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Tag: Sony YAY

  • Sony YAY! to telecast first tele movie of ‘Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah’

    Sony YAY! to telecast first tele movie of ‘Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah’

    MUMBAI: After two seasons of its show Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashma, kids broadcaster Sony YAY! brings a new season of the show on Monday.

    The channel will also launch the first television movie of the Gokuldham society called – “Tapu and the Big Fat Alien Wedding”. The movie will teleport kids to Tapu’s animated universe where they will witness aliens coming down to earth for a rib-tickling wedding celebration.

    To bring the toons closer to the young audiences Sony YAY! celebrated a watch party in association with KidZania, Mumbai. Here kids got a preview of exclusive content, the chance to engage in fun activities and win prizes, while they shook a leg with their favourite toons.

    Sony Pictures Networks India business head kids’ genre Leena Lele Dutta said, “Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah has seen a successful journey on Sony YAY! To see it become widely popular among children has been absolutely special. Following the massive success and huge fan-following of the first two seasons, we wanted kids to enjoy the show’s enigmatic characters in a larger format with the release of the first telemovie.”

    Neela Film Productions founder, managing director Asit Kumarr Modi said, “Over the past 14 years, TMKOC has become one of the most loved shows. Our characters have become part of the audience’s family and daily lives. Turning these characters into animation and receiving the same love has been overwhelming to say the very least. With the third season on the anvil, our commitment to providing seamless entertainment and exploring more options to portray our characters to our viewers has only grown deeper.”

  • Kids prefer consuming content on television rather than OTT, says a study conducted by Sony YAY!

    Kids prefer consuming content on television rather than OTT, says a study conducted by Sony YAY!

    MUMBAI: Currently, 57 percent of kids prefer television while only 10 per cent receive their entertainment via OTT. 33 percent of kids prefer to watch both television and OTT. Younger kids prefer television while older kids with more access to OTT platforms lean towards it. There exists a clear geographical divide in kids’ preference for OTT entertainment where only 81 percent of kids surveyed in southern India preferred OTT as opposed to 56 percent of kids surveyed in eastern India.

    Kids entertainment channel Sony YAY! has released its latest survey titled, SearchLight’22. This decodes the lives and habits of Indian Kids, in collaboration with Kantar Research. The psychometric profiling by the survey presents findings that highlight various trends across eight cities in the country.

    The research derives its findings between educational and personal development and also entertainment preferences. It offers a deep dive into India’s young audiences aged between 7-14 years. It also undertakes region-wise bifurcation of the data, considering India’s geographical and cultural diversities, to highlight the preferred activities of kids from region specific markets.

    On OTT platforms kids consume cartoons and animation content the most followed by music, educational/informational shows, hindi and regional movies and stand up comedy shows.

    The journey from blackboards to keyboards is what kids witnessed through the pandemic, thus, to understand their learning preferences, SearchLight’22 sheds a few insights-

    – Kids favoured online classes over offline classes due to rewatch option of online classes (29 percent), the comfort of home (28 percent), followed by the ability to attend classes they usually can’t physical (16 percent) and save time (15 percent)

    – The top five activities participated by kids during the pandemic were tuition classes (76 percent), art & craft (24 percent), followed by sports (19 percent), dancing (18 percent) and singing (19 percent)

    – The majority of respondents wishes for lessons to be held online (63 percent) while the rest wanted to go back to the pre-pandemic style of offline teaching (37 percent)

    – Edutech platforms which rose to prominence during the lockdown saw that only 6percent of respondents had Edutech subscriptions while 7 percent respondents had not subscribed but attended Edutech classes. However, 39 percent had opted to use YouTube videos to learn concepts while 48 percent were not aware of the existence of Edutech platforms

    With kids being limited to their homes owing to movement restrictions due to the pandemic, gaming became an essential part of kids’ entertainment. The following insights were inferred from the survey:

    – One out of two kids enjoyed gaming on their phone

    – Free games were core to their consumption

    – 53 percent preferred to play solo while 44 percent were included in multiplayer games with friends and only 4 percent played multiplayer games with strangers

    With the SearchLight’22 Decoding Lives and Habits of Indian Kids, Sony YAY! said that it takes a step closer to understanding the dynamic and evolving preferences and habits of Kids. The study also provides a comprehensive look at how multiple verticals of education, entertainment, gaming and merchandising affects kids and shape their opinions or preferences. This foundational study explores newer avenues to get to know kids better.

