Changing Market Approach towards Web Series--Shweta Patil

India’s media and entertainment industry today is booming, and is expected to achieve the USD $100 billion mark in couple of years. But the scene was a lot different a few decades ago, when the means and modes of entertainment were quite different from now. There were fewer films released annually at single screen theatres. Radio sets brought in the daily dose of news and entertainment into households. Families would eagerly gather around the radio set and listen to news and songs for hours. Television meant a couple of Doordarshan (DD) channels which had fixed show timings and did not run 24x7. Some of the finest content came on air in the form of ‘Hum Log’, ‘Buniyaad’ and ‘Tamas’. In the later years we saw the Indian epics ‘Mahabharat’ and ‘Ramayan’ holding the people glued to television on Sunday mornings.

Then came an era when music players and cassettes were in vogue followed by Walkman and Videocassette Recorder (VCR). However, no new medium had a life altering impact like the one brought about by the cable television which brought hundreds of private channels into the living rooms of Indians, altering choices, tastes and arguably their culture. Direct To Home (DTH) then, altered the entire concept and experience of television watching in India. The concept of ‘infotainment’ had arrived with news and entertainment channels vying for viewership through various strategies.

What took the whole entertainment business to the whole new level was the introduction and soaring use of the Internet. The growth of this unconventional sphere was slow but with increasingly affordable handheld devices and data plans changed the whole market. With the introduction of 4G, the online content creation and consumption exploded. The very dynamic Over the Top (OTT) entertainment space is evolving every day. It proves that there is a new world beyond television where consumers can access a whole new buffet of entertainment of their liking. It is a world where one does not have to wait for a show’s next episode.

Global entertainment players—including Amazon and Netflix—now take the Indian markets extremely seriously. Both the entertainment giants have barrelled into the entertainment business in the world's second-most populous country, investing millions of dollars to develop Indian series. Their strategy has evidently been to start early and capture the digital renaissance in India.

Recent entry of newer players on the horizon indicates that there is enough space for multiple players in this sector which will only grow further due to the fact that India's digital infrastructure is improving at a fast pace. According to the consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY), India had 160 million digital video viewers at the end of 2016. With increasing broadband penetration, promotional offers by the new telecom and cheaper mobile data plans, this number is rapidly growing.

A new breed of content creators has evolved over the past three to four years. Creators who are conjuring up content exclusively for digital audience with web series production have broken away from  conventional methods of entertainment (read films and television), driven massively by the younger audience. It has created a new age of celebrities and digital content creators who are not averse to exploring themes and issues as yet uncharted in the sphere of entertainment, story-telling and expanded their outreach to global audience. Content writers began to earn comparable or even better fees as their film industry counterparts who had grappled with opaque budgets and the excessive focus on celebrity directors and actors. YouTube in fact, became the game-changer. It unlocked the creative potential of obscure, unknown people who gained not only acceptance and popularity but also became digital superstars in a short span of time. It provides an opportunity for an average Indian to showcase his/her talent to the world audience. Also, it helps the content creators to earn from their creativity and make a living out of it.

With time, the Hindi film industry and its actors realised the potential in the sector and soon found the need to mould themselves according to the changing trends and evolving times. Earlier the web was not exactly the place where mainstream actors would want to be associated with. But one can see that things have changed rapidly.

Mainstream commercial films have usually served topics according to the tastes of the conservative audience. Additionally, it has to undergo a censorship scrutiny. Online content sharing then allows tremendous creativity, flexibility and freedom to filmmakers with no censor board breathing down their necks. They can decide their audience; cater to their wider, dynamic needs and still remain unique and exciting. As a consequence, we see the introduction of new cutting edge and innovative concepts in the area of original programming with increasing experimentation in formats, casts, storytelling, etc. New segments are identified each day to cater to the different needs of viewers, placing the viewer/consumer at the pivotal position. Exceptional web shows came to be introduced in 2017 which gained instant viewer approval, making ‘binge watching’ a commonly known term.

Each web series has a different concept which only proves that there is a space for creativity to be unleashed—unrestrained. The rise of original web shows and their increasing popularity will likely change the way we view prime-time television content. It is not enough to make one good video but to keep producing good content to keep the viewer hooked. The plots have been more relatable and the content is presented in a structural form which co-relates with the present generation’s views and opinion in a better form attracting the young audience.

Before Netflix and Amazon Prime Video arrived, there was more than one homegrown video streaming service in India. But most of them were from media companies and television broadcasters to explore the new media for their existing content and offer new- age content to attract a newer, younger audience.

