the male 15+ target group. Categories like computers, telecom and other durables are forming areas of growth for us. Apart from this, we are actively using non-FCT areas like licensing of our characters, vignettes, on-ground events and our online websites to help us drive revenues.”
Will week 19 of TAM’s ratings see Pogo and CN maintaining the tempo? Desai says the team is gung-ho about this. “We put in our best, however, we leave to the kids’ audience the rest,” he ends with a smile.
In April, Filmy created the ‘Junior Filmy‘ Sunday block from 10 am to 2 pm to fill it with two back-to-back movies. This came on the back of an experiment carried out in July last year with the screening of The Jungle Book Series in the same time band.
A month later, it was Zee Cinema which branded a special kids daily slot from 19 May. The Dopahar Zee Cinema Par slot at 12:30 pm has Darsheel Safary of Taare Zameen Par fame as the brand ambassador.
Filmy, for instance, has introduced Five Juniors as presenters – Pink Rose, Miss B, Gadbad Gobbar, Jaggu Jasoos and Mr Octopus. These juniors pop up from time to time, offering children a different viewing experience throughout the movie.
As part of the engagement game, Zee Cinema has introduced Din Mein Taare contest. Kids have to count the stars which appear on the screen while the movie is shown. Five winners from across the country will get a chance to meet Darsheel safary, after the kids carnival is over.
Another innovative advertising trend in this season of vacation is that kids channels are advertising in these movie channels to expand their visibility. Nick, for instance, is advertising on Filmy during the Junior Filmy slot.
With limited movies in the market and increasing demand, the acquisition prices have also gone high. Taking the syndication route is becoming a popular practice. Filmy has inked barter deal with Pogo for Chhota Chetan and Abra Ka Dabra.
“Our library is big enough and the titles that we have chosen have consistently done well for the channel. So we decided to put them all together in a slot and run a festival,” points out Chawla.
This year too, the genre has increased from a relative share of 5.3 per cent (C&S, 4+, week ended 12 April, 2008) to 5.6 per cent (C&S, 4+, week ended 19 April, 2008) soon after the summer special programming was introduced.
With several means of interactive contests, consumer products and on ground promotions, the channels put out their best properties to create each day as Sunday. 
Disney is also betting high on movies and contests for the three channels – Hungama TV, Disney channel and Jetix.
Going by the interactivity mantra, both Hungama TV and Disney channel have announced contests on their respective channels. Hungama is back with the famous ‘Pyjama contest’ whereas Disney wants kids to catch the ‘Prof Silensor’.
Nick, the fastest growing channel in the category, is not behind either. It has decided to take the kids on the dance floor through ‘Nick Fundoo Superstar’.
This is exactly what Nick did last year: the interactive contests and the Indian connect that it established with the kids fuelled its growth.
Extending the favourite animated series on TV beyond the television screen brings in extra bucks for the kids channels especially during the summer vacation.
Attempting to win new eyeballs, Cartoon Network has associated itself with Zapak.com to launch an online gaming portal Zapakkids.com.The website will soon have over 40 Cartoon Network action-adventure packed online games.
Says Zapak.com COO Rohit Sharma, “Kids aged 14 years and below constitute over 25 per cent of Zapak users online. They are the stickiest and the most loyal users on our site, which is definitely an area of focus for Zapak.”
“Getting kids face to face with their favourite characters is the ultimate that we can offer,” adds Jaipuria.
The advertisers are also taking maximum advantage with pester power and passive viewership coming into the picture.
Absolutely, say media planners. Perceptually as well as in reality, there is a viewership surge on kids’ channels during summer and therefore advertisers flock in to exploit their brands.
Explaining toIndiantelevision.com Nick India VP and GM Nina Jaipuria says, “We have made a conscious effort to do what we promised at the beginning of the year, that is to connect to our loyal audiences and to acquire new audiences via our on-air and on-ground activities. This has helped increase the affinity of kids to the channel. On the ratings front, we have witnessed 67 per cent growth in TVRs which makes us the fastest growing the category across Hindi speaking markets. We have also grown by 54 per cent in reach, while the reach of the category as a whole has stagnated at 64 per cent from January to June 2007.”
Coming back to the two top networks, Disney did overthrow the long standing player at the helm Turner in February and June, but what’s intriguing is that the fortunes of Disney appear to be mostly tied into the fate of its adopted baby Hungama TV which peaked during these two months clocking a share of 24 and 25 respectively. In North India Jetix has been slipping from a share of 7 to 5, while Disney Channel has been fairly consistent with an average share of 15.5. Hungama TV has emerged as the chart topper in the Hindi markets in the month of June.
When queried on the pitfalls that the channel encountered, Bhosle elaborated that her attempts at a pre-school block in August 2006 did not take off well, even though she re-tried this strategy in June this year as well. Additionally, action anime and Bollywood flicks were not received well by her audiences. “Besides kid’s centric Bollywood films are too few and only provide one-off spikes. I would rather focus on building properties that will consistently deliver,” she adds.
Turner International India VP advertising sales and networks, India and South Asia Monica Tata says, “Cartoon Network and Pogo have never looked at short-term measures or short-term results, even when it was the only kids’ channel in India. As far as ratings are concerned, we have always played fair and looked at long-term ratings rather than just a few weeks.
Steering our analysis towards South India, we find that the new Tamil kid from the Sun stable has rattled up the market, especially eating into a substantial chunk of both Cartoon Network and Pogo’s audiences.
Making up for its dipping numbers in the North is Walt Disney’s Jetix which held on to its position in the South. Jetix garnered a share of 26 and 27 for May and June, despite the onslaught of FTA newcomer Chutti TV that gobbled up a share of 21 for the two months after launch.
Bracing up for the months ahead Tata concludes, “We have always led from the top and not shifted or changed our strategies in reaction to competition. Our vision is to be a major kids’ lifestyle brand in the next few years. And we have been working very hard this past year to move aggressively and rapidly towards that vision. We are no longer taking baby steps but extending the brands across various platforms to ensure that we reach out to kids at every possible access point.”