SANJIT KUNDU

"There is a lot of white space in the Indian kids’ entertainment genre. ...my dream is to make ACK Media a Rs 1,000 crore company." —
Samir Patil, CEO, ACK Media
AMAR CHITRA KATHA

Amar Chitra’s New Katha

After taking over one of India’s comic-book icons, two entrepreneurs are revamping it to tap the country’s 350-million strong youth
market.
AJITHA SHASHIDHAR
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R ecently, 11-year-old Disha, a Grade VI student in Mumbai, watched a presentation entitled ‘Real Heroes of India’ in
her school auditorium. The dramatised act took the audience through the life and times of freedom fighters Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Rani Lakshmibai. Later, the children
were asked to list the values each hero stood for and write a few lines on whether they had any of those values themselves.
Disha wrote about how she was inspired by Rani Lakshmibai’s patriotism and how the queen symbolised woman power
rising against all odds. “I never knew history was so interesting,” she exclaims. “What we are taught in the classroom is
extremely boring. I always wait for the History class to end” she giggles.
The Heroes programme is one of many such shows organised by ACK Media, a
children’s media and education company, in 80 Indian cities. The company was formed
"Last year, in November 2007 by Samir Patil and Shripal Morakhia after buying Amar Chitra Katha,
we reached Tinkle and Karadi Tales from India Book House. The duo’s objective is to get today’s
out to 85 top youth to embrace the desi comic characters their parents used to love—the Mahabharata
schools in and Ramayana heroes, Suppandi, Tantri the Mantri, Shikari Shambu, and Nasirudin
the metros.
Hodja, as well as a host of new ones. In the process, they aim to build a multi-crore
This year,
business.
we will reach out to 120
schools."—Anil Sanjivan,
CEO, Ideas Box That may prove easier said than done. Once popular across the length and breadth of
the country, Indian comic characters have made way for international superheroes like
Ben10 (a Warner Bros character) and Spiderman (Walt Disney). ACK Media’s biggest
task is to revive the brand connect of the 100-odd characters it owns from all the three
titles. Patil and Morakhia are ready for the challenge. They have lined up plans to invest
$15-20 million to scale up the business. The company also plans to raise Rs 100 crore this year to fund its growth plans
further. Of this, Rs 27 crore has already come in from investors such as the UK-based private equity company Elephant
Capital.

Immense Potential
The decision to buy Amar Chitra Katha and the other properties happened by sheer
chance. In the middle of 2007, Patil, who was working with McKinsey, took a sabbatical
to pursue his interest as a writer. He was in India penning a book on the lives and
"The sales
thoughts of great Indian thought leaders such as Aryabhatta and Ramanujam when he of bothAmar
heard that India Book House, which owned the rights of Amar Chitra Katha, Chitra
Tinkle and Karadi Tales, was looking for a buyer. Katha andTi
nkle had
“By then, I had realised that there was a lot of white space in the Indian kids’ stagnated.
entertainment genre,” says Patil. The population of kids in India, he points out, is 350 We are changing
million, which is more than the population of the US. “Despite this, none of the kids’ that."—Ashish Goel,
COO, ACK Media.
companies have scaled up. Where is the Rs 1,000-crore kids’ company in India? My
dream is to make ACK Media a Rs 1,000-crore company.”

Realising there was a huge opportunity, he partnered with Morakhia (founder of

institutional investment banking company SSKI and retail broking company Sharekhan) to buy the three properties. But
neither of them is willing to disclose how much they paid for it.

In May this year, they also bought India Book House. “If content is king, distribution is God,” declares Patil, explaining the
rationale behind the buy. “I want to be the most easily accessed kids and parents business. India Book House distributes
close to 130 magazine titles in the country. Thanks to the takeover, ACK Media’s distribution network now extends to 2,500
stores and 22,000 vendors across 400 cities in India, says Manas Mohan, ACK Media’s direct contact head.

The moves are all part of a well-thought-out gameplan. Patil, ACK Media’s CEO, is convinced that India’s youth media
market is untapped. “We will strengthen our position in the comic-book space. And, we are also trying to make Amar Chitra
Katha, Tinkle and Karadi Talesmulti-platform. We have a presence in television and online gaming (legendsofkatha.com).
Next we will be in the animation film space.”