    The survey was carried out in association with Kantar IMRB from October – November’ 2021 to understand consumption habits of kids across the country. The survey was further conducted across eight cities with 982 kids and 316 parents.

    Sony Pictures Networks India business head-kids genre Leena Lele Dutta said, “As a brand practice, we constantly aim to follow an approach to “Explore” and understand our young audiences and their dynamic choices to deliver a wholesome experience across the platforms. With the release of Searchlight’2022, we are happy to present our learnings to the industry at large and assist in understanding this dynamic Target Group better”.

  • Sony Yay! turns five: Announces fresh content and fun experiences for kids

    Sony Yay! turns five: Announces fresh content and fun experiences for kids

    Mumbai: With the onset of summer 2022, kids entertainment channel Sony Yay! has launched its three-pronged approach of ‘entertain-experience-explore’ to celebrate its fifth anniversary. With its robust summer lineup, the channel aims to become the destination of unlimited ‘entertainment.’ The channel further plans to drive engagement with its young fans by extending the Yay! ‘experience’ beyond television, reaching out to kids wherever they are. The channel will also ‘explore’ actionable initiatives drawn from key kids’ insights that are derived from its listening mechanism.

    With an aim to bring entertainment to the forefront of its summer offering, Sony Yay! brings to its young fans brand new episodes of the iconic shows – “Oggy and the Cockroaches” and “Obachhama – Kun.” Moreover, the channel doubles the dose of entertainment with two first-ever film from the show –  “Taarak Mehta Ka Chhota Chashmah,” added with new episodes of the popular show. Come June, Sony Yay! will launch another brand new show “Ha.Go.La” starring the adventures of three friends Hathgola, Goli, and Latha.

    Further extending the Yay! ‘experience’ beyond television, the channel begins an exclusive partnership with KidZania, wherein kids in Mumbai and Delhi will get a chance to interact and form deeper connections with their favorite toons via a specialised interactive city for kids. In addition, kids’ can also engage with their favorite toon Oggy in over 70 city canter activities across the length and breath of the country, mall activations across metros. The engagement will also extend on digital platforms, including over 10 mobile games, contests and exclusive watch parties.

    With their third approach to ‘explore,’ Sony Yay! endeavors to understand its young audiences and their choices to deliver them a wholesome entertainment experience. With an aim to share its learnings on its anniversary, the channel is all set to present its first-ever survey- ‘Searchlight 2022.’

    “It is heartening that our brand has grown multifold since our inception and has been able to garner more than 43 million viewers on television across the country,” commented Sony Pictures Networks India – kids’ genre business head Leena Lele Dutta. “Raising the bar with innovative storytelling across genres it’s heartening to witness an overwhelming love from our young audiences. With our new summer offerings on and beyond television, we aim to be the one-stop destination for kids.”

  • #Retrace2021: Digital evolution has changed the game for kids genre

    #Retrace2021: Digital evolution has changed the game for kids genre

    Mumbai: A seasoned professional in the broadcast industry with over two decades of experience under her belt, Leena Lele Dutta has worked with Ten Sports India, Channel 9 (Nine Broadcasting Media) and MTV India amongst other reputed companies, besides having worked in sales with SPN (then SET India) from 1995-1999. During her stint with Sony Pictures Television, she spearheaded, structured and developed the content distribution and licensing division for the company in India and South Asia.

    In her current role, as the business head – kids genre at Sony Pictures Networks India, she is responsible for driving the overall business and building the growth trajectory of the Kids’ genre for SPN by focusing on strategic content development and marketing initiatives.

    The kids channel – Sony Yay! has launched 140 hours of fresh programming, including new shows and movie premieres, and captured a significant share of viewership in the kids’ genre in October which saw the highest ad volumes of 2021. With 63.7 gross rating points (GRPs) in the Hindi-speaking market for week 43-45 (Avg, 24 hours, 2-14 ABC, BARC data), it reached the pole position in ratings compared to other kids’ channels.

    As the year draws to a close, Indiantelevision.com caught up Leena Lele Dutta to talk about the channel’s performance in 2021 and the key trends that shaped the kids’ entertainment space.

    Edited Excerpts

    Looking back at 2021

    It has been a stupendous year for us, especially the festive season. Every year we have two periods for our tentpole launches – summer (April-May-June) and the festive months. The festive period is the most potent time, in terms of ad monies and the revenue involved. So, this year, we had envisioned our programming line-up starting from Dussehra to Durga Puja, Navratri going all the way to Diwali, Christmas as well as the New Year. We actually had a lot of ammunition to fire so that we could get a share from the advertising market for our channels viz-a-viz the rest of the channels in the category.

