ACK Media is contending to be the country's best
In the last 45 years, the Amar Chitra Katha brand changed hands a few times and has diversified its base
March 25, 2013 / 14:28 IST
By Shruti Chakraborty
Do you remember how much you paid to buy your first Tinkle Digest? Or an Amar Chitra Katha? For anyone who has read these comic books over the past few decades, these brands need no introduction. While reading these digests through their growing up years, not many were probably aware that a major concern for its creators was how to make it into a sustainable business venture.It’s not as if Shikari Shambu or Suppandi and his master sprung up on their own and found their way into these comic book pages. A dedicated team worked to cull these popular characters into comic book titles that generations of Indian children have grown up reading. It is even more likely that these characters have been a part of your childhood memories as much as they have played a part for a generation before you.Your first experience of a ‘facepalm’ probably came from reading the next silly thing that Suppandi did. You probably learnt more about most Indian gods and mythology from an Amar Chitra Katha rather than from a history book or a religious text. To the readers, this was the creation of Anant Pai, popularly known as ‘Uncle Pai’.How it all began
Pai was a cartoonist at The Times of India before he joined hands with GL Mirchandani of India Book House and created brands that connected with many Indian children.The journey began when Pai realized Indian children didn’t know enough about the country’s mythology and culture. There is a popular story about how the company started. Once, while watching a quiz on television, Pai found that while students could answer questions about Greek mythology, a student was unable to answer a question on Indian mythology. “Uncle Pai wanted to inform, educate and entertain Indian children. He found that children in India had very little knowledge of their mythology and history,” recounts Vijay Sampath, CEO, ACK Media.Mirchandani founded India Book House in 1952. He was essentially a distributor of Indian and international books and magazines. Amar Chitra Katha was founded in the latter part of the 1960s as a part of India Book House. Even today, this iconic brand sells 4-4.5 lakh copies a month, Sampath informs. A little over two decades later, Pai and India Book House brought out another brand, Tinkle. Twenty two years later, Tinkle sells over 2 lakh copies a month, Sampath adds.India Book House continued to distribute the titles until 2007 after which it sold the brands-Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle-to ACK Media. Also, with increasing presence of television and mobile phones, the dependence on comic books for entertainment began to decline in children, making it challenging for India Book House to keep their brands alive.Changing times
ACK Media was a young company originally founded by Shripal Morakhia and Samir Patil with the objective of acquiring Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. This acquisition marked the beginning of a new phase in the company’s journey. ACK Media created an online store for the books and
expanded its operations.Patil says, “When we acquired the brands the magazines were very small. Tinkle was being published by a team of 25 people and Amar Chitra Katha wasn’t publishing new titles.”In 2008, ACK also acquired another brand of audio books for children called Karadi Tales. This brand, which was created in 1996 in Chennai, brought out audio versions of stories and continues to be involved in language learning for students. Karadi Tales is known to bring illustrious artists to record stories for children, among them Naseeruddin Shah, Gulzar, Girish Karnad, Usha Uthup, Nandita Das, Manna Dey, Udit Narayan, Shankar Mahadevan, Vidya Balan, Jaaved Jaffrey and Boman Irani.A phase of growth and expansion for ACK Media began in 2010. It acquired India Book House to get a hold on the distribution of its titles. In an important diversification, it also ventured into the television space and created live action content for channels through its venture, The Ideas Box-the live action television company and ACK digital studios that creates digital content. The content for The Ideas Box is however independent and not based on content created by ACK’s titles alone.“We were earlier only in the publishing space, but we now aim to tell stories through the digital route, social media, apps, television, films, gaming, etc,” Sampath points out. He adds that the attention span of the audience has reduced over the years and it is imperative to understand how to engage them in a short time span.ACK now has four major content brands: Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Brainwave and Karadi Tales. India Book House, which is also a subsidiary of ACK, runs a magazine and book distribution company.In 2012, the company took on the license to publish National Geographic Traveler, (the travel magazine of the National Geographic Society) in India.Passed on again
ACK Media raised its first round of private equity investment of £3.2 million (about Rs. 27.4 crore) from a UK-based private equity player, Elephant Capital in June 2010 and a further £0.9 million (Rs. 6.5 crore) in a second round in April 2011. Elephant Capital now owns a minority stake of about 26.1 percent in the company.The majority stakeholder in the company is Kishore Biyani’s Future Ventures. Future Ventures initially picked up a 26 percent stake in April 2011 and then increased its stake to 65.84 percent in April 2012. The financial details of that deal aren’t available, and when asked, Arun Gupta, President of Future Ventures, declined to elaborate on the details.The co-founders of ACK Media, Patil and Morakhia, exited the company in 2012. Between 2007 and 2012, the company’s revenues grew seven-fold, Patil says. Sampath, an XLRI graduate, came on board in 2011, after a stint at the Times Group, and also as an investor and venture incubator with India Capital Advisors.Cherry on the Pai
The company has come a long way, and a lot has been planned for the road ahead. “So far, we have focused largely in the English language space though Amar Chitra Katha has been published in other languages as well. We are now taking a major step to improve our Hindi content business by launching Tinkle Digest in Hindi,” Sampath says. “The other goal is to create a 360-degree content company. We aim to be India’s favorite storytellers.”Reena Puri, Editor, Amar Chitra Katha, has worked with Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha since 1991. “In these years, we have gone from being a very small company in which everything was done manually-artists worked with a 26-color palette and we received letters by post-to being a big company where everything is digitized and artists work with color palettes using thousands of colors,” she says.A challenge now for the company, she says, “is to continue with Uncle Pai’s vision in changing times.” Another major challenge, Sampath says, is to change the perception of being solely a comic book company. “We need to transform that image. Further, we need to chalk out a plan on how to balance our focus on all formats besides deciding on where we need to spend more time, attention, money and expertise.”The company released its first animation feature film Sons of Ram in November 2012. Sampath claims ACK is aggressively creating TV properties and films.These will not just be restricted to the animation space but will also be operational on the live action space. ACK has about 300 people working in its various teams. Though Puri refuses to call it ‘work’, she says it’s always been fun.For the growing entrepreneurial interest in the comic books space, Sampath doles out advice for startups: If you are sticking to a regular format of a comic book, it makes sense to create a digital version which gives you a global perspective. You can bring out an app on an app store and everyone can use it.Uncle Pai, who passed away in February 2011, remains central to ACK, says Sampath. “Uncle Pai is the guiding force for us. He is our Walt Disney. In a number of situations even now, we always ask at ACK and Tinkle: What would he have done?”© Entrepreneur India February 2013
Other Posts Top 9 Lies of Venture Capitalists
Sweeter Meter
Is the iPad 2 Right for Your Business?
Aid From Down Under
3 creative business ideas that were before their time Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
