After holding leadership position in the genre for almost a year now, Viacom18's kids channel Nickelodeon is expanding its content offering through the launch of Nick HD+ - the first HD channel in thekids' genre and a new show based on a character completely developed in-house. Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & BusinessHead - Kids Cluster, Viacom18 said, "Characters are very important in this genre. Its not the channel that the kids relate to, but the character. We have seen immense success with characters like Motu and Patlu and Ninja Hatori. This time, we developed the entire concept and script in-house because we want to own the character completely.
This way we can do much more with Shiva in the coming months beyond television."
While the concept has been developed in-house, the production has been done by Maya Digital. Jaipuria explains that apart from owning the IP, Shiva also caters to a niche that the kids network at Viacom18 needed to be filled. The company carried out a research that identified seven drivers that affected viewership and content consumption. While there are the obvious ones fun, action, fantasy and values, there are others which are more subtle like character traits, looks and intellect/resourcefulness.Shiva, an action-comedy property, satisfies drivers like fun, action, intellect and fantasy, all in one go. Viacom18 is no stranger to developing shows around Indian characters. In the last few years, Nickelodeon has developed localised content appealing to children in India with success in the form of of MotuPatlu and Pakdam Pakdai. Shiva is positioned as India's first contemporary highoctane action-comedy series. It is the story of the 9 year old brave, fearless and intelligent boy who stays in Vedas city with his Nana & Nani. Every story in the show starts with an incident that threatens Vedas City. A true hero, SHIVA along with his amazinggang of friends sets out to save the day with the help some cool gadgets like the super bike developed by him. This Diwali kids will fall in love with the SHIVA - A super-kid with extraordinary talent, intellect and ability. The show will launch during Diwali and will occupy the prime time slot for kids' channel - after or evening. Further down the road, Jaipuria plans to launch Shiva themed activities on-ground,merchandise and digital engagement touch-points.
