India Telcos Go Comic

Much like other mobile content producers around the world there’s been some big deals in the Indian marketplace in terms of comics moving to mobiles…
Coruscant has signed a deal with “the father of Indian comics, Ananth ‘Uncle’ Pai of Amar Chitra Katha fame” for mobile content. According to Pai, “Coruscant will reproduce ‘Storytime with Uncle Pai’, ‘Playtime with Uncle Pai’ and ‘Quiztime with Uncle Pai’. The content largely includes popular stories from the Panchatantra and other stories.”
Also, Hungama Mobile is in talks with India Book House for acquiring worldwide exclusive digital and mobile rights for Amar Chitra Katha (which does a lot of illustrated history and Indian tradition) and Tinkle. Many such deals are in the offing, according to the report.
I think the following paragraph expresses why so much content is being repackaged rather than created from scratch:

Jyotirmoy Saha, vice president, animation and new media, Hungama Television, says, “It’s a huge cost for children’s channels to invest in developing content from scratch, anywhere between Rs 20-40 lakh (Rs 2-4 million) for half an hour of content. Children’s channels are not mainline enough to make up those costs. So we will continue to see very little original content development but a lot of territorial acquisition from Indian production houses.”

Related stories:
India Gets Mobile Comics From Reliance
Namco Works For Peanuts
Automatic Mobile Manga Transcriber

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