Fun diet for kids

ENTERTAINMENT: Cartoon Network and POGO gear up for another round of expansion

Considering it's peak summer time, Ian Diamond has still decided to visit India for strictly business reasons. As senior vice president and general manager of Turner Entertainment Networks (Asia), Diamond has seen the kids' channels segment grow at a hectic pace.

"Turner has been in India for the past 11 years and served an entire generation. Now we're looking at the next generation and offering them a wide range of choice especially by extending our repertoire beyond television content," he says.

And while Diamond refers to these channels in India as "super lifestyle brands that specifically cater to children in different countries", both Cartoon Network and POGO are gearing up for another round of expansion.

The year-on-year revenue growth of Cartoon Network and POGO combined is already 11 per cent (January-March 2007 over January-March 2006). In fact, POGO's client base grew by a very healthy 109 per cent with 30 new clients that were added in 2006.

Now it will develop fresh animation content with Indian production companies including Miditech. "It's too early to talk about specifics, but we will look at dubbing our programmes in some more regional languages, there'll be a new series on Gali Gali Sim Sim and an enhanced English language programme for the benefit of the children here," he says.

With Miditech, the channel will introduce Camp MAD, an eight-week special, summer camp episodes for which 15 children from India have already been screen-tested and given the green signal.

Gali Gali Sim Sim, a product with which Miditech is involved, has, in fact, done very well on DD and according to TAM ratings garnered a record-breaking 13.8 TVR.

The biggest news for the channel, however, is the launch of Cartoon Network Townsville and Planet Pogo theme parks, which will kick off later this year.

"The theme parks will be another expression of our channels reaching out to a wider audience," says Diamond. While the 3.5-acre park in Rohini will kick off by the end of 2007, another seven-acre park in Noida will open sometime next year.

"The kids' channels market in India is undergoing a big change and the key is to constantly innovate," says Diamond. Let's see how far Cartoon Network and POGO go to achieve their targets for Indian audiences.