Sudha Murty’s stories come to life in YouTube animated series

Author and educator Sudha Murty’s stories for kids have been brought to life in an animated series and have found a new home on YouTube. 

The content production house Murty Media, led by Aparna Krishnan, has joined hands with the animation studio Cosmos Maya to turn the stories of Sudha Murty into an animated series called ‘Story Time with Sudha Amma’.

The first episode of the series was released on Murty Media’s YouTube channel on 31 October.

Cosmos Maya, a Singapore and India-based animation company, is an industry leader in the kids’ animation space with original shows that are available across different platforms.

Sudha Murty, the wife of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, is a renowned author of children’s literature. She has written dozens of books in English and Kannada, with many of the stories inspired by her own life. 

The flagship animated series will feature 52 stories, based on Murty’s popular children’s books Grandma’s Bag of Stories and The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories, originally published by Penguin Random House, India.

The first episode, along with the other promotional campaign that includes a theme song has been released in six languages — English, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, and Kannada.

The kids’ animation genre on YouTube has flourished in the past few years with curated children’s content witnessing a boom in consumption as opposed to traditional entertainment mediums like the television.

Research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2019 indicated that YouTube videos featuring children were bound to get more views than videos that didn’t.

In India, even as accessibility to technology varies from region to region, YouTube has become one of the most popular platforms for content consumption. According to the Akatsuki Survey from 2021, 76% of parents still prefer YouTube for their children even after the rise of OTT platforms in the post-pandemic era.

As the internet has become an essential aspect of education, communication, and entertainment amongst children, the fact that these resources can be accessed on low-end devices, makes them accessible to a wider audience.