Now streaming in India: The root of OTT platforms amid censorship and select audience

New bold shows and series dealing explicitly with crime, violence, sex, gender and romance have woken up India amid censorship issues.
(from L) Stills from 'Mirzapur', 'The Family Man' and 'Sacred Games 2'. (Photo | YouTube Screengrab)
(from L) Stills from 'Mirzapur', 'The Family Man' and 'Sacred Games 2'. (Photo | YouTube Screengrab)

Come next week and all eyes will shift to Mirzapur. Who is going to rule its blood soaked streets—Guddu Pandit or Kaleen Bhaiya? Will its fate be another gang-war or will law and order be restored in its violent darkness? No, these questions do not concern the tiny city in Uttar Pradesh in northern India.

Rather, it’s the fictional city of Mirzapur, which is giving most Over the Top (OTT) addicts sleepless nights. Mirzapur Season 2 that starts streaming on Amazon Prime Video on October 23 will be the culmination of their two-year long wait.

OTT platforms have become the go-to option for entertainment. And it’s not just for shows anymore. With cinema halls staying shut for the last seven months, big-ticket movies found their booking window on the internet.

The much-awaited Suriya-starrer Tamil film Soorarai Pottru will be out on Amazon Prime on October 30. The streaming rights of Akshay Kumar-starrer Laxmmi Bomb that releases on November 30 on Disney +Hotstar, has reportedly been sold at a whopping Rs 125 crore, making it one of the costliest streaming rights for a Hindi film.

Cinema halls are opening but in these Covid days, OTT has become the new multiplex. It is also the new cable TV. And the viewer isn’t the urban millennial anymore. In August, Netflix, the world’s leading streaming entertainment service, launched its user interface in Hindi.

When the fastest-growing Indian streaming platform MX Player released Aashram in August last week, a web series based on the life of a godman, what came as a surprise was the 400 million people streaming it from small cities and towns across the country.

"In our estimate, about 12 million people were initiated into the world of web series in the Hindi-speaking markets during the initial lockdown period," says Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media consulting firm Ormax Media.

The world of video consumption is changing. Viewing habits are getting redefined and innovative business models are opening up new markets. So what is India watching? Will the set-top boxes become more of an accessory in Indian homes?

It's a Showstopper

Sometime in August, ALTBalaji, a subscription-based video-on-demand (VOD) platform, organised a press conference for its latest show Bebaakee. The hour-long event on Zoom was packed with the media and lead cast in full attendance. It was just as big an online event as it would have been offline in the pre-pandemic world. And why wouldn’t it be? In recent times, the launch of a web series attracts as much publicity as a movie.

According to a recent report by industry body Broadcast Audience Research Council, Indian users spent 12 percent more time on online streaming platforms during the lockdown (March 20 to April 3) than they did before (January 13 to February 2).

The numbers have only gone up since then. The players are catering to audience taste and vying for their attention. "We want a robust slate of stories that are differentiated and suited to the different moods of our members. Sometimes, you want to lean back and watch a delightful comedy, and at other times, you want to enjoy a pulse-pounding thriller that takes you to the edge of your seats," says Aashish Singh, Director–Original Film, Netflix India.

There are more shows and viewers than ever in an expanding entertainment universe. Creators are vying for the top platforms. Streaming services have never had it so good.

"It’s crowded out there. But you have to make something clutter-breaking. People may like it or be offended, but it has to be a show where they say, 'Have you seen Paatal Lok?' This is what sells on OTT," says Vikramaditya Motwane, filmmaker and creator of Netflix's first India original Sacred Games.

Motwane would know. Sacred Games remains one of the most successful shows from India, which unleashed the country's thriller trend on streaming platforms. It also gave India its first taste of indigenous binge-watching.

On OTT, what’s on offer is compelling. Viewers look beyond the saas-bahu sagas of the past, which are still playing on TV but with a vastly diminished fan base. A case in point is Veena Sharma, a homemaker from Chandigarh. A few months back, if you were to ask her about Sacred Games, you would have drawn a blank. Under the lockdown, TV was showing re-runs of old shows.

Her son, who had opted for a premium subscription plan of Netflix, downloaded the app on her smartphone and suddenly she had a range of shows in her fist. "I could watch anything, anytime. I was no longer at the mercy of a remote control," says 69-year-old Sharma.

The first show she watched was Delhi Crime followed by Sacred Games. "Some of the shows are a bit of a shock for me - especially the language and the explicit scenes. But the storyline keeps me hooked," she admits candidly. In the Sharma household, cable TV has become obsolete.

