14 September 2006

Disney switches on to Hindi market.
Financial Times
(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserve

By JOE LEAHY and SUNDEEP TUCKER

Walt Disney is poised to make its second big push into India in less than six months with plans to become the first foreign media group to release original, local language programmes for the domestic children's TV market.

Only two months after buying Hungama TV, a rival domestic children's channel, Disney is working on two original, live action Hindi-language TV series to be shown on its Disney Channel.

"We'll have two shows on the air by the end of '06," Rich Ross, president of Disney Channel Worldwide, said in an interview with the FT.

The move is part of an aggressive push by Disney into a fast-growing market in which its channels have lagged behind competitors such as Cartoon Network and Pogo, part of the Turner group.

In a landmark deal announced in July, Disney bought control of Hungama for Dollars 30.5m and paid Dollars 14m for a 14.9 per cent stake in UTV Software Communications, Hungama's Mumbai-based parent group.

"They've bought a stake in UTV and they've got Hungama now. They're trying to develop an aggressive strategy," said Vivek Couto, an analyst at Media Partners Asia in Hong Kong. "Cartoon Network is now feeling the pressure."

Launched in 2005, Hungama is the second-most popular children's channel in the country's Dollars 30m-a-year children's TV advertising market.

Disney's deal with UTV and its takeover of Hungama gives it a local co-production base in a market where regional programming in local languages is critical, as shown by the success of Star, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

While Disney said it could not disclose the working titles for the two new series, Mr Ross said they would be "half-hour dramas telling different stories".

One of the series, for example, would be about a group of girls that has formed a band.

The sums involved are still relatively small. However, India is seen as a more promising market than China for foreign media companies because of its relative openness.

"We have two original programmes now being made here and we have yet to be able to strike a deal in China to make co-productions there," said Mr Ross. "We believe that day will come as well but I think that is emblematic of the difference right now."

Disney launched its Disney Channel in India in September 2004 and three months later launched Toon Disney, its second major channel. The channels reach 30m households through satellite and cable networks.