Excerpts from the conversation:

Reed Hastings: Many of the shows that Monika is doing here are extraordinary. We have launched 70 Indian Netflix originals already. Some have won international Emmy. The White Tiger got a lot of positive accolades. Monika is expanding regional content from the South. Now we have got 90 shows in the pipeline already that are developed. 70 done, 90 commissioned and in the pipeline.

Monika Shergill: The way the Netflix model works beautifully as we have experienced across countries is that consumers come to Netflix for both quality and diversity. For us what actually works is diversity, because your Netflix is different from my Netflix. Which is why when we say we have done 70 titles in India — this is across doc series, this is across content like Indian matchmaking, content like the Emmy award-winning Delhi Crime, Jamtara which is on phishing, the crime dramas.

The new slate actually what we are coming out with will be a significant sort of step change in the market, also the way we have planned it, hoping very humbly that it lands like that, is the velocity of content, the kind of stories that we will bring at scale and at velocity which Netflix is globally known for. So that is what we are aiming to do from the end of this year.

Hastings: Titles yes, but production companies like that we are not competing with them. So if we start buying one or two — all the others are worried. So we think all the commissions that we are doing is with local production companies, which builds their capacity. And then they contract with us, they do something with us, they do something with Prime. So they get to build strong businesses, without being dependant on us and that’s how we build the industry, with independent production. So I think we are better commissioning content or acquiring titles, not companies.

Shergill: You can see that on the one hand, there is a Sacred Games which has done so well. And on the other extreme end, there’s a Haseen Dillruba which has actually exploded across 22 countries, and has been on the top 10 list and has worked in tier one, tier two cities and across. And then documentaries have gone up by 100%. Kids content on Netflix has gone up by 100% viewing. We have had K dramas, which have actually gone up nearly, I don’t know, 400%. Romance as a genre is very less serviced in India, it is in cinema. But the kind of romance people want to see which K dramas have been showing in a very small set of audience. But that audience base can expand is a taste. We are very, very big on crime.

Hastings: In every county we provide extensive parental controls. We really want each family to be able to set and enforce their standards. We give our families tremendous control. The Internet has changed the perceptions of control, broadcast television and movie theatres. In many countries, they are more controlled and the Internet is more open. So that’s a change societies are adjusting to. But the way we are reacting to it is to provide each family with the controls they want. If you and your wife are watching you don’t need any controls, if you got 14-year olds then you want a lot of controls. So we are very flexible that way.

Hastings: It’s a little of both. Because look, we self-regulate too like the industry, and try to be thoughtful about that. So we don’t have any pornography. I mean, we don’t, there’s lots of things we don’t have. Okay, so we essentially self-regulate in terms of the kind of content we have. But some of our content, you know, as Sex Education. It’s very funny but you know, it’s not good for a 14 year old. So we have both.

Hastings: I think as you said, the broadband, the mobile prices being so low in India, you know, Rs 200 or 300 a month, it is extraordinary and not like any other country.

Hastings: It’s about half and half on mobile and television in India.

Towards the end of 2019, Saugata Mukherjee, then with Disney+ Hotstar, switched job to head original content for rival, Sony LIV. Except, Sony LIV as a streaming app wasn’t quite Hotstar’s competitor in a real sense.

Because they had yet to develop a single web-only, original show or series. Which is strange, if you consider that Sony LIV is probably India’s first OTT platform - they’ve been around since 2013!

What was Sony LIV playing, up until early 2020? Catch-up TV - basically Sony broadcasting network’s shows downloaded on the app. 

And then the pandemic struck. Production came to a halt. There was no new TV episode -  only audiences with an insatiable visual appetite, sitting at home, staring at a screen, when not out of the window.

Mukherjee recalls, “Sony LIV re-launched right in the middle of the pandemic [with original web content]. One couldn’t have planned for the frenetic pace at which we had to recalibrate, from technology, business and content development point of view - [lead time on] all of which had to be crunched dramatically.”

Likewise for Ferzad Palia, from Voot, which as an app was also simply an advertising-led digital arm for Viacom as a TV broadcaster: “We’d been meaning to play the subscription game for sometime. We had to bring all the plans forward by about a year. Voot Select is a COVID baby. We launched on March 3, 2020. By March 16, we were working from home. To get tech like that so early in the game? It was chaotic as well, of course.”

But it paid off, as Palia points out, with audience numbers outgrowing estimates they’d made for both Year One and Two; and viewers from beyond top 10 Indian cities willing to pay for online entertainment, even post unlock!

Monika Shergill from Netflix, the nascent OTT industry’s first-mover in India, calls 2020 the year of “intense connection, with an acceleration in adoption [of streaming services]; a whole new set of audiences [coming in].” 

The thriller Asur was the flagship show for Voot Select. Like Scam 1992 was for Sony LIV. Both of which have earned nominations at the mid-day and Radio City’s Hitlist OTT Awards that this discussion is a heads up for. Netflix has totally dominated the films and non-fiction nominations. They had 28 Indian original releases last year anyway, besides international productions, making Netflix an entertainment industry of its own!  Rather than just a streamer/app.

The best instance of an independent producer inadvertently benefitting from Coronavirus might well be Sameer Nair, from Applause Entertainment, who delivered 11 shows in 2020 alone, across platforms, including the nominated Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors on Disney+ Hotstar. 

Hungry eyeballs were all there. Library shelves on OTTs needed constant replenishment. While Nair denies there was a hard-sell on among platforms to pick up shows, rumours suggest the big Bollywood films were indeed up for top dollars, at astronomical rates, over a fierce bidding war, since theatres had shut down!

