American Cartoon Channels in India: Why are these all Japanese?

As I was flipping through channels on my in-laws' TV in Kolkata, India, I was excited to see my go-to American cartoon channels listed. Disney, Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Nick - they were all there! So I turn to Nick, hoping to catch some Korra or maybe Avatar. What do I see instead?

The Japanese cartoon Doraemon. In Hindi.

I switch to Disney. They're playing the Doraemon movie. In Hindi.

The other channels were the same. I found Pokemon on Cartoon Network.

But, at least when I was channel-flipping (and admittedly I don't do that very often), the American cartoon stations in India were playing Japanese cartoons.

What was going on???

I decided to get to the bottom of it by looking at the stations' schedules. What do they play during Saturday morning cartoon hours? The following are the schedules for Disney Channel, Disney XD and Nickelodeon from 9 AM - 5 PM on Saturday January 17th, 2015 (cartoons are in bold).*

Disney Channel India: 9 AM- Ishaan, 9:30 AM - Best of Luck Nikki, 10 AM - The Suite Life of Karan and Kabir, 10:20 AM- Gravity Falls, 10:30 AM - Phineas and Ferb, 2 PM - Doraemon, 3 PM - Phineas and Ferb, 4:30 - Art Attack

Disney XD: 8:30 AM - Kid vs. Kat, 11 AM - Kiteretsu, 12 PM - American Dragon: Jake Long, 2 PM - Kiteretsu, 4:30 PM - Randy Cunningham: 9th grade ninja

Nickelodeon: 9 AM - Ninja Hattori, 11 AM - Motu Patlu, 12:30 PM - Oggy and the Cockroaches, 1:30 PM - Ninja Hattori, 3 PM - Motu Patlu, 4:30 PM - Ninja Hattori

* Cartoon Network had movies scheduled all morning, so I left it out of this analysis.

Assuming that this schedule is correct (I got it from here), the amounts of time spent on American, Indian, and Japanese cartoons are interesting.

Of the 6 hours and 10 minutes that Disney showed cartoons, 5 hours and 10 minutes were spent on American cartoons (Gravity Falls and Phineas and Ferb) and 1 hour on a Japanese cartoon (Doraemon).

Of the 8 hours that Disney XD showed cartoons, 2 hours was a Canadian show (Kid vs. Kat), 2.5 hours was American cartoons (American Dragon and Randy Cunningham), and 3.5 hours was a Japanese cartoon (Kiteretsu).

Of the 8 hours that Nickelodeon showed cartoons, 1 hour is a French show (Oggy and the Cockroaches), 3 hours is an Indian show (Motu Patlu), and 4 hours is a Japanese show (Ninja Hattori).

So these stations have a fair amount of diversity in the country of origin of their shows.

But I'm still surprised that there is not much diversity in their schedules. Disney and Nickelodeon both showed 3 different animated shows, and Disney XD did slightly better with 4 different animated shows. And especially on Nickelodeon, the time spent on the Japanese show is much greater than the other ones. 

I don't have any conclusion about what kinds of shows Indian kids like to watch, etc. etc. I just wanted to note the differences between the schedules of the "same" TV channels in different countries. And I was very surprised by the large amount of anime on the air in India.