Exclusive premium content is our philosophy at Turner: Krishna Desai

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.’s (TBS) Cartoon Network launched in 1995 is the leading kids’ entertainment channel in India today reaching more than 33 million viewers. Drawing from the world’s largest cartoon library of Warner Bros., MGM and Hanna-Barbera titles, the Network also showcases original series including the Ben 10 franchise, Adventure Time and The Amazing World of Gumball. CN currently available in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu is  recognized as the resident kids’ expert with a 360-degree presence through successful on-air and online presence, ground-events, promotional licensing, product licensing, publishing and DVDs. www.cartoonnetworkindia.com is India’s leading destination for kids’ online entertainment attracting close to 5.6 million page views.

In the first of its kind endeavour, a popular Bollywood movie is now being leveraged onto a television entertainment channel via animated spin-off movies. Cartoon Network, Film Kraft Productions and Toonz Animation have partnered to create four animated movie sequels based on the Bollywood mega movie - Krrish. 

These movie sequels follow the childhood adventures of Krishna (from the movie Krrish) who discovers that he can help people and save the world with the special powers bestowed upon him by Jadoo (from the movie Koi Mil Gaya). But in order to protect his identity and loved ones from the wrath of his enemies, he dons the mask of superhero Krrish! A series of four movies will be created between 2013 and 2014, the first of which, titled Kid Krrish, will air on Cartoon Network on July 14, 2013.

Siddharth Jain, Managing Director, South Asia, Turner International India Pvt. Ltd. sharing his views on the partnership said that at Turner, they have always aimed to push the boundaries to deliver innovative and entertaining content across all their channels. Cartoon Network, the ultimate destination for fun and animation, will now be home to Bollywood’s biggest superhero in a whole new animated avatar. The Krrish franchise has been very well received by kids across the country. They will be enthralled and excited to watch this adaptation of their superhero on Cartoon Network.

Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc. (TBSAP) creates and programs award-winning branded news, entertainment, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the Asia Pacific region and beyond. A leader in the Asian television business and media industry, they offer news, kids and entertainment networks across the region, with a total broadcast of 24 channels in nine languages reaching hundreds of millions of viewers in no less than 23 countries.

Rakesh Roshan, Director, Film Kraft Productions (India) Pvt. Ltd. has always pushed the limits by making different kinds of entertainment films and planned new strategies to promote them.  Since Krrish 3 will be ready for release this Diwali, he wishes to revive the memory of Krrish with the newer generation who may have not seen Koi Mil Gaya or Krrish. He is glad to have collaborated with Turner, the oldest and most popular children’s channel in Asia and Toonz Animation, who are the best in creating animated content in Asia, to make this first of its kind animated film series, where a live action film is adapted to make animation series for television. Filmkraft Productions (India) Pvt. Ltd was set up in the year 1977 by Mr. Roshan, a reputed actor-producer-director; having starred in over 80 films, directed 12 films and produced 15 films in a career spanning 40 years.

P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Animation India Pvt. Ltd. too is thrilled to partner with the legendary Rakesh Roshan and Cartoon Network. He considers it a huge milestone for Toonz Animation “The animated Krrish franchise are fun films that are guaranteed to be a visual treat with mass appeal. It is not every day that 11 year olds get to be super heroes,” he said. Established in the year 1999, Toonz Animation India Pvt. Ltd is the animation production division of Toonz group and part of the international business conglomerate, Comcraft Group, based out of Geneva.

In an interesting conversation with Adgully, Krishna Desai, Turner International India South Asia, Director-Content, spoke about this unique partnership, the channel’s philosophy, their content strategy, the benefits of long format , how humour has never failed to entertain kids and much more. Following are some of the excerpts of the interaction:

Sharing about this current deal and how it gives them an edge vis a vis the competition that is already present in the market, Mr. Desai said,” Our association is with the following three : one which has the biggest name and is one of the biggest properties in Bollywood , the second  is biggest name in kids space on television and then you have one of the biggest names in animation production all coming together ,so actually it is a venture that is the first of its kind with an iconic brand like Krrish . So that is a partnership with Bollywood and television production . They are 4 animated films and  each film has a duration of 66 minutes each, 2D animation and will be  about the exploits of a eleven year old Krrish  Once the ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ story ends this begins.”

It looks at Krrish who is aged eleven and all the four stories centre around him, his adventures and how he discovers his powers . The movies will show Rohit (Krrish's father), Krrish's grandmother and the alien, Jaadu, along with other friends around him. Broadly it revolves around the superhero action but the themes centre around friendship and loyalty around his bunch of friends. So in order to maintain the continuity, the character Jadoo is the same even from a creative side visualization.  Though the character does not look like Hrithik  it aims to show him as Krrish and how he would look in a younger animated form.