    Unlike 2020, when the kids’ category was down by half in terms of inventory sold out because there was uncertainty and sales only picked up during Diwali, the mood of all our advertisers across all categories has been encouraging this year. Everything has opened up. Also, this year, since Diwali was in the first week of November, it gave advertisers a long four-week period in October to advertise. Barring FCT, advertising spots and sponsorships selling out, there has been demand from new clients that wanted to make their mark this season.

    On the launch of new shows, and programming line-up

    Kids genre is a highly saturated marketplace. So, when we entered the space, we knew we had to bring something different. We’re still relatively new, while our competitors are over a decade old. What we have realised, is that unlike any GEC, the rotation of audiences on the kids’ channel has become even shorter now. Kids between the age group of four to seven who land on our channel grow out of it in three years and you have a fresh set of audiences coming in.

    So, our differentiator has been local programming, indigenous characters and multi-language feeds. From a slate of four original IPs in a year we’ve ramped up and produced almost seven original shows by year, with the help of in-house scriptwriters and array of dubbing studios that are aligned to us.

    On any new innovation that the channel brought in this year

    The pandemic had first led to a surge in viewership during summer when kids and their parents were at home. There was a lot of co-viewing happening. We altered our programming strategy and introduced a variety of different characters that can appeal not just to kids but also to their mothers. This included ‘Oggy’, and a new anime show ‘Obocchama-kun’. We also revamped a show called ‘Horrid Henry’ for the Indian context and called it ‘Haste Raho Henry’.

    Through research that we conduct periodically, we understood that kids don’t necessarily want home grown IPs but want to be entertained by an array of characters that appeal to them and are a reflection of themselves. We followed it up with a 360-degree amplification including on-ground, digital platforms and through our association with network channels.

    What we’ve added because of the lockdown is a whole lot of digital innovation as kids are spending more time on devices. Whether it is a watch party, an online contest, or a digital workshop with videos from our creators and DIY activities, we’re doing all of those engagements as well on our digital platforms.

    On how the kids’ audience has evolved

    Today, a child has a lot of content choices that he/she can make. The child may go to gaming platforms, subscription video-on-demand players, YouTube, or ed-tech platforms. Right now, if you look at the ecosystem, it is not about creating the next ‘Tom and Jerry’ but also about what a new character can do to enhance your kids’ ability. We cannot satiate the kids’ appetite by just showing them content. It needs to go beyond that.

    On the trends that dominated the kids’ genre this year

    Today, OTT platforms’ acquisition of kids’ content is running into millions of dollars as they have begun to see the potential. The fact that so many players are investing in this genre is a great sign for us. That’s why at Sony YAY! apart from the production pipeline we’re also building a parallel ecosystem to make diverse content for kids and feed it into digital platforms. We have a couple of shows developed specifically for OTT platforms and YouTube that’s concurrently happening while we cater to our channel’s audiences.

    We also recently concluded our on-ground activation plan across 30 cities including metros. We’ve observed that people are going to markets and shopping with their kids so on-ground has come back and is here to stay as the more efficient form of engagement to grab a captive audience.

  • Sony Yay! leads ratings on kids’ genre during festive period

    Sony Yay! leads ratings on kids’ genre during festive period

    Mumbai: Kids’ channel Sony Yay! garnered 63.7 GRPs in Hindi speaking market (HSM) urban during the festive period (week 43-45), according to Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India. The channel was consistently leading the ratings on the kids’ genre during the festive months.

    Sony Yay! had announced over 140 hours of fresh content and several new shows across multiple genres ahead of the festive period. The channel had introduced kids’ favourite shows such as “Oggy and the Cockroaches,” “Haste Raho Henry,” “Obocchama–Kun,” and “Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah – Season 2” during the festive period. The channel renewed shows like “Ding Dong Bell Masti Ka Khel,” “Oscar Ab Bas Kar,” “Honey Bunny” films, and more – which have contributed to the success of the channel throughout the year.

    “We have promised our young fans an array of new characters, fresh new stories, rib-tickling humour, across a variety of genres,” said Sony Pictures Networks India business head – kids’ genre Leena Lele Dutta. “The success of the entire line-up that has taken us to the leadership position is an encouraging boost for us to continue serving our young audiences more of what they love.”