Outside the Box

Two decades ago when satellite TV was at its peak, Indian households got a new show that became a turning point for daily soaps. The year was 2000 when Indians got their first glimpse into an upper middle class Gujarati joint family in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

The rest is history as the popular show catapulted the saas-bahu phrase into common TV lexicon. A decade later, serials started moving towards supernatural characters, with shows like Naagin entering into its fifth season in 2020.

"TV was getting stagnant. It was the same old daily soaps or dramatised reality shows. It’s no longer the younger audience or those in the metros who are consuming content. It could even be a small town cab driver or an actor like me. Everyone wants to consume entertainment through their smartphones," says actor Suchitra Pillai, whose latest show Bebaakee started streaming on ALTBalaji and ZEE5 Club last month.

Having acted in almost all mediums - films, theatre, serials and now webseries - Pillai finds OTT the most appealing as it offers space to experiment.

According to a report by independent research and consultancy services firm Media Partners Asia, India’s online video market is expected to reach USD 4 billion by 2025, with subscription services contributing more than USD 1.5 billion and advertising USD 2.5 billion.

And fuelling these numbers won’t be just urban young India. Tell Anant Joshi, actor of the popular ZEE5 original Virgin Bhasskar, about the changing viewership demographics and he reiterates the same point.  "My brother and parents were TV loyalists but now I see them bingeing on shows. OTT has become the new TV in our house," the actor says.

So, what makes digital streaming the flavour of many households? "Even before the coronavirus, we had started to see a shift in content consumption from cell phones to connected devices and Smart TVs. The pandemic accentuated this shift," says Rahul Maroli, Senior Vice- President and Business Head– SVOD, ZEE5 India.

For one, OTT platforms have democratised the act of content consumption. Unlike linear TV, OTT users have complete control over what they want to watch, when to watch, where to watch and how much to watch.

"This sense of freedom and liberation is unlike what is offered by any other medium. Additionally, OTT platforms have ensured that there is content available for all sections of audiences," says Siddhartha Roy, COO, Hungama Digital Media.

Traditional forms of entertainment - films, music, TV shows - are tightly controlled and distributed. But OTT changed the game altogether. "From around 180-190 million TV screens, in a very short time we have added around 550-600 million smartphone screens in the mix. Now everyone in the family has the freedom to watch what they like on their smartphones. This has taken unit economics of content from 'household' to an 'individual' making us a billion-plus target size market," says Rohit Jain, MD, Lionsgate South Asia, a global content platform.

Second, in the traditional sense, TV and OTT are very different mediums that cater to different audiences. But OTT now wants to move into a more ‘family viewing’ setup and it’s gaining that access. "TV viewing is majorly a collective experience where families come together and watch the shows. Now OTTs are catching up in this area as well," says ALTBalaji CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya.

The platform has over 1.7 million active direct subscribers. "In the months preceding the lockdown, we had 60 percent consumers from tier 1 cities and the rest from the tier 2 and 3 cities. Under the lockdown, the numbers were reversed," he adds. This change is reflective of the changing viewer preferences.

Rooted in Reality

The core of a successful show is the real-life depiction of characters. In OTT, it’s as real as it can get. The protagonists on streaming giants are no longer larger-than-life heroes. They aren’t glamorous cops walking unscathed out of a car chase or opening doors with a single kick. They get slapped, may have a slight paunch and look just like your next-door 'inspector uncle'.

In Paatal Lok, Jaideep Ahlawat plays Hathi Ram Chaudhary with all such common imperfections—mouthing abuses when upset and getting slapped by his wife when he fails to inform her about his whereabouts.

In Aashram, religion intersperses well with a manufactured personality cult. A story like Aashram, which is deeply inspired by real-life cult personalities, couldn’t have worked as a movie or a serial.

"Though we have been trolled for this show, its success speaks for itself. It’s not anti-religion, but anti- personality," says Gautam Talwar, chief content officer, MX Player. The gritty, fast-paced Prakash Jha-directed web series will soon see a second season.

On TV, the stories are far from real-life scenarios. Take, for instance, the 'Rasode' meme. Sometime in August, a video featuring a dialogue from the TV show Saath Nibhaana Saathiya became viral. In the scene, popular character Kokilaben was seen questioning her daughter-in-law Gopi Bahu, 'Rasode main kaun tha?' (Who was in the kitchen?). To the amusement of the viewers, the scene was so unrealistic that rap songs and memes on it became more real than the show.

But on OTT, creators are looking at undivided attention by building the hype through script and not loud dialogues. That’s also the reason why Virgin Bhasskar, which also streams on ALTBalaji, has now gone into a second season. "Streaming platforms allow unconventional, yet realistic, plots to be explored. Even when it is adult content, a lot of serious issues are dealt with in the show," Joshi adds.

