"We have an internal 'no brand integration' policy for our toddler content" - Chu Chu TV's Vinoth Chandar

Chandar and Voot's Akash Banerji shared their insights on the kids'online content space in a session moderated by Vanita Kohli-Khandekar at vdonxt asia 2017.

At a conference at the vdonxt asia 2017 convention, a panel, moderated by -Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, contributing editor at Business Standard, saw Akash Banerji, senior vice president and head of marketing and partnerships, Voot, and Vinoth Chandar- founder, CEO and creative director of Chu Chu TV discuss children's programming- a powerful driver in the digital space.

Moderator Kohli-Khandekar began the session by pointing out that the online kids content space was quite under-indexed compared to other genres, when it came to proportionate share of web usage vis-a-vis television, and that the 0-4 years age band especially, was starved of content as it wasn't measured even in the television space.

Addressing the monetisation aspect, Banerji said that it was important to have a deeper segmentation strategy. "The premise of digital is 'on-demand', and since young kids like to watch 'whatever, whenever, wherever', they are true digital agents" he observed. He also cited titles like 'Peppa Pig' and 'Dora' on Voot, which cater to toddlers and girl children, respectively. Commenting that Voot was still a young platform, Banerji shared that the company's parent group, its television network and consumer products business were all looking to synergise and address the consumer end to end from an end-to-end point of view.

Next, when the moderator brought up the subject of brand integration, Chandar responded that they had an 'internal no brand integration policy' since they targeted toddlers, and this got him a good round of applause. He did mention that Youtube Kids (where Chu Chu TV also puts up shows), which recently entered India, did have some amount of ads.

Elaborating further on his company's channels, Chandar said that they had one for the 0-4 years group, and another for the 4-7 years group of children, adding that they had also ventured into 3D content.

The panel also discussed consumption patterns among kids, where Banerji revealed that peak time for kids was 9 pm- same as the GEC genre. He explained that in single TV households, when parents watched television at 9 pm, kids had access to smart phones, which incidentally belonged to their fathers, as the latter had better data plans. Chandar pointed out that peak time for Chu Chu TV differed as it was watched in different markets.

Banerji also mentioned that one big point of analysis continued to be the 'ageing of episodes', as kids are known to derive comfort from routinely watching the same content. Chandar added this was an important reason behind Chu Chu's consumption doing well.

On the demand for content in different languages, Chandar revealed that they were launching channels in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi soon, while Banerji said regionalisation was a key agenda for Voot too.

When the question of rationing kids'screen time arose, Chandar said that now 'eyes' were going back to TV as more and more devices were being connected to it, while Banerji provided the larger view, where he said that devices were mere tools, and how we demonstrated to children really determined the outcome.

Finally, when the moderator polled the audience on whether time spent by kids on online content be controlled, the response was an overwhelming yes.

Event partners include: Adobe (Presented By), Viu (Powered By), Akamai (Technology Partner), Voot (Digital Partner), EY (Knowledge Partner), Unruly (Video Partner), Dropbox Business (Collaboration Partner), Web Talkies (Entertainment Partner), 101India.com (New Age Digital Partner), Culture Machine (Content Partner), 24 Frames Digital (Streaming Partner), Blogadda.com (Blogging Partner), NDTV Prime (TV Partner), Content Asia (International Media Partner), and Advertising Agencies Association of India and The Advertising Club (Community Partners).