Mumbai: The art of storytelling is one of the key factors that is giving rise to OTT platforms in India. Thanks to streaming services, the makers can now put forward their raw thoughts in the most natural ways. This Is possible due to the viewership in OTT platforms that provides a wide range of content to choose from. The Future of Video India event aims to address the change in India’s storytelling ecosystem.
Vanita Kohli Khandekar, Consulting Editor, Business Standard in conversation with Sushant Sreeram - Country Director, Prime Video, India on the rise of OTT content in India at the AVIA – Future of Video India Summit.
On where is Amazon Prime Video being positioned today
It's an interesting parable of us being the heroes and heroines in the story of taking Indian entertainment globally. And if I were to extend that, I would say I think we are the act of scene one.
We have been in India for six and a half years and we are still relatively young, we have discovered the customer and the Indian customer has some amazingly delightful intricate nuances in what they see from online streaming entertainment. There are similarities to other forms of entertainment consumption, but at the same time, they are dissimilar. So six and a half years can feel like a lot. I mean, we have launched more than 40 local originals. Launched more than 60 direct service movies, and we have licensed movies, but all of that put together still feels like just getting started.
On the reach of content globally
Almost all of our original and local content is launched in more than 240 countries and territories and they get a global reach. And that's actually one of the things that makes us really compelling for creators because they find a global audience. Take the example of ‘Farzi,’ as you mentioned, and I personally love it, too. At the first launch weekend of the show, not only was it an amazing success in India, customers loved it, but it actually entered the top trending title lists in more than 10 countries worldwide. We are talking about the US, UK, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand. I think that's actually one of the big parts of what makes it a bigger proposition and really exciting for the partners that do other licensing. I think we do provide a global reach, but the exact number of countries varies depending on the other distribution agreements. I can give an example, the movie Jai Bheem. It was actually rated on IMDb as the number-one Indian film in 2021. It was launched on Prime Video and it was streamed by customers in India and overseas. That's the kind of reach that it got.
On the type of stories that work in the Indian market
I want to target that Indian sensibility because the thing about India is that it is so delightfully diverse, that it's actually not one homogeneous set of sensibility. It's not just about languages, one of the first things that we really discovered is, that there is massive heterogeneity when you look at Indian entertainment whether it is language, genres and things like that, but also the nature of stories that really are local. So the first thing that we sort of discovered pretty early on and we really doubled down on it was in telling stories that are incredibly authentic. I mean, look at 'Suzhal,' for example. It was the first long-form scripted Tamil original show, it absolutely stays true to the locale. It stays true to the milieu in that it is located and appeals to an Indian sensibility. We have actually over a period of time realized that the best chance of being truly global is actually being deeply local, with our storytelling.
On how a show has been received, what is the matrix
It's a good question. Let me break it into two parts. The first is, as you rightly pointed out, the form of assessing what our show is doing based on how many people are watching. And it's pretty and obviously, there are some nuances. We love numbers, we look at all of that, how well it travels and so on and so forth. The other thing that is unique to Prime Video, is its part of a Prime membership program. It's a multi-benefit membership program. The role that Prime Video is playing as a benefit is not only bringing in new customers into the Prime program. Secondly we look at the success of our entire slate and our content investments as we create a compelling benefit as part of prime. If you look at the Prime program and say this is incredible, it not only has free and fast shipping, it has video entertainment, it music and gaming.
So that's the second part of how not only do we engage customers, but actually retain long-term Prime members. The third one, if we have a look at the impact of our shows is let's call it the three C's, I don't I just came up with it. That is the consumer impact on the customer, which is something that we just talked about. The other is the impact on the content partners that we work with. Do we have content partners who feel thrilled by what we bring as a platform that has such a rich audience, not just locally, but globally? We end up having long-standing relationships with them. We take that very seriously not just with established creators and storytellers but the ecosystem that we're working with.
On the associations either writer, production has
Actually, it has made me reflect on what we all do and end up doing. The first is, if you just go back six-seven years like the ecosystem, and how creators looked at storytelling, it was not built for long-form cinematic storytelling for a digital audience. It was predominantly a form of storytelling that is suited for linear broadcast, or movies that are suited for theatrical viewing. So the first thing that we really had to spend time with our creators was in tuning them to visualise really long-form episodic cinematic stories for a digital paid subscribers. I don't want to say it was not a skill set, it was not an orientation, or that it existed, we really took a lot of effort to get that. The second is, we actually go through the things that you mentioned, we'd go through writers’ workshops, and writing was for the longest time a solitary profession. The third support that we provide, and it's something that we take upon ourselves is how do we build localization support for shows to travel. In ‘Farzi’, it was all about subtitles and close to 40 languages to find a global audience
On the budgeting and investing in shows
We do it in many different ways. But ultimately, it's a question of what you are investing in the country. And by the way, it's all one accumulation right across content, distribution and building other products and marketing. In fact, last year in April incidentally, we announced that we're actually doubling our investments over the next five years and we are absolutely committed to that. But even today, our approach is to have a really good story to tell, why tell the story and why tell the story now? Then look for them both in front and behind the camera.
On Indian content stand in the global scheme of things
We have the largest slate in development in India, after the US. We have more than 100 projects right now, as we speak, that are in various stages of development and production in India. At the end of the day, India has one of the highest proportions of Prime members who stream Prime Video every month, because of the Prime benefit. India is basically a front-runner for the Prime Video locale with the highest number of new customers adopting the service. We have been very vocal about our continued commitment to India by doubling our investment.
On the next market, apart from US & India which has a big slot
I can give you the example of ‘Citadel’ because it's a good example. For ‘Citadel’ we have attempted to create interconnected franchises, it is an original IP and very interesting. But the concern was how we create an interconnected story and what we have ended up doing right now in its first leg is having the story set in three different times and three different locales. So we have ‘Citadel’ that's launching on the 28 of April, which is the first of the series. We have an Indian version that's going to be launching soon helmed by Raj and DK with Varun and Samantha in it. So that should give you a sense of diversity.