At its core, Virgin Bhasskar is the story of a small-town boy and his dilemma around losing virginity. It’s a topic that could resonate well with many in smaller towns. Or High that talks about the drug mafia and was released recently on MX Player. "It’s mere coincidence that the show was released around the same time when much of the conversation in the country is around drug cartel investigations," says Talwar of MX Player.

The popularity of streaming platforms and web series has seen a major boost in 2020. The years 2019 and 2020 saw launch of varied genres like thrillers (Special Ops, Asur), comedy (Panchayat), drama (Paatal Lok, Aarya), etc.

"Also, OTT platforms have upped their marketing levels in the last one year, and we have had new platforms launching too, such as Voot Select, or the recent re-launch of Sony LIV. Lockdown has helped in a significant way, because it was a period of no original episodes of entertainment shows on TV," says Kapoor of Ormax Media.

Streaming Hot

Undoubtedly, streaming giants have started pumping in money beyond crime and erotica. "For a long time, most of the shows on OTT platforms were occupied by the same dimension—a crime show with political nexus taken on by a crusader or a cop, and gangster drama," says Hemant Gaba, filmmaker and director of webseries Dilliwood, a MensXP original released in 2018.

The mini-series is the tale of three friends who fail to make it in Bollywood and try to replicate a film industry in Delhi. It was released in the midst of an explosion of crime shows and failed to click with the audience.

Initially, what worked was a format based around Netflix’s first original series from India—Sacred Games. The show with a gripping storyline and taut direction also gave the audience their first taste of violent content not devoid of explicit scenes or abusive language. Few months later Amazon Prime Video launched Mirzapur. These two shows, in a way, redefined audience taste and marked future genre classifications of what will work on OTT.

Karan Anshuman, writer and director of Mirzapur Season 1 and Inside Edge (Amazon original nominated for the Emmy), explains how since the medium allows creativity, there’s no formula to be followed. "I might even be partly responsible for starting this trend of crime shows. Perhaps people confuse genre with good stories," he admits.

"But just because some shows do well in a particular genre doesn’t mean everything in the same ballpark will work. And, conversely good stories will always find takers and success, regardless of genre. Personally, I have moved on. My next show is just about as family-friendly as it can get on streaming," he adds.

Adult content, undoubtedly, grabs more eyeballs. "It’s the Indian demographic that prefers a particular kind of content. India is a young country and younger audiences are more curious and liberal in their choices," argues Jain.

Motwane explains how India, which is largely a conventional single TV set household, is now waking up to international format of shows on streaming platforms. "OTT as a medium offers no censorship and creators are excited about it. So you see more adult content here. In most shows, naturally the language or scenes are essential to the script," he says.

"They depict what is happening all over the world. Just because we as viewers are not used to such content, we react. So it’s not really the trend but rather our reaction to such shows that are seen as vulgar," he adds.

Not everything around crime or sex sells, always. "I can name enough and more shows which had violence, sex etc but didn’t work. This might seem to be a low hanging fruit right now but there is no replacement for a clean great story which has the ability to connect with audiences emotionally," Jain says.

Game of Genres

According to a report by news portal LetsOTT, MX Player notched up the highest single-day streams (11 million) for its adult comedy Mastram in July. It is a fictionalised tale of Hindi writer Mastram and his writings around lust. Crime and erotica have dominated the OTT landscape for long.

"TV programming being straightforward is for homogenous audiences while OTT has the liberty to cater to niche audiences. A broadcaster will always have to think about secondary audiences who are watching with the primary target group—the same is not true for OTT," Jain explains.

But as audience demographics gets redefined, platforms are looking at emerging in new avatars. For instance, streaming app ULLU that has for long been associated with adult content wants to build a new image.

It is now looking at newer content, which is less edgy and more story-driven. "The increasing viewership towards OTT has given us an opportunity to understand the demand of the public and strategise accordingly, also course-correct if need be. We are trying to redefine our branding strategy and the application entirely," says ULLU founder and CEO Vibhu Agarwal.

He is gearing up for the launch of ULLU 2.0 live, next month - to be dedicated to premium content with higher budgets and bigger artists. According to the Ericsson Mobility Report released in 2019, India has the world’s highest data usage per smartphone with an average of 9.8 GB per month.

The report predicted that the number will almost double to 18 GB by 2024, fuelled by video streaming. As is evident, creators are now looking at shows that go beyond the licence to thrill or titillate. Stories from various social milieus are making a splash.

