Thursday, December 16, 2004
Disney may outsource programming to India
Our Corporate Bureau / Mumbai December 16, 2004
Walt Disney, the world’s leading media and entertainment conglomerate is planning to outsource a significant portion of its programming to India.
The content that will be generated in India will not only be used for its newly launched channels- Disney channel and Toon Disney but also will become international properties.
Rajat Jain, managing director, Walt Disney Television International- India, while announcing the launch of the new channels said, "We will invest in original productions that would be created and produced in India for our new channels and also showcase them globally in due course."
The first of such production- ‘Legends of the ring of fire,’ will be telecast on December 17. Additionally, for the first time, the company will launch its two channels in three regional languages apart from English. Disney and Toon Disney will be available in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.
Disney channel will showcase movies and sitcoms, while Toon Disney will telecast some of the best cartoons and animated series that the company is renowned globally.
The channels will also have a slot for Playhouse Disney- an international channel for pre-schoolers. Jain said, “ Our research showed that there is a huge market in India for the age group 2-5 years that has remain untapped and so our channels will address this gap.”
Disney comes at a time when the kids space has seen tremendous growth over the last two years. Cartoon Network was the earliest kids channel and remained so till last year.
Today, there are five channels catering to the kids genre like Cartoon Network’s Pogo, UTV’s Hungama channel, MTV’s Nickleodeon and AXN’s Animax channel.
Walt Disney India recently tied up with Star Network India for its distribution. Walt Disney Television also has channels such as History channel, Biography channel, E- the entertainment channel and ESPN.