English movie channels have for long been home to the best of Hollywood’s offerings for the Indian audience, but not many are aware that animated flicks play a key role in generating some great viewership numbers for the genre as well.
AnimationXpress.com reached out to some of the leading channels in the genre to understand how important is animation content for them in terms of adding some diversity in their offerings for their audience.
Sony Pix, VP and programming, head Amogh Dusad goes on to explain: “On an average, everybody in the category programmes 100-110 unique movie titles in a month, but the reality of the category is that only the top 400 titles contribute to nearly 70 per cent of the viewership.”
To cut to the chase, being an English movies’ channel is tough, what with ad revenues between Rs 450 and Rs 500 crore and at least 10 players in the reckoning.
Thus, considering the competition in the genre where the top four players are separated by only a few rating points it’s very important to keep offering something unique to continue to stay relevant and also have a lead among peers.
“Animation provides a great opportunity for us to truly represent Hollywood in its fuller sense,” Amogh exults. “For us animation brings with itself a scale of visual spectacle and great stories, and it is certainly drives viewership if treated judiciously.”
Sony Pix has a good list of titles in the animation genre which include: Finding Nemo, Lion King (Series), Madagascar (Series), Little Mermaid, Smurfs (1-2), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1-2), among others.
Pix has content coming in from Disney and Pixar, which have some great tales to tell. And there is also Sony Pictures Animation movies that get premiered on the channel like Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania. This apart the channel has its very own animated character ‘Notty Pixy’ that gives breaking news on popular celebrities from Hollywood, with the promise of being the first to do so.
“Most of the consumers are very active on digital media, and we wanted to break the clutter on that platform, while filling a need gap for consumers to get news around their favourite Hollywood stars. This need gap gave birth to ‘Notty Pixy’ and it has only managed to grown from strength to strength since its inception,” adds Amogh.
Zee Studio too is very proud of its animation slate and boasts of nearly 20 per cent of on-air content being of animation origin from its entire library of titles. The channel has long term deals with Paramount and Disney, which include some diverse titles like: Brave, Frozen, Kung-Fu Panda 2, Shrek (1-4), Megamind, among others.
Zee Studio, head of content & marketing, Sharlton Menezes expounds: “Animation works really well, if the selection is right; the audience loves animation offering. For example the premiere of Kung Fu Panda 2 on our channel even beat out the worldwide premiere of The Wolverine in viewership numbers, thus sealing the fact that great content will always excel.”
Sharlton also mentioned that scheduling is a key factor for getting the right target group for the movies, thus a Shrek will be a lot more viewed by a young adult male audience and scheduled either over weekends in the afternoon slot or early morning, whereas a Kung-Fu Panda can be for the entire family, thus can premiere at 9:00 pm as well.
Star India’s home for Hollywood – Star Movies – also believes strongly in having a lot more inclusive viewership for the channel and a range of iconic and popular animation movies in its library like: Toy Story series, Cars, Planes, UP, Frozen, Monster University, Rio, Tangled and Finding Nemo to name a few.
“Animation consists of approximately 10 per cent of the overall content of the channel. We have an exclusive partnership with Disney a home to the World’s most creative and innovative animated films. With it cutting edge technology Disney produces the best animated content, which you can find on our channel,” reveals a Star spokesperson.
The channel premiered 10 animation movies in 2014, including Oscar winner Frozen, Despicable Me 2, The Croods, Wreck-It Ralph, Turbo, Planes, Monsters University 2 to name a few. Year 2015’s slate for the channel boasts of Oscar winner Big Hero 6, Oscar nominated How To Train Your Dragon 2, The Boxtrolls; critically acclaimed The Book of life; in addition to famous franchise flicks like The Penguins of Madagascar, Planes: Fire and Rescue and Rio 2.
The spokesperson adds: “Animation today is not restricted to kids alone. Frozen’s worldwide box-office collection is a testimony to the profile and the consumer pull that animation cuts across age groups, which in turn is also indicative of the growing popularity of animated movies in the genre.”
English movies channels cater to the upwardly mobile young audience, which is the target audience for most aspirational brands in this day and age. This creates a lot of value for advertisers. Primarily, the English movie space caters to premium audiences with a significant skew to male brands and that is the reality of the category.
The channels host special animation months or blocks as well during festivals, vacation time or special days to cater to the younger audience as well as encourage the family to catch up on some great visual stories that promote family values and other positive attributes.
“We generally target the holiday season so that kids can enjoy the movies, we also have a unique offering in ‘Mad House Pixathon’, where we get all different animated characters and do a full day line-up and interlay these movies with interesting trivia through our property Pixepedia,” reasons Amogh on the timing for hosting marathon animation movie premieres.
Channels also use days like Friendship Day, Children’s Day as they make for good topical connect. Premieres and special festivals around animation are always a planned activity and never spontaneous.
“We don’t really focus on any particular genre for prime time you may even catch a Meet the Parents airing at that slot. We do an animation film festival titled ‘Toonami’ and it does pretty well for us,” says Sharlton.
Star Movies aired some of the biggest animation blockbusters like The Croods, Turbo and Frozen in the last quarter, which have rated very well for the channel. “We create a special slot during summer holidays and also during Christmas and New Year to have a fresh line-up of animation content that can add to the festive and holiday spirits of not just kids but also for the whole family and we always receive a great response from our audience,” adds the Star spokesperson.
The year ahead is going to be no different as all the movie channels are geared up to serve a great visual delight to all viewers with the latest from the biggest of animation studios. Stay Tuned!