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Executive Dossier

“I see Cartoon Network as a lifestyle brand” :

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With a longish nose and speaking style that is slightly high-pitched, Ian Diamond, senior vice president and general manager of Turner Entertainment Networks Asia Inc fits in a like T in his role as the head of the Cartoon Network. But don’t get taken in by the looks or his casual way of conveying important things. Because behind those round spectacles, and also ear studs which Diamond sports at times, are eyes that do not let much details go by and there is also a mind which takes shrewd business decisions.
 
Based in the regional headquarters of the AOL Time Warner company, Diamond is responsible for the continued development of Turner’s Entertainment brands, including Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies in the Asia Pacific. Starting as a creative director with Turner in June 1994, Diamond is responsible for overseeing and planning the on-air design, Network identity, image campaigns and creation of all interstitial material for both Cartoon Network and TCM.
 
Before joining Turner, Diamond has had extensive experience in the British TV industry and has also worked with Star’s Star Plus channel during the early 1990s. In this interview with indiantelevision.com’s Anjan Mitra in Delhi, Diamond holds forth on a number of subjects in between sipping tomato soup and telling budding female journalists that Cartoon Network does not promote violence or “anything that is mean and dark.”
 
How is the Cartoon Network performing now in India if we compare it to a year ago?
I think we are going great guns. To give you an example our average day rating has increased 67 per cent period in the first two quarters of this (calendar) year compared to the corresponding period a year ago. I think this is not a bad performance.
 
 
 
“Kids will always be the core audience of ours even as we try to broadbase our viewership profile”

 
 

What is the current strategy that the Cartoon Network is following?
We are continuing to experiment and trying to broadbase the appeal of animation products. But what goes without saying is that kids will always be the core audience of ours even as we try to broadbase our viewership profile.

That is why we have acquired Ramayan: Legend of Prince Ram. It is still a very contemporary tale and so is the product. This goes to show that we take the business of animation seriously and feel there is immense potential in capturing viewership in other demographics (than kids) too.

 

Do you really feel that animations and cartoons have the potential to compete with general entertainment fare that is dished out by other channels, language notwithstanding?
You must be joking to suggest that we do not take our jobs seriously. Our aim is to make Carton Network the destination of all entertainment. And I strongly believe that animation content has the potential of being part of general entertainment.

 
So, how are you positioning the Cartoon Network brand?
The potential is immense. We are attempting to integrate the Cartoon Network brand in the lifestyles of people. All aspects of the lifestyle be it through on-air or on-ground promotion activities. Toonz cricket is one such example. Then we also have the licensing and merchandising activities as part of this initiative. We have also tied up with schools for below the line activities involving `Ramayan.’

I see Cartoon Network as a lifestyle brand and we are working towards that only.

 

Do you feel that TV channels have a role to play in shaping up people’s lives, especially kids?
I feel that a TV channel can be a friend, educator and an entertainer, all at the same time. However, if you mean that whether channels are promoting a certain kind of values, then I say that at Cartoon Network we have a very strong standards and practises value. We do not show anything that is mean and dark.

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In the same vein I must tell you that the parents too have a monitoring role to play in a kid’s life. The onus is also on the parents to see what their kids should watch or are watching. Parents do have a monitoring role to play and cannot leave it to others to do this.

 
How has it been on the revenue front?
Everytime you ask this question I have to give you the standard line that we do not divulge numbers, especially those concerning revenues. But what I can tell you is that the ad sales have been quite appetising and in the first two quarters of this year it has been over 40 per cent (compared to the same period a year ago).
 
A lot of emphasis is being given to localisation. Has localisation helped increase revenues?
There you go again. But localisation has been a continuous growth curve.
 
 
“The onus is also on the parents to see what their kids should watch or are watching. Parents do have a monitoring role to play and cannot leave it to others to do this”

 
Have all these branding exercise and initiatives led to any change in the advertisers’ profiles?
Yes certainly. We have started to get advertisers who cannot be termed to be targeting the kids in the strictest sense of word. Automobile companies, for example. Some big brands in this category advertise on Cartoon Network..
 
Is Cartoon Network looking at branded blocks of programming on non-English TV channels in India like the block on Zee TV?
I’ll not count anything out. But at the same time I also cannot go into specifics.
 
If you had a crystal ball, what would you see in store for Cartoon Network five years down the line in India?
Unfortunately I do not have a crystal ball and I am also not a fortune-teller either. Still, I would like to see Cartoon Network as a brand that will be maintaining its leadership position. I would also like the Cartoon Network brand to be omni-potent, having got integrated in the lifestyles of people here. I’ll also like to see the channel on the growth path, locally connected to the local people.

Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

New reality show puts Rs 1 crore prize and global spotlight on India’s gaming talent.

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MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

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Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

Alon Waks and Amit Sharma join as SpotDraft accelerates growth across key markets

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INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

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Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

AI, dwell time and real-world vision are rewriting the rules of what outdoor ads can do.

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MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8. 

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability. 

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns. 

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives. 

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes. 

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement. 

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.  

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift. 

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.  

 As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium. 

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception. 

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence. 

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors. 

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable. 

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact. 

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.
 

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