'Animation needs strategic partners for revenues'

Mumbai, March 26 (IANS) The business of animation rests, among others issues, on having strategic partners who will be able to create products that can be long lasting, experts maintain.

"The absolute key to this business is having strategic partners. It's important to ensure that a property lasts 15, 20, 30 years," said Dean Koocher, managing director of US-based Honest Entertainment, at a media and entertainment meet here Wednesday.

Honest Entertainment is the creator of popular characters such as Tele Tubbies and Fido Dido among others.

"While ensuring the revenue stream for such a business, one also needs to look at certain other critical aspects such as territories, which is very important in keeping the product consistent," Koocher said.

Jiggy George, executive director for Cartoon Network Enterprises in India and South Asia, said: "It is very important to understand what revenue model we are looking at, how margins should be defined. The opening of the retail business could prove to be a huge revenue earner for the Indian animation industry."

Munjal Shroff, chief operating officer of Graphiti Multimedia, agreed. "It is ultimately the content that translates into revenues. Some of the very important aspects of creating a property lie in its uniqueness, appeal, target audience, look and theme."

He also felt that protecting property was important. "In India IPR (intellectual property rights) laws have become stricter. With a little time and effort, as the process may well take one and a half years, one can be sufficiently protected."

The entertainment portion of the animation, gaming and VFX industry grew by 24 percent over the previous year in 2007 and is estimated at Rs.13 billion, up from Rs.10.5 billion in 2006, according to a report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Ficci) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

Ficci-Frames, the ongoing annual global forum, looks at the business aspects of the media and entertainment industry.

It is billed as one of Asia's biggest forums for the entertainment business with some 2,000 Indian and 500 foreign delegates discussing issues like growth and sustainability of the sector and how to address the challenges facing it.

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