How One Quiz Show Triggered Huge Book Revolution in India? What is ACK 2.0 where Film Actor Rana Daggubati took the Share and Future Group Kishore Biyani backed it? Are Millennials Missing Something? Read this!

 Dear Friends and Students

Ramayana Serial by Ramanand Sagar in Doordarshan made India standstill for 78 weeks between 25 January 1987 to 31 July 1988 on Every Sunday at 9:30 AM! Marriages were delayed till the end of the episode! Roads were deserted, Trains, Buses, and Inner-city Trucks would become empty! Created viewership of around 650 million across 55 countries, in spite of just 14 million TV households in 1987! Series had a viewership of 82%, a record high for any Indian television series, reportedly earned DD National ₹ 40 lakh in those days! Today, we have hundreds of TV Channels and millions of YouTube Channels, but can they bring the same fervor?

During the early 1980s, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) was at its peak with a minimum of two new titles came every month. NRI People used to buy deluxe volumes of Krishna and the Ramayana series to reduce the influence of Superman and Spiderman on their kids.

The Origin of Amar Chitra Katha!

One day, Anant Pai (Uncle Pai, the founder of Amar Chitra Katha) and his wife were visiting Delhi. They came across a TV shop that was broadcasting a quiz show. He noticed a peculiar phenomenon: The participants knew more about Greek mythology than Indian History. This is the triggering point to start ACK! In February 1970, the first-ever Amar Chitra Katha title, Krishna, was printed and it was the huge beginning! The rest is history. It was sold over 86 million / 8.6 crore copies with 440 titles. Amar Chitra Katha 2.0 is now available on YouTube as ACK Alive. Actor Rana Daggubati got a share in this.

Today, Millennials are having access to millions of YouTube Channels across Sports, Food, Entertainment, Health, History & Culture, Geography, and Education! They also have access to unwanted and restricted content! Earlier, there was no concept of privacy as tens of family members together used to watch a particular show. People used to study magazines in common drawing rooms and these magazines were commonly accessed. Today, there are more virtual break rooms than physical break rooms available in organizations. The postcard is the critical means to send a message and is read by every family member. There was no concept of privacy. The irony is recently a teen son filed a case against parents as they destroyed the private hard disk!

As per WashingtonPost.com, On average, American 8-to-12-year-olds spent 4 hours and 44 minutes on screen media each day. And teens spent an average of 7h 22 min per day excluding time spent using screens for school or homework. In 2018, children in the United States spent an average of 10.7 hours watching streaming content on connected TVs per week (www.statista.com). Surprisingly, Indians watch over 5 hours of online video content per day, the highest in the world (www.businesstoday.in, Jun 2020). The lowest average viewing hours are in South Korea, where Samsung is founded!! Surprisingly South Koreans are the lightest users of Whatsapp, Slack, Facebook, WeChat, etc!

These statistics give us a different view. Every student reading this story can reflect and react

Think Big

Your well-wisher

Ravi Saripalle

Join Inspire to Innovate Storytelling Movement (i2itm.blogspot.com)

www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/variety/amar-chitra-katha-taking-a-new-avatar-to-woo-millennials/article26737457.ece

Source Inspiration: https://www.thehindu.com/books/Uncle-Pairsquos-treasures/article14932678.ece