Answering  the question on how the partnership will  benefit them he elaborated to say “This kind of a thing is what defines us and what checks all our boxes on what our philosophy is and what our content strategy is and this philosophy applies to Turner and Turner  International India as well. It is the same and that is exclusive premium content . It is content which is exclusive which no one has till date. Premium meaning that would really resonates with kids. There will be a high quality of story telling and there would also be production quality as well. That is one, second is consumer experience which comes first for us and the brands come first to our minds before anything else. By consumer experience we mean if your kids are watching, it is about how the story of 22 minutes duration would engage the child, how his favourite character interacts in that particular story, how he gets entertained by it or how he interacts with the character outside of television.” He further went on to speak about the area of games which is very big for kids today. Hence games too would be priority for the channel. According to him, the number of  breaks they have, how many ads they have in a show, the  kind of language they  use on their channel, all  add up to the consumer experience as a whole.

“So it becomes unique when everything starts with what the story is and how endearing the character is . So these two things fulfil the consumer experience more than anything else. So these two elements viz. exclusivity, content and consumer experience, this particular  deal completely fits in with our philosophy and then the strategy that follows from here which is that brands come first . So to sum up Cartoon Network stands for fun, entertainment and the best place for cartoons and of course Pogo stands as the best place for kids imagination and creativity. The second element of our strategy is the local relevance or what we term as Desi toon strategy. It is homegrown and completely Indian through and through . So that is our second strategy and again it fits in well. The third part is to do with the format of the content. We know the long format works better with kids. With their attention spans they can concentrate  and engage with the characters for a longer time. We are planning on a series format sometime soon but first we want to try out the 66 minute long format ,” he further added.

Justifying the long format and not the series format he informed that being a library channel they do not produce 3-4 hours of content everyday but produce 100/200 hours of viewership and subsequently have to  rely a lot on repeat telecasts.

From his perspective would he say there is a fatigue level amongst kids today? To this he opined, “This is a very good question. Animation as a format never dates. For e.g as in the case of the classic animation Tom & Jerry . It is as fresh as it was 50 years back. It always looks  evergreen. Live action can look dated but the story has to be creative. Animation has a very long shelf life and if kids love the story telling within the animation format they would want to watch it for 2-3 different reasons. One is that it does not date. Second is if they love the character a lot and it is relatable to their age then watching it 5th or 6th time down the line they even enthusiastically try  to predict the dialogues of the other characters/persons in the show. They also hum the songs because they want to get the same experience again and again.”

With regard to most of the content on Cartoon Network and Pogo Mr. Desai informed that there are no story plots with a mystery angle involved which is normally revealed at the end of the show. Once the mystery is revealed kids would not want to watch it again but here there is storytelling which can only make them laugh every few minutes . So it is not about mysteries or adventure that have to be solved  but comic animation and slapstick which can be watched over and over again and one can never tire of it.

The movies are slated to  go live this year , one in July and the other in September. The remaining two are expected to  go live in year 2014.

Speaking about the time frame it takes to create animated movies he said that,  “ Right from scratch it would take about  a year. Animation is a tedious process so they have been working on it for a while now. We got together at the start level, we did not think of series format etc . and after it was done we thought of making four features and started developing it into toons and then  decided on  the character , his age and  the story .”

When asked if Cartoon Network has been inspired by other channels and did this lead to an opportunity for them to create something new, Mr. Desai disagreed on this point and said that  when it comes to animation specifically, since Time Warner is their mother company all the Warner animated films have always been available to them including Batman, Superman, etc. But  these different shows had one thing in common and that is they had adult  super heroes which has no attraction for kids. “They are great shows but a child cannot relate to such shows due to the difference in age. That is the reason why we have aged Krrish as an eleven year old boy and whatever he does a child can easily relate to his character,” said Mr. Desai.

In terms of content strategy that they are presently working on he said that this genre can be called the ‘live action’ show.  Within live action you can have fiction, non fiction, game shows and quiz shows.

With regard to  scope for a game show or a quiz in the near future he said , “ We have done many game shows on Pogo in the past i.e.  live action and they did very well for that limited period of time. For e.g. Hole in the Wall  and  even international game shows. We tried fiction as well. For instance Sunaina and CIA (Cambala Investigation Agency) were home grown productions. 10 million kids watched Sunaina . It worked very well in fact for one or two repeats, after that the repeat value went down, so what we are doing in the live action space is going by long format.   So we made two of those and put them on air last year. Bhootraja Aur Ronnie and the second was Chatpat Jhatpat and these two shows did fantastically well.”

In conclusion Mr. Krishna Desai said, “So this is very new now.  Live action television features is what we are taking to the next level now. We will do more of those and if in any of them we find the sequel works maybe we can convert it to a series or have many sequel movies but all the same we have definitely made a start.”

Cartoon Network has always believed in giving kids unlimited entertainment with a motley mix of the best of international and handpicked local animated shows that are centered around humour. The addition of new and exciting features to the line-up will be a visual and comical treat for young viewers.