Global kids and family entertainment major Toonz Media Group (India) has launched a new kids television channel in Indonesia. The 24×7 pay TV channel Toonz Kids is available on Indonesia’s leading satellite TV network Transvision.
The bilingual channel will include shows in both Bahasa and English, and is targeted at 4 to 12-year-olds. This will be Toonz’s maiden television channel in Asia. The channel went on air on Sunday, November 14.
‘Indonesia has a fast-growing kids entertainment industry and we felt it would be the best place to launch the expansion of our platform entertainment business. We will be banking on Toonz’s 22 year-old legacy in the industry and our strong multi-genre library with 1000+ hours of content. The channel will bring this world class content to kids and families in Indonesia, dubbed in native Bahasa’, said P. Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group.
‘It is a pleasure for us to be the first platform to launch Toonz Kids channel in Indonesia. This is the first International kids channel fully dubbed in Bahasa Indonesia. In line with our tagline, “Broadcasting at The Edge of Technology”, we always strive to provide entertaining, quality, and educational content for all of our viewers. We sincerely hope this partnership will accommodate our customer needs, as well as become an attractive point for our customer to access Transvision services’, added the company Sales and Marketing Director, Brando Tengdom.
Toonz had announced expansion of its platform entertainment business in October this year with the constitution of its new SBU Toonz Media Networks. The company has roped in former Zee Entertainment COO, Mukund Cairae to head the SBU. After Indonesia, Toonz plans to launch television channels in other emerging kids’ television markets such as Malaysia, Singapore and MENA (Middle East & North Africa). The company already operates kids channels in select key global territories.
‘Indonesia has the largest television market and the second largest pay TV market in South-East Asia. The country has around 67 million homes and a TV penetration of 64%, which translates to around 42 million TV homes. This includes a pay TV penetration of 12%. If you look at the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for pay TV in Indonesia, it is a healthy USD 10 per home per month. Clearly, there is huge potential for growth of pay TV business here’, remarked Cairae.
He added that Toonz Kids will focus on edutainment and entertainment shows while also looking to explore content partnerships through animation co-productions with local companies in Indonesia. “We will be actively pursuing content partnerships to co-create premium content, including e-Sports, to engage the tweens and teens besides the kids audience category,” Mukund said. Cloud broadcasting and live TV streaming company Amagi is the playout and transmission partner for Toonz Kids.
Toonz already has a formidable presence in the digital media space with a robust YouTube ecosystem comprising of 18 YouTube channels and 18 million plus subscribers. Earlier this year the company had launched its own OTT platform MyToonz. Besides this, it also has content syndication partnerships with world’s top kids’ VOD platforms including Roku, Kidoodle, Amazon Prime Video, Pluto TV and many more.