Shergill clarifies, “There is in fact a lot more juicy speculation around this; very little truth. What really happened is that with most services, there is already a pipeline of films you look at for a post theatrical [premiere]. Barring a couple of [mainstream] titles, most platforms that premiered [Bollywood] films [during pandemic] had already been signed up [from before].”

Which doesn’t take away from the bad blood between the OTT and cinema/theatre industry, as we speak, with the latter accusing top Bollywood producers of leaving the traditional exhibition sector in a lurch. Having sold off their major releases directly to web. 

To a point that in a chicken-egg situation, theatre owners argue that, sure, cinemas have re-opened; and people aren’t still coming in. But even if they did, what’s there to watch?

Some of this drought was of course unavoidable. For example the Tamil event pic Soorarai Pottru that Guneet Monga co-produced: “We had a big music launch on a plane in February, 2020. And then with the lockdown and pandemic, we just kept sending out press releases for updates. We didn’t know how long this would continue?”

Nair reasons, “You really can’t fault anyone. Cinema is a heavily cash-flow business. And it’s not like movies will stop getting made. You can fight another day, once you survive.” Shergill is glad that Netflix and other OTTs stepped in to partner with Bollywood at this hour of need.

Rangita Pritish Nandy admits, “Surely there was job-loss in cinema business; even theatres that have shut down may never open again. But for a producer, [investment on a] film is a [financial] ticking bomb, until the [point of] release.”

Nandy should know, having been a film producer for almost a couple of decades. Her nominated show Four More Shots Please 2 was declared the most watched Indian content on Amazon Prime Video during the early part of pandemic.

While much is made of the current fracas between OTTs and cinemas, the impact of the pandemic on the television industry — a more direct competitor, with people’s changed viewing habits — isn’t perhaps highlighted enough. Also given that traditional TV is dependent on advertising, which in turn relies on the health of the economy. 

Nair says the ratio between earnings from subscription and advertising had already reached 50:50 ratio by 2020. As for advertising revenue, Palia (Voot Select) and Mukherjee (Sony LIV), both broadcasters in the OTT space, contend the numbers have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels already. 

This is no time for media obituaries whatsoever. Whether TV, cinema, web, broad consensus at the Sit with Hitlist huddle is that they will all co-exist. Both audiences and their options are potentially limitless. 

Right down to an app like Mubi that shows only world cinema and art-house titles, and that Monga helped launch in India in 2019: “That library has completely captured the imagination of cinephiles.”

And, why, even Netflix could become network TV, no? Shergill says, “Taking our shows back to a linear feed on TV in France is something new for us. Either way, choice and ease for consumers will determine audience behaviour. Linear TV versus streaming, versus cinema, are all slightly different spaces.”

Hardly five years old, the Indian OTT industry has clearly outdone itself in terms of globally competitive content. Rare happy news of 2020 was Delhi Crime (Netflix) winning an Emmy, where Four More Shots Please (Amazon Prime Video) was also nominated. Some of this has to do with how, unlike cinema and TV, web platforms in India (like with other democracies) have so far grown without the restrictive shadow of external control/suppression/editing.

Panelists don’t deny that this might just change, for the worse; who knows, with cloud of COVID-19 receding, and the darkness of state censorship looming instead. OTT content bosses, I suspect, would prefer to sit out this part of the discussion. 

Nair says, “We’ve grown up watching flowers kissing instead of humans, but we grew up, right?” Palia says, “Take heart from the fact that we’re still better than a lot of countries.” Monga says, “Iranian cinema is so beautiful, and then you see Korean content that’s travelling across the world.” “She’s just drawn those parallels straight, and given you the best quote,” Nandy suggests. Well.

After Wilson Louis notes how Netflix's Choked seems identical to his short film Choke, Anurag Kashyap calls him to clear the air; director to not pursue legal action
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; May 25, 2020)

Director Wilson Louis was in for a rude shock last week when he chanced upon the trailer of Anurag Kashyap's upcoming film, Choked. The almost identical titles aside, the Netflix film had a lot in common with the Louis-directed Choke — if the Saiyami Kher starrer revolves around a housewife who finds money flowing out of her kitchen pipe, the 2019 short film starring Seema Biswas tells the story of a BMC officer who hides gold in a choked pipe of his building.

On Friday, Louis, in a terse Facebook post, highlighted the uncanny similarities between the two stories. "Hansal Mehta, whom I have worked with in the past, reached out to me after reading my post. He had seen Anurag's film and was sure it's an original concept. By then, I had contacted Monika Shergill [VP, content, Netflix] who was taken aback by the similarities," shares the director.

Soon after, Kashyap called the filmmaker to discuss the matter. "I never accused Anurag of stealing [my idea]. But, let's admit that we live in an industry where ideas are often passed around. Writers don't feel secure about their material, and creators don't have the integrity to credit the original writers. In such a scenario, you assume the worst in everyone. After the conversation, we agreed that both films have an uncanny resemblance as far as the idea is concerned."

During the chat, Kashyap also informed him that writer Nihit Bhave had registered his script with Screen Writers' Association as early as June 2013. "I am not pressing charges of plagiarism. However, after consulting my team and lawyer, I want to put forth the fact that we created the film first and released its promo a year ago," adds Louis.

On his part, Bhave reiterates he had developed the story in 2013 with Choked as the title. "I have years' worth of correspondence on e-mail as I shared the script with multiple producers. Once Anurag decided to helm it, we developed it together over five years and tweaked it to include demonetization. Wilson and Anurag have agreed that there is no similarity between the two films, apart from the title and [the plot point of] the pipe. Also, since my script was registered four years before his, shouldn't I be the one worrying about similarities?"

FICCI Frames corroborated that Bhave had sold the script of Choked to Phantom Films in 2015 at their event, Frame Your Ideas.