Kids are the true building blocks of any nation, while we embark on the journey of creating “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat, Swaccha Bharat” overall development of kids in India needs to be looked at with a more serious approach.
In today’s time and age when world is becoming a smaller place, time zones and distances are no more a barrier. There is an overload of information that is thrown on us every minute and hence the relevance of information at the right time becomes crucial. ‘Right Information’ at ‘Right Time’ is something that we should spend some time discussing which will help the kids consume, understand and appreciate better.
In India Kids content is scarce or let me state that it really doesn’t exist if one compares the kind of right culture, history and heritage we have as a country. Perhaps we in India have more Hero’s, super Hero’s, characters and winners and most part of the world. But we hardly celebrate them in our country, we have hardly written stories about them and tried to narrate them to the world. They say ‘it’s never too late’. Need of the hour is to have an exclusive kid’s public broadcasting channel that will focus on original animated content for kids. This platform will help in populating and celebrating our Hero’s & characters thru stories that will make us and our kids proud to be Indians. Our kids will get exposed on Indian History, Indian Culture, Indian Folk tales and Indian Traditions before they get trapped under the World Wide Web (www). They will be far more informed and appreciative of India than what they are today.
To give you a perspective of the present scenario, total Number of Kids’ channels in India is approximately 22 including regional languages. Viewership share of kids’ genres is 8 per cent, much after Hindi GEC, News Channels and Hindi movies.
The key players among kid’s channels in India with a focus on animated content are broadcasting 80 per cent of foreign content and only 20 per cent is original Indian content. There was a time since 1994 till about 2008 when the programming used to be 90 per cent of foreign content. The main reason for this situation is the lack of AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming & Comics) policy frame work.
While we understand the globalisation era and appreciate the exposure that our kids may get thru foreign content, all we had been asking is a right balance between foreign and Indian animated content.
How can we dream of building a strong nation when the value systems of today’s Indian kids are being moulded and based on foreign culture as reflected in these shows.
Our kids will be unable to understand and appreciate the cultural diversity of India due to erosion of sense of belonging and unable to associate with our cultural roots.
This will also result into death of rich art forms and culture, heritage, mythology which prevailed through centuries in our own history that constitutes the belief of India as a country.
How the AVGC Policy Framework help Indian Animation:
1) Promote responsible programming in kid’s content space.
2) Provide free access of kids’ programming in cable dark areas.
3) Emphasize on entertainment with education and vice-versa.
4) Promote rich Indian culture, History and Tradition.
5) Expose kids to our rich heritage of art, music, mythology and customs.
This will also enable Indian content providers sell global rights and take our story overseas and populate our culture and tradition across the world.
Now, having looked at the problem, the possible solution and its merit are very clearly visible.
Going forward we would like Prasar Bharati to start a kids digital terrestrial free to air channel (A kids public broadcasting channel).
We believe Prasar Bharati as a platform can play a pivotal role in the process.
Most of the successful countries globally who have promoted kids content in the best manner have followed this process and results for them has been astounding. With its widest reach the public broadcasting kids channel with the right kind of programming for kids will be able to lead the way and create a path for nation building just as other successful countries have public broadcasting services for nurturing kids and preparing them for future.
The outcome will not only be confined with development of kids, but will create a huge splash in the overall development of the animation sector in India.
Some of the tangible benefits of this are given below:
1) Indian animation industry will produce more IPs
2) Create new creative & techno-creative job opportunities and new revenue stream
3) Produce local and relevant content
4) Employment opportunities for rural, tribal youth and artisan who are skilled with local art forms giving fresh lease of life to the dying Indian art forms
5) Provide a healthy alternative to kids’ formal learning tools.
With its unmatched penetration in comparison to the cable & satellite channels a public broadcasting kids channel will surely position itself as a differentiator. Quality kids’ programming will also generate more viewership and thus attract more advertising revenues.
This is probably the only way to strengthen the AVGC industry & bring about sustainability stability and growth to the artist community and other stake holders. What used to be the cost arbitrage and sometimes the skills arbitrage that attracted services work to India in the past has moved to other Asian countries. Lack of adequate policies for the AVGC sector in India which is still in its nascent state is the root cause of this situation. A strong national policy as well as state level policies to support the creative, art & performing arts industry is a need of this hour.
The aim of this initiative should be to educate children with our rich and vibrant culture and expose them to cultural diversity of India along with quality entertainment.
The creative, art and performing arts sector fortunately have a lot more intangibles to offer to the India society. This phenomenon of off balance on intangibles may be also contributing to delayed justice for the AVGC sector. Global studios continue to come to India for higher quality output. Growing the domestic market and its potential exploitation is the only answer to save the industry and creative jobs in India.
Right policy, Right content, Right ownership, Right platform, Right distribution is the Right of every Kid in India.
A Perfect Right!
(These are views expressed by Ashish S Kulkarni, chairman, FICCI Animation, VFX, Gaming & Comics Forum & founder, PUNNARYUG in the FICCI KPMG report 2015)
