Thanks to its cultural diversity and richness, the regional content market in India offers a lot of potential for animation. The challenge is to tap that and make a working business model around it.

Mayabimbham's Bebuli Raja

Chennai based animation studio Mayabimbham, it seems has set its sights on solving the regional animated content puzzle.

A few months ago, the studio purchased a half hour Independence day slot on Jaya TV and showcased its Tamil animated film Puli Raja. Being a first time experience for the studio, it couldn't manage to sell any of the 5 minutes of airtime that it got with the show.

Recently Mayabimbham hooked up with ETV Telugu for Bebuli Raja, the Telegu version of its film. Bebuli... was aired on the 8.00 - 8.30 am time slot on Children's Day. This time round Mayabimbham was able to rope in Parle which had also been a major sponsor for the Greengold created Bongo.

Speaking to Animation 'xpress, Mayabimbham director Sridevi Rao commented, "We were not able to convince media agencies as we are new players and it is a single slot. They are happy to promote only the serials and cinema programmes which have good TRP Ratings. We were succesful with Parle as we had approached the client direct and they do believe in animation"

Though a working business model around creating original regional/local content for broadcast in India is still a long way in working out.. Front foot forward Initiatives such as Mayabimbham's are definitely going to help in cracking this puzzle.

Stay tuned!