Nick’s market share at 19%, reaches 32 mn kids weekly: Nina Jaipuria

Kids’ channel Nickelodeon has flexed its toon muscles, unveiling its fourth home-grown show – ‘Gattu Battu’, a crime thriller with a pinch of comedy. The show follows other immensely popular home-grown shows on Nick – ‘Motu Patlu’ (launched in 2012), ‘Pakdam Pakdai’ (launched in 2014) and ‘Shiva’ (launched in 2015). 

According to Nina Jaipuria, Business Head, Viacom18, Kids Cluster, humour and comedy form the DNA of every kids’ content on television. At the same time, she felt that investigative crime thriller as a genre hasn’t been tapped at all in the animation cartoon show category. 

‘Gattu Battu’ is being produced by Toonz Animation, while Viacom18 owns its IP. Marketing for the show includes cross-channel television, partnerships with various malls and retail stores, consumer engagement programmes, print and radio, PR, Trade and Digital, and 3D floor graphics at popular malls across Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi. Moreover, van activations are also being initiated across Tier 2 cities. 

While briefing the media yesterday in Mumbai, Jaipuria highlighted the performance of all the channels of Viacom18’s kids cluster, which include Nickelodeon, Sonic, Nick Jr, Nick HD Plus and Maha Cartoon. 

While affirming that the kids cluster has been growing from strength to strength, Jaipuria said, “From August 2014 till now, Nickelodeon has continued to be the No. 1 in the kids category and has not been displaced by anybody.” 

Citing BARC data, she said that there are three networks that largely comprise the kids category today – Nickelodeon, Disney and the Turner Network. Of these, Nickelodeon’s market share stands at 19 per cent, followed by Cartoon Network with 14 per cent share and Disney at 12 per cent share. Sonic’s share is at 10 per cent. Meanwhile, Maha Cartoon entered as an FTA channel with 4 per cent market share. 

“When we bunch off the network in terms of entertainment for kids, we look at Viacom18 with a 31 per cent market share; Turner with a 27 per cent market share; while Disney is slightly ahead at 33 per cent,” Jaipuria observed. 

According to her, going forward the 2-14 age group will be the slice for kids. 

Giving a further break-up of the data, she noted, “We are an all India channel, HSM and South put together. South contributes around 28 per cent to the total ratings. When you look at this particular genre – Urban and Rural – from a universe perspective, it is pretty much 50-50, but when it come to viewership, we actually have 65:35 in favour of Urban.” 

Jaipuria also pointed out that Nick is almost 100 TVT ahead of the No. 2 player, while Sonic is just 30 TVT behind Disney. Last week, Nick (which was around 501 TVT) overtook Disney, while Sonic overtook Cartoon Network in the urban markets as well. 

She asserted that it was not just about the TVT, but also about the reach. “We are the highest delivering reach channel in the space with 22 per cent market share. We reach 32 million kids every week as a channel. Sonic is at 14 per cent today, while it was at 7 per cent last year. With the high reach, we have maintained the time spent at a good 90-plus minutes,” Jaipurua claimed. 

Feather on the cap moment for Nick came from Ormax’s data, where six characters from the Nickelodean franchise found mention in the top 10 most loved characters’ list. Ormax conducts a Small Wonder bi-annual study which highlights kids’ preferences and has a sample size of 3,000 kids. Nick’s toon character Shiva got onto the list within almost six months of its launch. 

Sonic Boom 

Speaking about Sonic’s performance over the years, Jaipuria said, “Sonic being the next big thing for Nickelodeon as a franchise; we have developed it as a franchise that talks to teens. For toddlers, we launched Nick Jr, while we have launched Nick HD Plus for HD viewers. But in order to become a network to reckon with, we felt the need to have a strong second channel. We strategically moved ‘Shiva’, our No. 1 show on Nick, to Sonic following which the channel’s market share grew from 4 per cent to 10 per cent. We did everything possible to make ‘Shiva’ the next big thing after ‘Motu Patlu’. To me, ‘Shiva’ was the winner for 2016. But we have got equal contribution from all the three shows. ‘Pakdam Pakdai’ gives us 25-27 per cent, which is again local content, then there are ‘Oggy & the Cockroaches’ and ‘Shiva’, which have increased the reach for Sonic.” 

According to her, the factors contributing for a successful 2016 for the network include the coming together of Viacom Motion Pictures and Nickelodean for creating ‘Motu-Patlu: King of Kings’, which was a commercial success, as well as the first ever Kids Choice Awards that garnered more eyeballs. 

When it comes to digital engagement, the channel team has been building digital assets comprising 40 per cent (407) games on the website that help create engagement and increase affinity about the character. Jaipuria added here, “Close to 200 games are based on local content comprising the characters of Motu Patlu, Shiva and Pakdam Pakdai. This summer, we are going to launch 15 new games. We have enough engagement on digital, where kids can come and play and be active. We have really grown our assets on digital. We are the first kids’ channel to do a mall VR game and 1.6 lakh game installs on Play Store in one month.” 

On what’s new on Sonic, Jaipuria informed that the channel would be airing all new episodes of ‘Oggy’ from April 17 onwards at 4 pm, also anew season of ‘Shiva’ and ‘Shawn The Sheep’. The weekend strategy is more skewed towards movies and premieres, while marathons will also have a great say. 

Speaking about Nick Jr, which holds a 2 per cent market share and is targeted at the 0-6 age group, shows like ‘Dora the Explorer’, ‘Peppa Pig’, and ‘Paw Petrol’, among others, have been driving the audience to the channel. Regarding Nick HD Plus, Jaipuria maintained it does not simulcast the shows, but is a different channel on its own. The best of local and international content of all three channels is aired on Nick HD Plus. 

Viacom18 has reported profits for the fourth successive year, with ad sales increasing by 20 per cent year on year. Sonic’s yield increased by 40 per cent, while Nick’s yield increased by 25 per cent year on year. Monetisation is working and subscription revenues have grown by 10-15 per cent. Brands like Choki Choki, Boost, Alpenliebe, Colgate Junior, Yellow diamond rings, and Parle Magix have been consistently partnering with Nick. Jaipuria also shared that in the near future there would be some digital innovation happening on the power cards of Shiva that serve as freebies from Choki Choki. 

Jaipuria further said currently 50 per cent of the advertisers are non-kid advertisers like automobiles, insurance, e-commerce, etc. Thus, a lot of uptake from these categories as well is expected.

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