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NICKELODEON LAUNCHES
WITH A BANG IN INDIA
A high-profile press coverage campaign,
billboards in Mumbai, a massive gig for 500 kids in
a Delhi farm - Nickelodeon pumped a lot of energy into
its India launch on 16 November. "We are the only channel
which has both animation and live action production
and can say we are truly just for kids," says Nickelodeon
International general manager (global networks ventures)
Bruce Tuchman. Tuchman is not too perturbed by the late
debut of the channel in India. "There are 22 million
homes currently in India. Indian kids deserve a choice,"
he says.
"We account for a 50% gross rating points
share of the US market, with the rest of the channels
including terrestrial networks fighting for the remainder.
So we are confident of getting a large share of Indian
kid's viewing."
Nickelodeon is being distributed in India
on Zee TV's direct to operator platform and at the time
of writing was available in 75 headends accounting for
4 million homes all over India. "However we will not
be restricted to just Zee TV's Siticable headends, we
are looking at maximising our distribution with other
cable partners too," he points out.
A special feed is planned for India in
January with local packaging and programming. It will
have interstitials and vignettes featuring Indian children,
produced locally to give kids the feeling that they
are watching an Indian service. Tuchman reveals that
he is also looking at the Nickelodeon library to see
if some shows can be specially introduced for the Indian
market. "We will focus on offering kid's a good creative
product," he says. His goal is to develop both advertising
and subscription revenue streams. Air-time sales will
be handled by MTV India in the not-so-distant future.
"We are a pay TV channel. The good thing about Nickelodeon
is that it is more than just cartoons."
The key question is: will Indian kids
buy Nickelodeon's sales pitch?
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