    (Source: HSM Urban, Wk 43’21-45’21 Avg, 24hrs, 2-14ABC, BARC).

  • Sony Yay! unveils its content lineup for festive season

    Sony Yay! unveils its content lineup for festive season

    Mumbai: Sony Yay!, the kids’ entertainment channel under Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI), has announced to serve audiences 140 hours of fresh content during the festive season including six shows and eight telemovies.

    The channel has unveiled a slate of new launches, fresh programming and films for shows like “Oggy and the Cockroaches,” “Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah,” “Haste Raho Henry,” “Obocchama-Kun,” “Honey Bunny Ka Jholmaal,” and “Paap-O-Meter.”

    “Sony Yay! has created and curated an expansive library of 550+ hours of animation content, 800+ episodes including six original shows, and 70 telemovies, successfully reaching over 50 million kids,” said the company in a statement.

    “Earlier this year, the channel also treated its young audiences with ‘Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah’ which went on to become the most popular kids’ entertainment TV show of 2021,” it added.  

    “The current situation has transformed the content consumption pattern by creating a growing demand for fresh and varied content,” said Sony Pictures Networks India business head – kids’ genre Leena Lele Dutta. “While Sony Yay! continues to serve them with new narratives around its home-grown content it has also further increased its content offerings by introducing a wide range of new shows, endearing characters, and engaging activities.”

    The channel will launch a brand-new show “Haste Raho Henry” that will begin airing on 25 September at 1 p.m every Saturday and Sunday. “Honey & Bunny” franchise films will begin airing every Sunday at noon from 3 October. “Oggy and Cockroaches” created by French animation studio, Xilam Animation, will begin airing on 18 October and new episodes and films of “Paap-O-Meter” will be launched in December.

    “This festive season, each new narrative and character is handpicked to suit the ever-dynamic palate of Indian kids and our goal is to curate a wholesome experience of their favourite characters at one destination,” said Sony Yay! head of programming Ronojoy Chakraborty.

  • Sony YAY! to launch ‘Ding Dong Bell, Masti Ka Khel’ on 16 August

    Sony YAY! to launch ‘Ding Dong Bell, Masti Ka Khel’ on 16 August

    Mumbai: Kids’ channel Sony YAY! has launched a new show ‘Ding Dong Bell, Masti Ka Khel’ starting 16 August. The animated series is a chase comedy with a voice-over by Jaaved Jaaferi and Mubeen Saudagar.

    In every episode, the Kukkads – Ding, Dong, and Bell are chased by a hungry fox, named Bhukkad. The perennially hungry fox is forever on the prowl for these chicks who are always at the ready to foil his plan. Each chick equipped with a special talent of ‘brains’, ‘brawn’ and ‘beauty’ is in the race to outsmart the fox and hence creating a laughter riot for kids. Every failure angers the determined fox to devise even more elaborate plans to outwit them in each passing episode, which usually ends up being a wild chick chase.

    “‘Ding Dong Bell, Masti Ka Khel’ is our pre-festive treat to kids which is packed with a hilarious ride doubled with funny commentaries by the best artists of the industry. While we have a barrage of new content lined up for the upcoming festive season, this is to give our young audience a taste of what they can expect in the coming months and continue serving them all their favourite characters & narratives,” said Sony Pictures Networks India, business head, Leena Lele Dutta.

    “I have always loved working with kids’ content and with a show like Ding Dong Bell, it has been a laugh riot while shaping up the narrative around it. The show is a perfect mix of comedy and adventure,” said Jaaved Jaaferi.

    Sony YAY! will introduce the new characters of the show in an exclusive sneak peek on 14 August via Zoom.

  • With Taarak Mehta Ka Chhota Chashmah, Sony Yay! wants to get parents & kids co-watching

    With Taarak Mehta Ka Chhota Chashmah, Sony Yay! wants to get parents & kids co-watching

    MUMBAI: Four years after it made its foray into the kids’ genre with Sony Yay!, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) is all set to launch an animated version of one of its most popular TV shows- Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKCC).

    The animated show titled Taarak Mehta KKa Chhota Chashmah (TMKCC) will hit the airwaves on 19 April. Set against the backdrop of Gokuldham, the show will witness iconic characters – Jethalal, Bapuji, Dayaben, and Tapu in their animated avatar.

    However, this time, the entire show has been created from the lens of kids’ favourite characters, Tappu and Daya, who will be the protagonists. "The characters will remain true to their original role, but we have moulded the entire show from the lens of Tappu and Daya, as Tappu is immensely popular among young kids. The situations will revolve more around children's issues," said SPNI kids EVP and business head Leena Lele Dutta.

