Walt Disney launches new channels in India
Thursday, 16 December 2004, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: In a bid to provide "clean" and "family based" entertainment for children, Walt Disney International plans to launch two channels in regional languages, officials announced here Thursday. Disney Channel, a 24-hour Hindi channel and Toons Disney in Tamil, Telugu and English, would be started Friday. "We will uphold the traditional Disney policies of decency, fun, community and story telling in all our programmes and cater to hitherto ignored segments like the below five year olds and girls," said Rajat Jain, managing director, Disney TV India. "Our programmes will cater to the developmental needs of pre-school children and will augment the needs of self-expression among 10-14 year olds," Jain added. The new channels will feature 400 episodes (200 hours) of locally produced content and 1,650 episodes of international content dubbed into local languages. To satiate the enormous appetite for movie watching among Indian families, Disney will also showcase 60 titles of Disney's most celebrated animated and live action features such as "The Jungle Book", "The Lion King", "Flubber" and "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" every month. One hundred and thirty movie titles have been dubbed in Hindi for the first year alone and Disney TV India has tied up with the Star TV network for maximising their reach. Walt Disney Television International provides 100 branded shows per week in 65 countries and licenses more than 30,000 hours of programmes worldwide. "The brand equity Disney has in India is very similar to the brand equity it has enjoyed in the US. Our research found a strong natural resonance for Disney among parents and kids in India as generations of them have grown up with Mickey and Donald," he added. "Our idea is to cater to the hitherto ignored segments and augment the traditional practises of story telling and contribute towards character building and educating the children," Jain said.
Source: IANS
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