Decoding kids’ genre in OTT space: Part 2 – Getting the content right

The OTT (over-the-top) space has been gaining rapid momentum and the entry of new players has intensified the competition. In a bid to woo different segments of the audience, OTT players have been introducing targeted content. While Sony Liv and Hotstar are betting big on sports and originals, Viacom18’s Voot, nexGtv, dittoTV and YuppTv are building up a strong content line-up aimed at the 5-12 age group. 

In the first part of this report yesterday (https://www.adgully.com/decoding-kids-genre-in-ott-space-part-1-the-market-dynamics-70772.html) industry experts threw light on the disruption in kids’ content on OTT platforms, the growth drivers for this genre and compared the OTT platforms with kids television and stated why kids channels are not fading away any time soon. 

The second and concluding part of the report dwells on sourcing as well as creating content specifically targeted at kids on OTT platforms, addressing and including parents in the communication as well as successful revenue models in this genre. 

Sourcing of kids’ content on OTT platforms 

Uday Reddy, CEO & Founder, YuppTV, stresses on the need to understand the fact that a lot of good quality content does not even make it to TV because of several constraints, including budget and tedious procedures. He said, “OTT players have been able to provide independent content producers a platform to demonstrate their work and reach out to a number of users. At YuppTV, we recently collaborated with USP Studios to make kids’ content available at our Bazaar platform. Given the extent of kids’ content being produced or curated at OTT platforms is profound, when viewed against what is available currently on TV.” 

Speaking about Voot’s content strategy, Gaurav Gandhi, COO, Viacom18 Digital Ventures, said, “Voot has a premium kids’ content depository of close to 2,000 hours, more than 8,000 videos, and over 120 characters. This includes some of the biggest in this space in India, such as Motu Patlu, Chhota Bheem, Shiva, Roll No 21, Pokemon, Ben 10, Dora, Peppa Pig and many more. We offer content from our Nick channel as well as top shows that are there on other popular kids channels in India, along with some of the biggest international hits. As we go into 2017, we will further strengthen this line-up with even more popular characters coming in both pre-school as well as older kids’ space. We also have some original content (created only for Voot) planned for Kids in 2017, so wait and watch!” 

“As a live TV platform, dittoTV hosts children’s content from channels such as Cartoon Network, Pogo and ZeeQ. These channels offer a mix of entertainment and education so parents are assured that children are learning even through recreation. Shows such as ‘The Art Room’, ‘Engineer This’, ‘Ben 10’, ‘Akbar Birbal’ and more, offer a balanced combination of cartoons along with educational/ informative programmes,” explained Archana Anand, Head of Digital - India Z5 Business (dittoTV, Ozee and the new Premium offering) at Zee Digital Convergence. 

What one sees on TV is just the tip of the iceberg, said Dushyant Kohli, Head - Growth, nexGTv. He pointed out that there were thousands of production houses and independent producers who were making curated content specifically catering to today’s kids. The learning and education category is huge in terms of OTT content, with many expert players foraying into this space as it becomes more popular. “As far as nexGTV is concerned, we have a plethora of rich content on offer for children spanning multiple categories and content creators. We have also added the Think Health content to our app to help children understand the importance of health and fitness from a young age,” Kohli added. 

Creating content on OTT for kids 

According to Anand, “Creators have to be extremely careful while curating content for children, and screen it keeping the particular age group in mind. Typically, content for pre-schoolers would be very different from what you would offer to a teen/ pre-teen segment. It also has to be a mix of education and entertainment so parents don’t consider watching TV as wasted time.” 

Gandhi added here that the first step for Viacom18 was to aggregate all that kids watch across many of their favourite TV channels and YouTube all in one place – Voot Kids. “As we go on to the next step of creating original kids content for Voot Kids, we would look at different set of guidelines for pre-schoolers and older kids,” he added. Pre-school contents needs to be developmental in nature besides being entertaining. The older kids’ content needs to focus on creating iconic characters that kids would love and keep coming back to. All of this has to be done in a manner that will not only get the kids to watch and love the shows and the overall service, but also the parents would want to feel that the environment for their kids is totally safe and also offers something ‘good for the child’ besides being ‘fun for the child’. This is key as kids will be consuming this service on parent’s devices and if the service is subscription based, then even more so as the parent has to pay for this. 

