TMKOCverse: How one of India's longest running TV series is building an entertainment empire

Makers of popular TV show Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashma have forayed into gaming, edutainment and e-commerce. (Image: Neela Films)

Television series Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashma (TMKOC) is looking to build an entertainment universe by entering the world of gaming, edutainment, and e-commerce. Neela Films, the makers of the show, have launched a new venture Neela Mediatch Pvt Ltd (NMPL) with an investment of Rs 24 crore to expand into the three categories. The company has made its gaming debut with 15 games on TMKOC Play, which has recorded 5 million downloads so far; it expects that number to hit 100 million by March 2024. The portal will host free-to-play games, cloud-based adventures, and blockchain-powered quests.

The games offered will be across single and multiple-play formats like Bhide Scooter Race, Run Jetha Run, and Jump Bhide Jump, among others.

"We have been living with this thought of taking the characters beyond the TV show for a long time. The gaming explosion happened in Covid but this discussion was happening for the last 5-6 years. In the last 12 months, we accelerated  our efforts and hired product managers, game developers. There will be at least 50 games on our publisher portal and on the cloud side there will be 50-100 games in a year's time. We have 25 games ready in play to win category as well but we are yet to take them live. So, investments are going into building library and asset," Asit  Modi, Managing Director, Neela Film Production and NMPL, told Moneycontrol.

Gaming plans

He added that they also have a cloud gaming arm. "First game has gone up on Jio. Jio has a cloud gaming platform. We are working closely with them for cloud games because they have around 50 crore users. In every two weeks, two games will go live on Jio."

The firm is also working on simulation games. "We are creating a simulation game like running Gada Electronics (an electronic store run by one of the characters of TMKOC) where people can learn as a store manager what is capital, tax, purchase order, how to sell products, etc," Modi said.

The company is also creating a kids education app. "The app will be ready by March next year. We already have a YouTube channel called the Baalgeet channel which streams rhymes. There are 1.5 million subscribers and this community will be our direct target audience. We expect to cross 5 million subscribers on YouTube by March, 2024," Modi said.

The rhymes channel streams rhymes in multiple languages including English, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, and Bengali. "We are offering multi-lingual rhymes content and we plan to add more languages including Bhojpuri and the south languages - Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. We are seeing lot of traffic from overseas and it is all for regional content. We get 40 percent traffic from overseas, for Marathi rhymes we get 30 percent traffic from overseas, and it is 40 percent for Bengali rhymes. In the pipeline, we have got more than 80 rhymes ready."

TMKOC universe

NMPL will be launching an e-commerce platform. "Our own direct-to-customer (D2C) platform will go live in a month’s time. People can own a piece of the characters of the show. There will be merchandise, stationary, mugs, sippers, clothing and we will keep adding more products with time. In terms of categories, we are launching with 25 but in terms of SKUs it will be in thousands," Modi said.

He added that he wants to create a TMKOC universe. "We want to do a theme park. All are in the pipeline. When we need to scale we will need an external partner and we are in talks with people."

The maker of the show also said that NMPL in three years time will be bigger than Neela Films.

TMKOC is one of the longest running shows in Indian televsion, having been on the air for the last 15 years.