Motu who loves hot, crispy samosas often gets into trouble and Patlu, his BFF, tries to help him out of the mess. Children all over India are familiar with this cartoon series, and love the (mis)adventures of the friends. Produced by Cosmos-Maya, the show is now watched in 108 countries, in different languages. According to its makers, the show is doing well not just in traditionally conducive markets such as South East Asia where Indian content has a large number of takers, but is also doing well in evolved economies, especially those with a large Indian diaspora.
Devdatta Potnis, senior vice president, Cosmos-Maya, in an email interview, talks about the popularity of Motu Patlu and the growth of the animation industry in India.
How has the journey of Motu Patlu been?
Motu Patlu’s journey has been remarkable. Since it began airing in 2012, it has consistently topped the rating charts with a steadily increasing viewer count.
How do you see the animation industry growing in India?
The animation industry is growing at a rapid speed in India. As an animation production house, since we started out in the IP creation space, our growth has been upwards of 60-70% year on year. There were 40 artists in the studio in 2012. Today we have crossed 1,500 and there is enough and more room to grow further. A recent industry report said that the Indian animation industry’s current growth rate is what the IT industry’s was at the turn of the millennium. It’s not just industry statistics, but our own experiences as a production house, working with every platform in the country that corroborates the belief that the industry is in a massive growth mode and there are immense opportunities. We are trying so many things that perhaps could not have been tried five years ago.
You have a few international co-productions in the pipeline. Could you give us an outline of the content and the characters that the audience can expect?
Yes, there are quite a few international co-productions we are working on. Atchoo! , one of them, has recently been syndicated to 108 countries and is available on Amazon Prime Video. We also have Leo Da Vinci and Berry Bees in the pipeline. While Leo da Vinci is a spin-off series of the 3D Animation feature film Leo da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa , Berry Bees is an all-girl spy-action series. There’s a few others that we are currently exploring and will announce in due time.
How has the response to the shows been internationally? How do you gauge their popularity?
Our shows have been received fairly well internationally. There are certain countries outside the subcontinent where Indian content does really well. For instance, Motu Patlu is doing exceedingly well in Indonesia and Singapore. Then there are crossover shows with a universal appeal—like Eena Meena Deeka that has reached more than 80 countries worldwide.
Today, digital gives you real time updates in terms of which audiences from which geographies are spending how much time on which episode of which IP. This level of granular data is very helpful from the perspective of planning the programming strategy of our content. It also helps us draw creative insights for subsequent projects, which aid in deciding the kind of international co-productions we would want to partake in.
Unlike in the past, there has been a proliferation of distribution channels. What does that mean for content creators?
The increase in distribution platforms has proved to be very beneficial to content creators, as they have been given a license to create disruptive storylines that can be aired on a number of platforms. In addition to that, these distribution channels also help us from the perspective of widening our reach.
We have been able to access territories that would otherwise have been difficult. For instance, finding a partner in Vietnam and getting our content dubbed in Vietnamese is only possible because of the digital revolution today. We have got our content dubbed in a diverse range of languages such as Indonesian (Bahasa), Spanish and Arabic for our international audiences. With digital distribution, we are able to make our content native and relative to different regions.
