 "Netflix eyes content production in India")
Meantime, it will try to acquire streaming rights to movies across Indian languages. It recently bought the worldwide streaming rights to Bengali movie Brahman Naman at the Sundance Film Festival and has its eyes open for more such.
It says it is also focusing on localising the platform with the addition of subtitle options in Indian languages, starting with Hindi. Netflix has earmarked $5 billion for content creation and acquisition for the January-December 2016 period. Original projects in India, if any during this time, will be funded out of this global budget.
More From This Section
The company started producing original content in 2013 (Kevin Spacey starrer House of Cards was its first such production) to provide differentiated content on its platform. Netflix’s model is similar to that of Discovery Network from the US, where there is a global content pool and budget, and each region is then allocated funds according to the production requirement.
Netfix entered India as part of a 130-market global expansion and is now present in almost every major country, except China. “We had two options – wait for India to mature as a market in internet TV or enter, make mistakes and figure out a way to thrive here. We went with the latter, as we have observed that no amount of research can give us the insights that we get a mere two days after we go live in a market,” says John Friedland, chief communications officer.
In the case of India, the company is aware that with producers and broadcasters pushing their respective OTT (over-the-top) platforms, getting blockbuster films and/or shows will be next to impossible. Currently, the Netflix library for Indian content has one major recent hit in the form of Piku, a bunch of productions like Ship of Theseus and The Good Road, and some classics from Bollywood.
The immediate focus is to strengthen the international content library. The company is primarily targeting outward-looking and affluent consumers, with international credit cards and smartphones in the new markets, it informed its shareholders in January. “We do not want to be everything to everyone. From previous experience, we have observed that each market has a distinct viewing and paying pattern and choice of content. In India, we will start to learn what these are and will add content accordingly,” says Friedland.
The company’s first major expansion was to the Latin American countries. Unlike other regions, Latin America had fairly simple streaming rights acquisition policies and Netflix identified it as the next frontier on its global expansion map. However, it soon learnt that importing content from the US to Latin America would result in subscriptions and viewer engagement. This, Friedland says, was among the most important lessons it learnt and has since decided to have the same pricing across markets but customised content offerings for each territory.
Having said that, all of Netflix’s original content will be available to subscribers across the globe. “In the case of shows we have licensed from studios, the availability depends on what rights we have in which geography. That is why House of Cards is not available on Netflixin India. When we launched it, we did not have much presence beyond the Americas. So, elsewhere, different broadcasters and companies had the licence to the show, India included,” Friedland explains.
For India, it is currently waiting for the trial month period to be over, so that it can start assessing the viewing and payment habits of its Indian viewers.
The company’s metric for this assessment is growth in net subscribers and number of hours consumed.
This year, the company will add 75 newshows/episodes of returning shows to its Originals catalogue, all of which (except House of Cards) will be launched at the same time across the globe.
STEP BY STEP
- Started streaming services in the US during 2007
- Expansion started in 2009
- Entered India in 2016
- Price points in India – Rs 500, Rs 650 (two users per connection) and Rs 800 (4 users per connection) per month
- Global content budget for current FY (Jan-Dec 2016) - $5 bn
- Original content plans for the current financial year – 75 new shows/episodes of returning shows