With a bright New Year and a fond farewell to the old, the kids’ broadcasters welcome 2022 with lots of plans and new launches. AnimationXpress got in touch with various Indian kids’ channel heads to get to know their plans and strategies for 2022.
With Little Singham and Fukrey Boyzz topping the rating chart, Discovery Kids has kept the kids connected to the channel with its exciting new shows and movies. Revealing the plans for 2022, Discovery Kids head Uttam Pal Singh said, “All the kids’ broadcasters are opting for the local original IPs that kids can relate to. Similarly, Discovery Kids rebooted and re-launched its channel in 2018 with local content Little Singham and Fukrey Boyzz and it turned out to be the major growth factor. For us, it is very important to keep on refreshing the current IPs, so this year we released a movie titled Little Singham Vs. Black Shadow which was a spy based movie set up in the adventure and international concept and similarly we launched a limited edition series Paap Aur Punya Ka MahaSangram featuring Little Singham and his mentor Krishna. We wanted kids to come back in a week and join us in the progressive story. We engaged kids with many marketing on-ground events and this helped us to regain the first and third position in the market.”
He further stated, “For 2022, we continue to invest in our current IPs Little Singham and Fukrey Boyzz. We will be bringing in new refreshing themes and versions around our IPs that will make the kids enjoy and engage more with us. We are also looking forward to bringing in more mini-series and introducing kids to more progressive stories and launching new movies in the coming year.”
Cartoon Network and POGO had released a variety of local original animated series including Dabbang: The animated series, Lambu G Tingu G, Ekans: Ek se Badhkar Snake. Talking about trends and outlooks for 2022, South Asia Network head for POGO and Cartoon Network Abhishek Dutta mentioned, “The industry is heading with a greater focus on local home-grown IPs. The demand for great quality content arises since co-viewing remains an integral part of TV viewership. All eyes will be on the kids’ genre to offer entertaining content for the whole family. We will continue to be the anchor genre. Bollywood, slice of life, slapstick comedy, adventure are some of the genres loved by the kids which make quirky characters from a familiar backdrop and we compile them into local animated content to draw the attention of our young audience. We believe that affinity to such genres will also continue in 2022.”
Disclosing the plans for 2022, Dutta shared, “We continue to localise our international content and will create new and locally relevant home-grown Indian centric characters to entertain the kids throughout the year. The focus areas will be bringing up new episodes and seasons of existing fan favourite shows. TV has strengthened its position as a family viewing platform in India during the pandemic, hence our content will continue to cater to kids and families.”
In 2021 Sony YAY! had created extensive content library with 200+ hours of new shows, movies and characters like the kids’ favourite show Oggy and the Cockroaches with a new twist, Obocchamakun, the first ever animated avatar of the most famous Gokuldham society – Taarak Mehta Kka Chhota Chashmah and many more! Not revealing much about the plans for 2022, Sony Pictures Networks India, kids’ genre business head Leena Lele Dutta said, “We are in the mid-process of forming our original IPs and many of our original shows are in production. We will announce the launches and lineup in summer 2022.”
IN10 Media’s Gubbare, a year old kid’s broadcast channel performed well with its fan favourite content Vir The Robot Boy, Krishna Balaram, Fred Kismatwala. Understanding the need for fresh and original content, the channel launched a local animated series Akki Jaanbaaz. On asking about the outlooks and trends for 2022, Gubbare AVP – content and strategy Brian D’costa said, “At Gubbare, we have realized that homegrown IPs are the way forward, consumption patterns for kids have changed over the past two years; kids have outgrown the traditional me-too type of content that had been offered to them in the past much before the pandemic. They have evolved in terms of content selection and uniqueness.”
He also revealed, “Post the launch of Akki Jaanbaaz, Gubbare will be announcing the launch of two more originals in the summer of 2022; Roro Aur Hero, Bhoot Mast Zabardast – our first 3D show produced by Tavrohi Animation and Akul aur Nakul, The Asuras produced by Motvoix animation. Both the shows are unique in their way and will help us build affinity among kids towards the channel.”
With the kids’ broadcasters planning for a super-duper 2022 with new and variety of local original animated IPs and localised international content to keep the younger audiences and family entertained, these home-grown IPs will further lead to opportunities beyond the TV screen. We will also see the channels adapting into newer platforms and technology to reach kids in the upcoming years. Overall we can’t wait to see what are the new avenues the broadcasters will tap into to meet the ever changing consumption patterns of kids!