Look at the way Hungama Play has reworked its shows, picking real-life stories that resonate with a larger audience group. "Our original shows have to be locally relevant and yet, have the potential to entertain audiences across various geographies. For instance, our show, Bar Code, was about two friends-turned-rivals in the nightclub business in Mumbai. While the setting of the show was Mumbai, the core story had universal appeal," says Roy of Hungama Digital Media.

At ALTBalaji shows are a mix of thriller, drama, romance, horror, and comedy, among others. “What works for us is to focus on consumer segmentation and then mapping audience behaviour. We focus both on customer retention and progressive strategies for onboarding new consumer segments,” says Pantvaidya of ALTBalaji.

Just as creators are spoilt for choice in terms of the content they can generate, so are the subscribers vis-a-vis bouquet on offer. "Last few months we have seen some sort of shift in the form of shows that are coming. Content notwithstanding, it’s still a breath of fresh air," says Gaba.

So you have musical web series Bandish Bandits on Amazon Prime which has composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy exploring the medium for the first time. On Netflix, Masaba Masaba was launched last month that is based on the life of actor Neena Gupta and her daughter Masaba Gupta.

Then there was Churails, a ZEE5 Original about the lives of four Pakistani women who start a secret detective agency to nab cheating husbands. "Mature content has always had an audience. But as more people turn to streaming, during this pandemic, this trend will change. Audiences’ palette will only widen, and different genres will find mainstream popularity," says Ashwin Suresh, founder of Pocket Aces, the creators of the successful Little Things webseries on Netflix.

Suresh predicts that in the post-Covid world, people will be looking for uplifting content. "Comedy is an untapped genre here and that is really going to explode," he adds. For Motwane, medium is the message.

"In the 80s, our movies worked on a certain fixed format where songs were crucial. Then came multiplexes and the emergence of independent cinema. Today, we can explore the same content in a 10-episode format ranging from 40 minutes to an hour per episode. That’s the flexibility that OTT offers to a creator. It’s only a matter of time that more genres will dominate the space," he says.

Content Regulation

In the last week of August, around 15 OTT platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5, ALTBalaji and MX Player, signed a self-regulation code, to govern their curated streaming content. It was a long pending demand from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The signatories agreed on how each show will have maturity ratings and content descriptors (e.g., language, violence, sex). The code created by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) will have an internal committee and an advisory panel to deal with appeals and complaints.

However, IAMAI's suggestions haven't brewed well with the ministry, which has criticised the lack of third party monitoring in the regulations. The government has pointed out the need for a well-defined 'Code of Ethics' and remarked how the current format doesn’t enunciate prohibited content in a clear way.

The platforms have gone back to the discussion room again. "It’s an ongoing dialogue. We will have to take into consideration what the government is saying and work out the best possible solution," says Talwar.

But censorship won’t brood well on streaming platforms. "Every other medium other than OTT hinders your creativity. In TV, you are driven by TRPs while cinema is driven by weekend box-office collections. OTT, in current format, is focused on building a library of content and that’s what helps creators like us," says Asim Abaasi, the Pakistani writer and director of Churails. The show received widespread critical acclaim and dominated discussion on social media for weeks.

Abbasi believes that OTT is bringing out content for an audience looking for new stories. The moral brigade can pause for a bit. "Look at shows like Panchayat or Taj Mahal. They aren’t crime thrillers," he points out. He argues how language on TV is one that is dramatised and not true to its origin.

"If in India it’s the saas-bahu shows, in Pakistan it’s the ‘damsel in distress’ kind of shows that fill the TV. On TV, you watch forced language due to regulations. But on OTT, cuss words don’t come across as forced because that’s how real people talk in real life in a particular setting," he says. So is TV on its way out? "The cord cutting is definitely happening for a younger audience," asserts Talwar.

Last month, the New York Times ditched its TV listings after 81 long years. The move didn’t surprise anyone as it comes at a time when streaming is taking over the entertainment world. TV listings are hardly read on newsprint anymore.

In India, it may still be early to write eulogies of shows on TV. But the shift is evident. For now, Guddu Pandit and Kaleen Bhaiya are taking potshots at each other through social media. Kokilaben and Rashi Bahu, pack your bags. India is waiting for Kaleen Bhaiya and Guddu Pandit with bated breath.

  • Media Partners Asia predicts India’s online video market to reach USD 4 billion by 2025

  • Ericsson Mobility Report puts India as the country with world’s highest data usage per smartphone, an average of 9.8 GB per month. The number will almost double to 18GB by 2024.

  • As per Ormaxe, 12 million people logged on to web-series in the Hindi-speaking markets during the lockdown period

  • A 2019 report by research firm Kantar says older age groups - 35 to 44 years and 45 to 54 years- showed growth in adoption of OTT services at 18 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

  • India was the first country where Netflix launched its mobile plan.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com