In a single TV market like India, the move spells direct competition with soaps, game shows and late night movies on other channels. The all new programming line up clubbed under the head Night Shift targets teens and adults, which the channel claims forms 35 to 40 per cent of its audience. The same segment that has so far been watching tear jerking soap operas, money minting game shows and cable movies with the rest of the family. The cartoon channel currently claims viewership in over 15 million cable homes in India and in 23 million homes in the Asia Pacific region.

Industry observers say the move to introduce prime time programming has probably also been spurred by the imminent advent of Disney‘s 24 hour pay channel in the country. Cartoon Network‘s new genre of animation serials will be showcased exclusively on Night Shift and will include Indian television premieres of new series, a mix of animation and a one-of-its-kind animated talk show. The programming contains series like Home Movies, Space ghost coast to coast, Harvey Birdman, The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021. The channel has, however, carefully stepped around the crucial slots when the in-law brigade slugs it out over other satellite channels.

Since 1994, the Turner promoted channel has been offering animated entertainment from the world‘s largest cartoon library of Warner Bros, MGM and Hanna-Barbera titles including original series like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter‘s Laboratory, Ed, Edd n Eddy, I Am Weasel, Johnny Bravo, Mike Lu & Og, Sheep In The Big City and The Powerpuff Girls.

Harvey Birdman, to be aired on 11:00 pm Saturdays is the world‘s first animated courtroom drama, trying the crimes and misdemeanors of the cartoon world. This will be followed by The Brak Show, at 11:15 pm Saturdays which is about the high school travails of Brak and Zorak (unwilling co-hosts of Space Ghost Coast To Coast) as they spend their formative years in outer space suburbia. The show follows the beloved tenets of classic family sitcoms but also includes a wry sensibility and plenty of catchy songs.

This will be followed by Sealab 2021 at 11.45 pm on Saturdays which showcases a kitschy update of a Hanna-Barbera production about an undersea city, where the whole Sealab went insane and unfit to run anything. Sunday nights has the animation series Sheep in the Big City, a classic live-stock-out-of-water story about a sheep which has run away from the farm to hide out in the big city because a Top Secret Military Organisation is after him. This will be followed by I am weasel, a well-spoken Weasel along with the slack-jawed Baboon, which will feature adventures filled with comic twists, usually stemming from Baboon‘s constant struggle to measure up to Weasel‘s stature and notoriety. The Popeye Show will come on next featuring the spinach-powered sailor Popeye who‘s always ready to fight for Olive‘s favour and in constant battles with arch rival Bluto.

Weekdays has the biceps-bulging, karate-chopping free-spirit romeo Johnny Bravo. The Adventures of Tintin will come next, showcasing tales of a young hot-blooded newspaper reporter who will take viewers to the most intriguing and exotic places on the globe in search of hot stories. Speed Racer next takes a look at behind-the-wheel racetrack adventures of the incredible Mach 5 racing car.