Hello India … Burbank calling
India the country no longer is only that far off place that outsourcing companies move the support and service centers to. It is a thriving economy with a giant populace - and thus also increasingly an interesting market for international companies. Therefore it was only a question of time till The Walt Disney Company would move into that market as well. Certainly there have been rumors about a potential Disney theme park in India for quite a while which are bound to stay with us for the coming years. But now there is also some real news to report!
It’s not theme park related though but tv related. TWDC has acquired the Indian children tv-station “HUNGAMA” fro 30.5 million US-$ from its current owner United Home Entertainment in which’s mother company UTV Software Communications TWDC also acquires a 14.9% stake for another 14 million US-$.According to reports on the German-language website DIGITALfernsehen, which covers the tv-market professional as online-outlay of an according business-trade-magazine, this is supposed to be a first step of TWDC to enter the lucrative Indian tv-market. According to the same report, Disney does not only plan to use HUNGAMA for its US-tested children-programing but also for locally produced material.
But it is not as if Disney is entering a virgin market, instead Time Warner has already positioned itself for the past 10 years and holds a 50% market share with its stations Cartoon Network and Pogo, which also target children. Currently the Indian children-tv-market creates a turnover of 1.02 billion US-$ but experts predict a steep increase as the booming middle-class increasingly spends money for children.
So when are we going to see the first Disney-Channel-Bollywood-movie-musical??