Kohli, too, stressed that child-centric content had to, naturally, be created with a great degree of caution, sensibility and thought to its meaning and purpose. He said, “At nexGTV, our kids’ app has been a phenomenal success because parents are ensured of the highest level of expert curation making the content suitable for the impressionable minds of their young ones. Besides making the content engaging and often educative, it is imperative to steer clear of explicit or violent undertones. Kids’ content should also be kept ad free as this ensures greater control over what they are exposed to. Besides this, it is imperative to open up new avenues of imagination to children so the content should be embedded in an eclectic mix of wonderful stories and delightful characters that will not only entertain them, but will also aid in their healthy intellectual development.” 

Agreeing with Kohli, Reddy said, “While creating original content is an extensively painstaking creative process, the degree of caution that needs to be exercised in the kids’ domain is far greater. Children have an impressionable mind and hence the content, its tone and delivery needs to be optimistic, simple and sensitive. We need to keep a check on violent thoughts that might be communicated in a seemingly innocent move or action. Furthermore, the content still needs to be animated or entertaining, while also engaging in storytelling and strong character development, in order to impart important values and principles and aid the holistic growth and development of children.” 

The parent factor 

Indian parents are constantly worried about what their child is watching, what impact it will have on their mind and whether exposure to any form of entertainment could lead them to channelise their energies in the wrong direction. This concern has been factored into the curation of content on nexGTV’s kids’ app, Kohli explained, adding, “All our communications targetted at parents assure them that we screen all the content frame by frame and only then select the most appropriate and high-quality entertainment suited for our young viewers. This is why our app is also ad-free as this makes it easier for us to exercise control over what the young minds are being exposed to. Moreover, we ensure that the kind of content on offer matches the expectations of Indian parents. Every Indian parent wants to inculcate good values in their kids and teach them about our rich culture. However, many of them don’t have time to sit and tell them stories of Panchatantra and recount episodes from other mythological literature like Ramayana or Mahabharata. Through this app, they can show and educate their kids about the past and build in them a sense of pride for and understanding of our heritage.” 

YuppTV’s Reddy added here, “It is up to the parents to decide how they balance a day in their child’s life and no one can control that. In a child’s day schedule, for how much ever time is allotted to TV entertainment, we ensure that we deliver quality content for kids.” 

Along similar lines, Viacom18 Digital Ventures’ Gandhi noted that parents are often not only passive consumers of kids’ content, but also the gatekeepers for the same on TV. “While to some extend this holds true for digital content as well, especially as parents’ devices are used by the kids to watch a lot of this content, when it comes to devices and technology, kids are often the champions in the house – even more than parents. Parents let their tech-enthused kids to take over their phones once they are home from work and that’s why one sees the peak viewing time for kids content on line is actually 9 pm (unlike TV, where it is early evening),” he added. 

Elaborating further, Gandhi said, “Parents need to feel that the environment that kids spend time online is safe – and that’s why we were the first in this space to create a pin-access system, where the parents could control access to other content on Voot and keep the kids only on Voot Kids. We have seen that more than half a million parents have set up a pin on Voot and kids of these parents consume four times the amount of content as compared to other kids. Hence, the strategy is clearly working. We also created innovative shake feature to discover content for kids – another one that the parent’s love – as it makes it easy for their young ones to discover more without typing. We also control what advertisement is shown in the kids’ section – again, this makes the parents feel very secure.” 

“All our kids-focused campaigns have dual objectives – to talk to the kids and the parents. Our last ‘Goody Goody’ campaign was a big hit with parents and kids both as we tapped into the insight of how parents and kids negotiate for screen time in today’s world. Voot kids also did a ‘Goody Goody’ campaign, where we gave scholarships to kids – again generating a huge positive response amongst parents,” he informed.