Indian kids’ broadcasters have been one of the major drivers that have led to the increased demand for animation content. Animated series and features being produced in India have garnered popularity amongst the global audiences. Known for its beloved characters Honey-Bunny and Oggy, Sony YAY! is one of the most favourite channels catering to kids’ entertainment.
Since inception the channel has been putting sincere efforts to build relatable characters. It aims to produce more and more original content. In a telephonic conversation with Sony YAY! programming head Ronojoy Chakraborty, Animation Xpress learnt that they are ending this year on a high note with a forward looking plan of building something called ‘Happyverse’.
Taking pride in sharing about the channel’s 2022 journey and other achievements, Chakraborty said, “This year has been fantastic because we have been the number one channel in HSM Urban. We have established ourselves amongst the top three in India Urban. So, for a young new channel this is a great achievement. Our GRP has grown 195 per cent from the date of launch. That is again something we have not seen in the category.”
If you take a look at Sony YAY!’s journey, they started in FY 2018 at 20 GRPs and currently are at 60 GRPs which is a growth of 195 per cent. So it has been a great journey for them across the years of its launch.
“Other things that we have done are, we have more than 1,000 hours of content, both acquired and locally produced shows. We have created a character universe of more than 100 characters, that’s also a great achievement on our part. The third thing which I would like to highlight is that we also offered a variety of content on the channel. We had experimented within the comedy genre; we had a conversational comedy in HaGoLa, slapstick comedy in Honey Bunny, so we are exploring the genre of comedy itself. Lastly, we have a wide range of viewership on the channel. We are making family shows, we are catering to a wider range of audiences now and we have experimented with different genres also,” said Chakraborty.
Viewership has been evolving, the taste has been changing and the channels have to adapt with that taste and sensibility of the viewers. With the variety that Sony YAY! has offered in their programming, viewers have stuck on to their channel. Talking about new additions as per the viewership, he revealed, “We get a very good co-viewership in the 31-40 year olds who are the parents. We have catered to them with family shows like Taarak Mehta kka Chhota Chashmah, which is a recognisable name. We had also introduced anime on our channel for the first time which came in the form of Naruto, which is one of the recognisable names in the anime genre.”
Chakraborty points out that they have been catering to a wider audience set, so they experiment with different kinds of shows. They had launched Tarak Mehta which was for a family audience, made HaGoLa which was for a more heartland audience, and then there was Oggy and the Cockroaches which was meant for all kids.
When Sony YAY! started off, they were almost a 100 per cent home grown content channel because they were producing everything here locally. But post pandemic they have also started acquiring programs, out of which 60 per cent is acquired and 40 per cent is still home grown. But of course homegrown content is their priority.
“As I said earlier we have been producing different genres of shows for kids and family. That has reaped very rich dividends for us. Tarak Mehta had a great launch, it is one of the most popular shows, HaGoLa also had its share of success. So, all the different genres of shows that we are producing, for this wide range of audience that we cater to, are doing pretty well. We are actually producing quite a number of shows for the forthcoming year,” he mentioned.
The kids channel had partnered with Dabur on their Real fruit juice and Milkshake advertisements, wherein they had licensed their characters Honey Bunny and they were on the packs of fruit juices and milkshakes across the country. They have also spread their wings across categories like home furnishing apparel, accessories, toys, consumer electronics, etc.
“We want to build an ecosystem of happiness for our viewers, which we would like to call the ‘Happyverse’ and this is what we have been doing. We want the kid to be happy through every touch point, be it through our programming or our events or the various associations that we have built,” Chakraborty concluded.