Most entertainment in India (like most places in the world) was imported from the US. For decades, no one could beat the US’s domination, but somehow in the early 2000s Japan took over children’s entertainment in India
When I realised this sometime ago, I had two big questions, first of course, how did they beat US to this, and second, of all the countries in the world, how come Japanese cartoons caught on in India?
Answer was very simple, Indian TV networks needed to fill hours and hours of children’s programming every day but American kids’ content licences were very very expensive, episode counts were limited, and branding rules were tight (like you could not give advertisement slot to xyz during cartoon abc cause abc’s parent company is in competition with xyz)
The ad revenue simply wouldn’t justify the hassle
So Indian networks looked for kids entertainment from across the world, but nothing made sense, stories and cultures were too difficult to translate to an indian audience
But then they came across Japanese studios like Toei, Shin-Ei, TV Toky, etc. They sold massive episode libraries at low cost and made shows about routine activities that were very relatable for an Indian kid, say for example going to school, hanging out with friends, small everyday challenges and lessons from them, etc which made them ridiculously easy to dub and present to an Indian audience
This went on for sometime, until early 2010s when Indian studios started creating stronger IPs that caught on and closed the era of Japanese cartoons
Indonesian Pop Base@iPopBase
Doraemon officially ends its run on RCTI after nearly four decades.
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