In terms of original content from India, Amazon Prime Video is more assertive and also leads with its marketing plans. It made news by signing up 14 comedians for comedy specials in one go and announced several India specific content made by India's leading film directors. It has already aired India's first original web series—Inside Edge. Amazon has also released several other original Indian series aimed squarely at the mass market including a drama about professional cricket, a workplace sitcom, a musical reality show, a dating programme and a slew of stand-up comedy specials—all which have received positive reviews. Amazon Prime Video, the video-on-demand platform of the Seattle based online retailer, is producing more than 20 original series in India, making India one of its leading market globally.

Netflix has announced seven local series, starting with Sacred Games—a Hindi-English language adaptation of Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel steeped in Mumbai's criminal underworld—due for worldwide realise this year. Reed Hastings (Founder & Chief Executive, Netflix) said that if viewers liked Narcos or The Crown—two of Netflix's most popular dramatic series—they would enjoy Sacred Games.

We also notice a new trend among the Indian viewer/consumer. They are now ready to pay for premium quality content. While Netflix and Amazon Prime Video may be eyeing the same market, they have a slightly different approach for the Indian market. Netflix plans are expensive, starting at $7.66 (₹500) per month, while Prime Video comes bundled with an Amazon Prime subscription that comes in at just $7.64 (₹499) per year and offers several promotional and shipping benefits on the online store. But their initial subscriber figures are low: Amazon had a little more than 6,00,000 Prime Video users at the end of 2017 while Netflix had 5,20,000 subscribers. Their paid services are competing against nearly 30 Indian streaming portals, many of which give away popular sports and local language programming for free.

Both companies have big budgets, aggressive marketing and growing libraries of Indian content. “Both Netflix and Amazon realise that, independent of their international library, local content created by Indians is extremely important in regards with India. They're pumping in quite a lot of money in creating that local library...and original programming is going to be important for both of them”, says Frank D'souza, a media and entertainment analyst at PWC, Mumbai.

The popularity of Indian local series libraries has grown significantly and it is interesting to see players from Indian film industry entering and cashing in on the digital spaces. Big actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Saif Ali Khan have tried their hand at the web series genre and are venturing the unexplored territory. Platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Voot, ALTBalaji and Viu featured popular actors in their web series  A few more popular names that are now associated with web series in recent times are Sunny Leone in her biopic ‘Karenjit Kaur: The Untold Story’, Nimrat Kaur in ‘The Test Case’ & ‘Wayward Pines’, Ram Kapoor & Sakshi Tanwar in ‘Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat’, Priyanka Chopra in ‘Quantico’, Rana Daggubati in ‘Social’, Rajkummar Rao in ‘Bose
Dead/Alive’, Vivek Oberoi and Richa Chadha in ‘Inside Edge’, R Madhavan and
Amit Sadh in ‘Breathe’, Swara Bhaskar in ‘It's Not That Simple’, Lisa
Haydon in ‘The Trip’.

When it comes to the marketing, PR and the payment scale of the series and the artist working towards it, it is more or less similar like the Hindi film industry. Audience may still connect with the established actors which may presently shape the PR and marketing strategies. The pay scale in films is significantly higher than a web series but these actors have been paid significantly well as per the work schedule. An industry source reported that actors have been paid in the range of ₹50 lakhs to ₹1.5 crore for a series and far more in case of A-lister actors. Web series allow actors to stay in the minds of their audience during gaps between movie assignments while also compensating them well.

At present web series are not only grabbing viewer’s eyeballs but also coming to the attention of various brands and advertisers to reach out to a right set of audiences. The taste and demands of the new age viewers are constantly changing, and content providers are exploring new ways to deliver original programmes specific to the digital audience with OTT players.

As long as these digital platforms are open to fresh ideas and less dependent on legacy, formulation and big names, the content from India is set to pole vault into a world class league. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that viewership in the online space has begun to display signs of a potential future and a progressive growth is definitely brewing. It is definitely proving that the Content is indeed King.

References:

• http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-india-netflix-amazon-2018-story.html
• www.indiantelevision.com/iworld/ott-services/web-series-a-sensation-waiting-to-roll-out-fully-160425%3famp
•  www.freepressjournal.in/entertainment/sacred-games-how-indias-most-trending-netflix-series-was-made/1313756
• https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/the+better+india-epaper-bettind/rise+of+the+web+series+indian+directors+on+what+it+takes+to+make+internet+films-newsid-81671008