IN AN attempt to become the market leader in the Rs 200-crore kids television space, kids channel Walt Disney will focus on strengthening its presence in the 8-12 age group from a vast pool of 4-14 years that watch its channels. The company’s new managing director for India, Antoine Villeneuve, said he will focus on local content and add more regional language feeds to its channels. “We consider the age group 8-12 years or the tweens as our target group, even though kids between 4-14 years watch our channels. Our various studies show that the target 8-12 age group has an opinion and influence their parents considerably,” said Mr Villeneuve. Talking about the change in the company’ strategy, he said since June, the company is focusing on reality and live action content. “That’s a change. Earlier, we concentrated on animation.” The company which has English and Hindi feeds for its flagship brand Disney plans to add more regional languages feeds to its three channels. “Our channel Jetix started doing well after we launched it in Telugu and Tamil. Getting local does not mean merely acquiring local content, it also means packaging international content with a local flavour,” he said. According to the buzz in the market, Walt Disney India, like in international markets, is looking at spinning off its pre-school show Playhouse Disney on Disney channel, into a separate channel. “I foresee segmentation in the kids space. We have Playhouse Disney as a separate channel in other markets. We may consider it in future. But as of now, we are concentrating on our current portfolio,” he said. Walt Disney India has three channels in its portfolio namely Disney, Jetix and Hungama. While Disney is targeted at the 8-12 age group, Jetix is targeted at boys between 6-11. Hungama, which Walt Disney India acquired from UTV last year, is targeted at the 4-14 age group.