How online is becoming the new TV

As online video booms, Indians are enjoying a surfeit of high-quality drama, comedy and much more

Rick and Morty is a surreal sort of animated, adult sci-fi show on Netflix. A brilliant but alcoholic scientist, Rick, and his teenage grandson, Morty, have some wild escapades in other worlds and alternative dimensions. It has “a lot of inappropriate humour,” says Sadiq Ahmed, a 22-year-old Bengaluru-based gaming consultant who is hooked on to it along with millions of people from across the world. Another Netflix show, 13 Reasons Why, about teenager Clay Jensen’s quest to uncover the story behind classmate Hannah’s decision to end her life has 39-year-old New Delhi-based homemaker Swati Dimri riveted. 

Rick and Morty, 13 Reasons Why or Amazon’s Inside Edge, among dozens of original shows, are filling the, “giant gap between Naagin and Narcos in India,” quips Sameer Nair, CEO, Applause Entertainment. Colors’ Naagin, about two shape-shifting serpent-women out for revenge, is one of the top rated shows on prime-time television. Narcos on Netflix is a gritty series that traces the history of the drug trade in Colombia and the rise of the drug-kingpins in the 1980s.

A still from Netflix orginal series 13 Reasons Why

The gap between the mass-driven, popular shows and the niche, high-end dramas has always existed. Indian broadcast television has tried to fill it with limited success. Remember Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai, Yudh, 24 or Bade Achhe Lagte Hain? “In the US, the prime driver of this genre (drama and fiction) has been premium subscription. In India, without pay TV the daily soap became the default programming genre for 20 years. Fiction in India is the daily soap opera,” says Nair. But the daily soap is a very limited format. “It has no seasons, you cannot explore mature relations, crime and other such genres. Digital allows non-linear, non saas-bahu type of 10- to 20-part series,” says Nair. 

It did even 10 years back. What has changed now? 

On the back of falling data prices, rising penetration of devices, India is one of the world’s fastest growing internet markets with 422 million Indians online. Roughly 300 million of these are logging into their smartphones and other devices to watch video content. Yet, 875 million Indians continue to watch about three hours of TV a day. Clearly these two forms of video consumption co-exist and feed off each other. What works on TV generally works online and a big chuck of the online consumption is about catch-up TV. 

But the steady popularity of original drama, stand-up comedy or food shows online points to about 20-30 million (and growing) Indians who are breaking away from the hegemony of mass-programming. “This audience had lapsed from TV. So while parts of the family continue to watch TV, they don’t want to watch Naagin. But since there is no cutting-edge drama in the local context, they watch Narcos,” says Nair. And, they are willing to pay anywhere from Rs 500 to Rs 800 a month to watch high-quality drama. 

Ahmed started subscribing to Netflix from day one of its India launch last year and watches most of its original series for about two hours a day. But weekends are “crazy,” he says. He could be binging for five hours or more on an entire season of Rick and Morty, Breaking Bad, Daredevil or The Defenders. This is when he is not watching HBO originals such as Game of Thrones on Hotstar. “These shows would be censored on TV, and you could miss major plotlines. Online, you can rewind and go back,” says Ahmed. Dimri agrees. “I don’t need to wait. I can watch it whenever I want to and the issues are relevant. Also, there is nothing on regular TV,” she says. 

Stand-up comedian Aditi Mittal’s show on Netflix

Liberation from the traditional format of content and time schedules has meant a whole “new content ecosystem,” says Vijay Subramaniam, director-content, Amazon Prime Video India. “The ability to create more complex story-telling has increased,” reckons Satya Raghavan, entertainment head, YouTube India — the largest online video player. 

For example, Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, about the complex web of politics, corruption and organised crime, is a fascinating book to read but it is very difficult to convert to film. Now Netflix has commissioned an eight-part original series to be directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, starring Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. The way it is mounted, “Sacred Games looks like a film,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and CEO, at a gathering earlier this year. That is roughly what Inside Edge, Game of Thrones or Sherlock are, too — limited but long episodes with film-quality production. Amazon, for instance, has commissioned 20 fiction and non-fiction shows. Most of the originals being streamed or commissioned are meant for a global audience. 

A still from Amazon Prime web series Inside Edge

This is creatively and commercially liberating for Indian producers. “In times of war, the only firms winning are arms dealers. Content owners are the arms dealers in this space,” quips Nickhil Jakatdar, founder and CEO, Vuclip. “As a creator, it is an amazing time because everybody is throwing money at me,” says Tanmay Bhatt, co-founder of AIB, a popular creator of online content. Bhatt is part of the team that is making a political satire, The Ministry, for release on Amazon in the latter half of 2018.

The second major impact of the content “arms race” is that it pushes the envelope not just in drama, which gets all the attention, but also in films, comedy, food and travel. YouTube had first started pushing stand-up comedy in 2015. Now stand-up comedians like Aditi Mittal or Zakir Khan, among scores of others, are on the top of the viewing lists. YouTube is also seeing the rise of regional creators in a huge way, says Raghavan. 

Animated show Rick and Morty on Netflix

A big surprise has been films where the long tail seems to work. “I saw Lipstick Under My Burkha and Raabta on Amazon. I wouldn’t have gone to the theatre for them,” says Dimri. Much of the data confirms this. “We thought big movies would drive consumption. But the big hit has lesser consumption than some of the smaller movies because it has already been watched on the big screen and then TV,” says Jakatdar. 

Jessica Lee, vice-president-communications, Netflix Asia, reckons that “Indian consumers are enjoying many of the same shows that Netflix members around the world do, such as House of Cards, Narcos, and Master of None. They are more likely to devour a TV series over three days against the global average of four days. And, the most devoured genre in India is sci-fi.” That is probably people like Ahmed watching Rick and Morty.

Online video factoids

India has 422 million internet users, and over 300 million users are connecting to the internet by smart phones. This number is expected to more than double to 650 million by 2020 

YouTube is India’s largest online video destination with over 180 million people tuning in. Eighty-five per cent of its India watch time comes from mobile devices, according to App Annie. Today there are close to 100 web series live on YouTube, about 40 of these from South India. In 2016, YouTube saw over 500 creators across the country get over 100,000 subscribers 

In 2017, Netflix’s global content budget will be $6 billion for both original and licenced content. That is up from $5 billion in 2016. It will reach over 1,000 hours of original content globally this year, which is about 400 original TV series and films, including from India