COVID-19 has disrupted almost every industry in the world. The Entertainment industry is no different. While outdoor entertainment has been heavily impacted, at-home entertainment has seen an upswing. Streamers and broadcasters are repositioning their business strategies as lockdown behaviour results in habit formation.

There has been a lot of demand for fresh content for the Animation industry, as children remain cooped up at home. The demand for edutainment content has escalated as parents try to look for another option for school with meaningful and engaging content.

One company shooing parents’ worries is Toonz Media Group. It is a leading animation studio and global kids and family entertainment company. It is also the parent company of Toonz Academy, a leading animation training institute in South Asia.

Toonz Academy was one of the first animation training institutes to be started in India, with a legacy of close to two decades. Earlier this year, it launched an EdTech platform called Ri8brain, which is a unique platform dedicated to learning creative arts. Ri8brain basically carries forward the legacy of Toonz Academy.

It is not possible to miss a company like Toonz while searching for any innovative industry. In an exclusive interview with Insights Success, the team shares its rich history and future concerns. Following are the highlights of the interview.

Enlighten us with brief information about Toonz.

We have over two decades of unparalleled experience and are Asia’s one of the most active animation production studios. We produce over 10,000 minutes of 2D and CGI kids and family animated content per year. We have studios and corporate offices worldwide, including in Ireland, Turkey, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States.

Toonz Media Group and its flagship divisions encompass dedicated units for IP creation, production, distribution and rights exploitation, digital and gaming content, licensing, and merchandising, as well as skill development. We boast of an envious pedigree of successful co-production partnerships with companies including Walt Disney, Turner, Nickelodeon, Sony, Universal, BBC, and Paramount, etc.

We have produced some of the most highly rated international shows such as:

– Wolverine and The X-men with Marvel

– Speedracer Next Generation with Lionsgate

– Mostly Ghostly with Universal

– Playmobil with Sony

– Dragonlance with Paramount Pictures

– Freefonix with BBC

– Sherazade with Kika Germany

– Gummybear, Friends, Fruit Ninja with Google, and many more.

We also have to credit several pioneering achievements in animation production, such as India’s first 2D animated TV series and 2D feature film and India’s first 3D stereoscopic theatrical release.

Why did you choose Kerala as the launchpad of your business?

Toonz was established back in 1999, under the leadership of our visionary founder Mr G.A. Menon. He believed that Kerala offered a fertile land to groom professionals and artists in the field of animation, which was at a very nascent stage at that time. In fact, animation was not even a sector in India at that time.

We are among the first companies to be established in Technopark, Trivandrum, one of India’s first and largest IT parks. Kerala has one of the highest literacy rates in the country. It is a traditionally knowledge-oriented society. With respect to talent, too, Kerala is a great place to invest. Our youngsters are highly qualified as well as skilled. Coming from a techno-creative industry, we can vouch that the talent we have here is world-class. Toonz as a company has benefitted a lot from this.

What kind of services do you provide to your clients?

In the last 22 years, we have worked with the world’s leading entertainment studios, channels, and networks, including Marvel, Nickelodeon, Turner, Disney, Netflix, Dreamworks, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, BBC, Amazon, and Google to name a few.

Recent years have seen a huge rise in Toonz’s digital broadcast activities, and it is now one of the fastest-growing businesses. Currently, we have 18 different YouTube channels with over 15 million subscribers and 350 million+ monthly viewership. Earlier this year, we launched our dedicated kids and family entertainment platform MyToonz.

Innovation and business diversification are coded in the DNA of Toonz, and we continue to remain on the cutting edge because of this characteristic. Our focus on gaming and immersive technology in recent years is testimony to this.

We have now ventured into the broadcast business. We have set up a new strategic business unit for this, focusing initially on emerging economies in Asia and Africa. We will be launching our first channel in Indonesia in the coming months.

What challenges have you faced while entering the animation industry, and how did you transform these challenges into opportunities?

Our journey from a humble Indian animation start-up to a global entertainment major has been phenomenal. Today, we are one of the largest and most diverse media organizations in the world. In the last two decades, we have been rated as one of the top ten animation studios globally.

Our pioneering growth has been a good blend of multiple strategies – from producing and co-producing numerous animation series with the world’s largest studios and partners to commencing studio operations in new global destinations. Lack of trained talent was one of the first challenges we faced as a company as the animation was still a nascent sector. That’s how we came up with the idea of starting an animation studio of our own, which now is a leader in animation and other visual arts training in this part of the world.

In the last few years, we have scaled up our footprint across the globe, opening offices and production, financing, and distribution hubs in strategic cities and territories across the world. In 2014, we acquired Imira Entertainment, a leading Spanish production and distribution company specializing in kids and youth programming with a focus on European, the US, Latin American, and African markets.