    Animated show that appeals to parents and kids alike

    Produced by Asit Kumarr Modi under the banner of Neela Telefilms, Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma remains one of the longest-running shows on Indian television after it crossed the 3,000-episode mark in October last year. It reached out to 22.7 per cent of the children's population in India and has recorded a higher viewership than any other show.

    The channel mainly caters to kids in the age group of 6-10 years. However, this time, the idea was to create a show which caters to both parents and kids even in the animated avatar,” said Dutta.

    The property will be jointly executed by Neela Telefilms and SPNI, where SPNI will manage the production, while Modi handles the creative storytelling. The show will be launched with around 40 episodes; the makers are already creating a bank for season two and have hired multiple scriptwriters to take it ahead. The animation production has been done by Hitech studio based out of Kolkata and Green Gold Animation.

    According to the channel, TMKCC will mainly target the Hindi-speaking markets of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The channel has also planned a Gujarati market feed three months before the actual launch to enable the state residents to watch it in their native language. Colgate has associated with the show as the title sponsor, Play House is the co-powered sponsor.

    Journey of Sony Yay!

    The kids' channel category has evolved ever since Cartoon Network, the first channel exclusively dedicated to kids’ content, was launched in 2014. The category has grown by eight percent during FY2018-2020 and according to BARC data, five channels –Nick, Sonic, Hungama, Pogo, and Disney – dominate the top share.

    However, according to Dutta, the growth of Sony Yay! has been three to four times more than the category, with some popular shows like Shinchan, Doraemon, Chhota Bheem, and its most successful homegrown series Motu Patlu.

    “We are the fastest-growing channel in the category. Sony Yay! has exponentially grown at the rate of 42 per cent since 2018. We have faced many challenges in these four years. In 2020, we were exposed to Covid2019 pandemic, the year before that was NTO implementation, but we managed to sail through all this,” she shared.

    According to the latest data, the Indian Kids entertainment industry reaches over 73.2 million kids and counting (India U+R, TG: 2-14 All NCCS, Universe 183 million). Due to the current situation and curbs, kids are expected to spend more time indoors which will further broaden their interest in all things new.

    “Overall, the kids’ entertainment category occupies eight per cent of the viewership pie of television but receives only 3.5 per cent of the revenue share of advertising, making it a highly under-indexed category. That said, incremental growth will also be led by licensing and merchandising followed by character/brand integrations,” said Dutta.

    New shows to bolster the summer slate

    The channel is also planning to tap into the ever-increasing demand for fresh content this summer and will offer viewers a wide range of choices of new characters and fresh narratives this year. This includes new characters and narratives with shows like Kikoumba, Chimpoo Simpoo, Bhaalu Yeh Bindaas Hai, Chorr Police, Obocchama-Kun, new movies, and episodes of its existing properties Honey Bunny ka Jholmaal and Paap-O-Meter.

    “In an average Indian family, the non-prime time is when kids gain control of the TV sets and we have always conceptualised our strategy around these time bands. It has also led us to constantly evolve and enhance our content strategy into a wide array of 16 shows to match the demand of fresh and differentiated content,” detailed Dutta.

    This summer, the channel will also curate special content for its audience which includes episodic snippets, interactive games, contests, a gamut of entertaining content in seven different languages along a barrage of exciting virtual summer workshops. The makers will also have a 100-city canter activation followed by nine-city mall activation covering key markets in Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh with some engagement touchpoints incorporated.

  • Summer around the corner, Sony Yay! introduces 4 new shows

    Summer around the corner, Sony Yay! introduces 4 new shows

    MUMBAI: Exams are over, and the summer holidays lie ahead. With the intent to further strengthen its fan-base during this period, Sony Yay! has unveiled four new shows ranging across a gamut of genres and endearing characters, packed in a pre-summer treat of fresh and exciting content.

    The channel is dialling up the fun with newly launched adventure-thriller show Kikoumba; and soon to be released hilarious chase-comedy Chorr Police; mystery/detective-comedy Chimpoo Simpoo; slapstick-silent comedy Bhaalu Ye Bindaas Hai also popularly known as Bernard the Polar Bear; and slice-of-life comedy/ comedy-drama Obocchama-Kun. The new line-up of diversified content will treat kids to delightful narratives and adorable characters as they gear up for their summer vacations. Furthermore, the channel will also surprise children by bringing brand-new episodes of their favourite cat-jodi Honey Bunny in their most-popular show Honey Bunny Ka Jholmaal.

