The Kids genre saw a 46% increase in viewership post lockdown: Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head, ZEE5 India

Today, kids are the epitome in the priority list for every parent. With e-learning to online games, kids are engaged with screens all the time. And entertainment for kids isn’t any different. ZEE5 is all set to redefine kids’ content with the launch ZEE5 Kids. Comprise of a repertoire of 4000+ hours of entertainment content, it encompasses varied genres, languages, formats and age-group based curations for kids. And what’s more, it’s free for all users.

With a content line-up tailor-made to cater to kids across ages, genres and languages, ZEE5 Kids will also be launching exciting exclusive digitals like Gadget Guru, Guddu and Bapu which will be released over upcoming timelines. ZEE5 is now truly an ultimate entertainment destination for the entire family with shows and movies in 9 languages and content made specifically for kids as well as parents. Planned uniquely, ZEE5 Kids offer a library spread across multiple languages – Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam and Bhojpuri.

Being a trailblazing ConTech company, ZEE5 has ensured that the interface of ZEE5 Kids product is safe, secure and a private environment that you can trust. In addition, the platform is kid-friendly in terms of being easy to use and its simple navigation. ZEE5 Kids will enable an environment for kids, parents and educators to consume, create, learn and contribute together as a family.

Medianews4u in a conversation with Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head, ZEE5 India post the launch

Excerpts:

The kids’ genre is a cluttered space, how have you maintained your leadership in this space?

ZEE5 Kids marks our recent foray into the kid’s entertainment segment, and it has been launched with a vision to be a one-stop destination for Kids, Parents, and Educators to consume, create and contribute. The main theme of ZEE5 Kids is #NonStopBachFUN.  As part of the current Phase 1 launch, ZEE5 Kids will include a rich repertoire of 4000+ hours of entertainment and bespoke content encompassing varied genres, languages, formats and age-group based curations. The content has been curated after careful evaluation and consultations with parents, counselors, educators, and kids to deliver a one-stop edutainment and infotainment platform for these audiences. We have much more planned in terms of content and interactive activities for parents and kids and have ensured that our UI is easy and child safe. And even discovery of content has been made simple and colorful. As responsible players, we have planned our content and safety features to build an environment that evokes trust in the community. ZEE5 has a large content library with depth across languages. The Indian context of storytelling, characters and the treatment of shows will resonate with the Indian audience at large. This is unlike the competition. As the Entertainment Super-App of India, we have even more planned in the coming future. We have a partnership with Eduauraa, a learning app, and even our other alliances with Cosmos and Lionsgate will be an added value for the Indian families.

As per BARC numbers kids’ genre has seen a spike in viewership, how are you seeing this offering from ZEE5 to attract eyeballs?

The BARC-Nielsen’s 4th edition report observed that there was a 46% increase in viewership during the fourth week of the Covid-19 lockdown in the Ages 2 to 14 group. It is incidental that the launch of the channel and the lockdown has come at the same time. The plan originally was made keeping in mind the summer vacations, especially in the month of May. The surge in numbers and viewing trends will add a few more numbers to our audience statistics. However, we feel that the channel’s popularity will be driven by the fact that there is carefully planned content and parental control as well as safety features for not just kids, but even parents and educators. We have an exclusive and unique bouquet of content to offer. We have taken extreme care to create and curate content as well as made our UI colorful and user friendly. The safe environment and interactive features are also planned after consulting what parents want.

You talked about edutainment; can you elaborate?

ZEE5 as a responsible platform understands the need of parents for content that is entertaining and at the same time educates the kids morally and gives them good information. Keeping this in mind, we also an age-appropriate curation of kids’ shows, movies, reality shows, DIY shows, nursery rhymes, FUN games and a lot more across languages and genres like adventure, super-hero, fantasy, mythology, etc. Furthermore, we have collaborated with Eduauraa, a learning app which will enable users to eventually access it from ZEE5 itself. The partnership with Eduauraa will give ZEE5 the edutainment edge as entertainment meets education and provide ZEE5 subscribers the opportunity to transforming their learning experience with Eduauraa’s premier digital learning offerings. The association will provide students of class 6th to 12th standard across different boards including ICSE, CBSE and the seven state boards (Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu), in English and Hindi, a concept based learning as per Board wise syllabus delivered through interactive video lectures. These will be delivered using innovative and interactive methods that explain each topic or concept. So ZEE5 Kids has pure entertainment, education and edutainment content to choose from.

What are the kind of trends you are seeing in this genre?

Kids and parents alike have shifted their focus on digital content to keep the children entertained and even educate them through the content available online. The OTT sector in India is seeing a rise in viewership among the younger audience as it is convenient for parents and kids to access content anytime and even helps parents track what their kids are consuming. We see this sector growing further due to the convenience of content viewing and multiple choices as parents want platforms to easily provide the entertainment and education that will help mold their kids at different points of their life. In this regard, ZEE5 Kids has curated content across multiple languages so that children can learn and hone their native language and our interactive features have also been planned to provide sharing of information and experiences for parents and counselors based on our research about what the viewers want. And we think this sector is just going to progress even more with time.