In 2019, we acquired majority stakes in Telegael, the Emmy Award-winning, full-service Irish production house, which makes both animated and live-action kids’ content for global networks and studios. Telegael’s large live-action facilities have broadened the production scope for us. The Group’s additions also include Toonz New Zealand and Toonz Turkey, which focus on production and distribution in the Australasian and Middle East markets, respectively.

What would you like to advice the young generation of entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who want to become a part of the industry you are catering to?

In recent years, animation and related fields have taken a major leap. The AVGC–AR/VR industry (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality) is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world today. It is an exciting field with immense growth potential, especially for those who are creative as well as equally adept with new-age technologies. Techno-creative jobs like Animation, Visual Effects, and AR/VR are among the most in-demand jobs in the 21st century.

Animation is a technology-intensive sector. While creativity is the mainstay of this field, artists also need to be technologically adept and familiar with the most advanced software to produce animation. This business has long valued skill and developing and grooming fresh talent is a top focus. In the post-pandemic period, we anticipate a stronger demand for artists and creative workers who can quickly adjust to shifting conditions.

Professionals that not only have a great sense of creativity but are also continually upskilling their understanding of pertinent technologies would be in higher demand. CGI animation, application-based animations for filmmaking, entertainment media creation, edutainment, gaming, medical, defence, VR/AR, architecture, interior design, and advertisements are examples of this.

Where do you see yourself in the future? Kindly tell us about your strategies for scaling your business. 

We are forever on the lookout for new opportunities to scale up and strengthen our portfolio while maximising the benefits for our customers and partners. The entertainment and animation industry are bursting as it seems that there is a lot of opportunity for growth.

Our overall strategy at the highest level is two-pronged – focusing on content and platform. We plan to team up with the topmost creators, brands, and partners concerning content. And then, we would be focusing on making this high value content available on as many platforms as possible, whether it is in collaboration with telcos, smart TV companies, or play stores.

What is the current industry scenario of the animation industry in the nation as a whole?

In India, we have a thriving entertainment industry, catering to a huge audience within the country and abroad and employing millions of artists and technicians at different levels. The kid’s entertainment industry, in particular, is also booming in our country, thanks to the growing focus on the role of leisure, play, and entertainment activities on children’s mental and physical development.

India has the largest youth population globally and is, therefore, one of the biggest markets for kids’ entertainment. Despite these huge demographic advantages, we have not been able to fully leverage its benefits and potential of this sector so far. The animation industry in India has seen a meteoric rise in the past twenty years. However, India continues to be largely an outsourcing hub for animation, just like other IT and ITES industries.

We have started making inroads in animation IP creation in the last few years. Still, only a handful of major animation studios in this country have taken that road so far. Then there are also the other issues affecting the Indian entertainment industry in general, like piracy, lack of uniform media policy for foreign investment, content regulation, price regulation, cross-media ownership rules, and lack of empowered regulators.

That said, we are seeing a lot of flux in the entertainment sector in the country with respect to policy formulation, infrastructure development, training opportunities, and government support. We are positive that it will help us put the Indian entertainment industry on the global map.

From a business standpoint, there is now a lot more focus on technology integration, process efficiencies, and reduction of lead times. The need for remote collaborations for creative ideation has also never been so high. Companies are now focusing on investing in business continuity planning, such as improving organizational agility; and upskilling employees to meet the needs of a transformed work environment.

A Visionary Man

Jayakumar, CEO of Toonz Media Group, is a distinguished figure and a much-admired thought leader in the global media and entertainment industry. Joining Toonz as the Chief Finance Officer, Mr Jayakumar went on to take additional responsibility as the Chief Operating Officer before taking up the reins of the organization as CEO in 2003.

Under his inspirational leadership, Toonz expanded from its home ground in India, growing its global footprint, diversifying business, and making strategic international acquisitions. Today, Toonz has emerged as a global force in kids and family entertainment and a one-stop-shop for content production, distribution, and digital media exploitation. Mr Jayakumar was named one of Asia’s top twenty ‘toontitans’ by Animation Magazine and has served as co-executive producer on several award-winning animated television series and feature films. Mr. Jayakumar is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

He has also served as a jury member on the prestigious Emmy Award panel. Aside from that, he holds a number of key positions in India’s government and quasi-government organisations, institutes, and trade groups. He is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries’ (CII) National Committee on Media and Entertainment and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s (FICCI) Entertainment Committee, both of which are prominent business confederations in India. He is also the president of the Society of AVGC Institutions in Kerala (SAIK) and a member of the Media and Entertainment Skills Council’s Governing Council (MESC).

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