New Look

Patil says that from day one he wanted ACK Media to be a multi-platform entity. “Even
globally, media companies with a 360-degree footprint have done well,” he points out.
"Each of The first task was to make the three comic titles more contemporary in look and increase
the Tinkleand AC their visibility in shops. “The sales of bothAmar Chitra Katha and Tinkle had stagnated
Kcharacter has and there was hardly any visibility as they were tucked behind a herd of other comics and
the capability of magazines. The days when a Tinkle comic was available even at a roadside pan shop
being scaled up
were clearly gone. Also, there wasn’t any new content that could be talked about,” points
to Rs 250-300
out Ashish Goel, COO, ACK Media.
crore."—Amiy Roy, Head,
Brands And Characters, ACK
While Uncle Pai (Anant Pai), who founded Amar Chitra Kathaand Tinkle in 1967
continued as Editor-In-Chief, a new team of designers redesigned the look and feel
of Amar Chitra Katha. “Along with giving it a more contemporary look, we increased its
visibility on the racks,” says Patil. The acquisition of India Book House and its huge
distribution network helped.

He claims that since taking over, ACK Media has recorded a 110% increase in business—in comparison, the publishing
industry grew just 7% in FY10, according to a PwC Report on the Indian Media and Entertainment Industry.

360-Degree Strategy

In sync with the strategy to be multi-platform, ACK has picked up an 80% stake in content, activation and education
company Ideas Box, the brainchild of well-known advertising and media professional
Anil Sanjivan. The first television show that Ideas Box created for ACK Media was an
inter-school sports quiz show in association with Indian Premier League team Deccan
"ACK
Chargers. The show aired on NDTV Imagine. Ideas Box also created ACK Heroes, the
Media’s
school contact programme. “We reached out to 85 top schools across Mumbai, Delhi,
distribution
Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune in 2008-2009. This year we hope to reach out to network now
120 schools,” says Sanjivan, who is the CEO of Ideas Box. extends to
2,500 stores
ACK Media has also partnered with companies such as Tata Interactive to create and 22,000 vendors
animated shows, which are airing across kids’ channels such as Cartoon Network and across 400 cities in
Disney. In addition, it has launched online games and ventured into home videos. The India."—Manas Mohan,
Direct Contact Head, ACK
Media
company currently has a weekly show titled Amar Chitra Katha Series on Cartoon Network. “All our Indian cartoon titles,
including Chhota Bheem on Pogo (created by Green Gold)—the number one rated show—and the Amar Chitra Katha
Series have done immensely well,” says Monica Tata, Vice President and Deputy General Manager, Turner International
India.

Apart from the television series, ACK Media has also partnered with Turner to produce two TV feature
films: Tripura and Sons of Ram. Though Cartoon Network is better known in India for its international toon characters, such
as Pokemon, Tata believes that its strategy to back ‘desi toons’ has reaped huge benefits. “I am convinced that our desi
toon characters have as much scope to be scaled up as the international characters,” she says.

While the school contact programme and television are one part of ACK’s strategy to be a 360-degree kids media company,
it is also betting hugely on its characters and brands. Amiy Roy, Head, Brands and Characters, is confident that each of
the Tinkle and ACK characters has the capability of being scaled up to Rs 250-300 crore. “Tinkle is a fun brand and has a
readership of 800,000 readers. So, why can’t a Tinkle character such as Suppandi or Shikari Shambu be as big as the
international toon characters?” he asks. Apart from these classic characters, the company is also creating newer, more
contemporary characters under the Tinkle brand, such as Detective Detective, a series around the adventures of two boys
who hail from Bandra in Mumbai. Nina Jaipuria, Business Head of kids’ channel Nick, feels Indian children will identify with
more contemporary characters.

Old and new, print and television, online and merchandising, ACK Media is pulling out all the stops to tap India’s youth
market. Will it be enough to realise Patil’s dream of building a Rs 1,000-crore company? Only Youngistan can answer that.