    With this  programming line-up, the channel sets the tone ahead of an entertaining summer filled with new movies, episodes, and tons of incredible activities curated to keep young audiences hooked all through the summer holiday season.

    Sony Pictures Networks India kids’ genre business head Leena Lele Dutta said, "Our young patrons have always showered us with immense love and loyalty for all our offerings and content that we have introduced. Paying an ode to their trust in us, we have handpicked four special narratives as a pre-summer treat.  Each of these shows will present our young audience with four new fascinating worlds and be the perfect precursor to a spectacular summer vacation that we have planned for kids to go ‘yay!’ once again.”

  • Guest column: 2020 has been full of new learnings for content creators

    Guest column: 2020 has been full of new learnings for content creators

    MUMBAI: Summer vacations typically start from the month of April leading up to June, a period when content consumption amongst children is usually at its peak for kids entertainment channels. This arrived as early as March this year owing to pandemic-induced lockdown and has continued since. To meet this increased consumption demand of our young viewers, our production houses worked remotely and delivered fresh content throughout the pandemic to keep them entertained. We utilised this time for reflection on the content mix and content journey, hence we have also given them brand new content with the launch of our first chase-comedy show, Pyaar Mohabbat, Happy Lucky; and continued it with another new show in the mythology genre – Krishna Balram.  We also expanded our language feed from seven to nine languages with the launch of Honey Bunny ka Jholmaal in two new language feeds, Gujarati and Kannada. The consumption pattern also moved towards consuming long forms, adapting to which Sony Yay! released 15 new Honey Bunny movies this season.

    We improvised our existing plans and adopted a fresh approach of omni-channel presence of our characters to keep up with our young viewers and entertain them throughout. We commenced this journey with our summer campaign – What’s Your Summer Plan? –announcing exciting new episodes, telemovies of our marquee characters along with new shows. We also launched a unique workshop series called Yay! Summer Camp brought together artists and experts from various fields to create videos on art and craft, Zumba, storytelling and more. In addition to this, the Yay! the ecosystem was expanded to cater the fans with special Honey Bunny themed mobile games and interactive Honey Bunny themed Instagram filters.

    Biggest takeaway from 2020

    Entertainment becomes transformative and necessary in the lives of people in times of crisis like the one we’ve witnessed. 2020 has been a year of learnings and thus, witnessing the shifts and increase in demand for fresh content, we quickly readapted to the situation to create more content thus, while also curating more potential ways to connect with our young audiences. While television continued to be the staple mode of entertainment, the digital medium also took huge precedence. Both kids and gatekeepers have had a dynamic shift in their behaviour, content consumption and perspective. This led us to create new ways of connecting with them through their favourite characters on television as well as digital.

    New skillsets learned during this time

    This year we have seen dramatic shifts in lifestyle and content consumption amongst kids. Thus, we understood that it is paramount to expand our ecosystem offerings and broaden our horizons beyond television. Sony Yay! also enhanced its digital outreach by creating a digital portfolio with immersive workshops, interactive Instagram filters, special Honey Bunny games, and extensive outreach for relevant influencers of the community. Furthermore, in 2020 we have also enhanced our engagement skills by creating experiences for kids in the form of virtual offerings.

    Technology has played an important role

    Apart from the tantamount benefits of technology, the one that stood out for the kids’ entertainment category during the pandemic is helping us stay connected to our young viewers and to our production houses. Our production houses operated remotely and kept creating fresh content meeting its increased demand in the category, thanks to the advancement in technology. This is an opportunity for content creators like us to collate all our experiences and package it into an interactive virtual ecosystem. Also, with higher internet penetration and multi-screen availability, online gaming has witnessed exponential growth and we have tapped into this trend with some of our popular games Honey Bunny ka Jetpack, Kicko & Superspeedo game, Merge Super Speedo exceeding expectations with an incredible one million+, 10 million+, one million+ downloads, respectively, so far.    

    Is TV being monetised enough?

    In India, TV has always been a staple in almost every household and accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total advertising expenditure in the country in 2019. The kid's entertainment category is still extremely under-indexed with a huge gap in the ad rates compared to some other categories. That said, with high-quality engaging content, we have seen constant growth in viewership and brands also warming up to increase their spending.  

    (The author is business head, Sony Pictures Networks India kids’ genre. Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to her thoughts.)