Indian entertainment’s KBCmoment
Will Netflix’s Sacred Games do for the Indian entertainment industry what Star India’s KBC did for TV?
“Is Sacred Games the KBC ( Kaun Banega Crorepati) moment for Netflix?” asks Vivek Couto, executive director, Media Partners Asia (MPA).
KBC, the licensed Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, was first launched on the (then largely) English Star Plus on July 3, 2000. Star had been in the doldrums for nine long years in India. This was its big chance. It literally bet the house on the show spending a huge amount of money on everything from the sets to the host (Amitabh Bachchan first time on TV) to create something that Indian television had never seen. It worked. KBC was a hit beyond anybody’s imagination. It pushed Star India into the club of the top five media groups, changed the way broadcasters looked at content and showcased the Indian market to the world. Its success opened the floodgates to more investment from the big TV majors.
Couto’s firm works with some of the largest media companies in Asia. We are talking about the copious amounts of money being spent on video content in India — $4.2 billion across TV, OTT and films in 2017 says an MPA report released earlier this month. Netflix’s first original from India, Sacred Games has just been released. Couto and I are discussing its quality, prospects et al when he asks this question.
The answer: Yes it is a KBC moment but not just for Netflix. Watch Sacred Games to understand what it says about the leap that the Indian entertainment industry has taken and will need to take again and again to be counted among the best in the world. The Vikramaditya Motwane-Anurag Kashyap directed show based on Vikram Chandra’s eponymous 947-page epic must have been tough to adapt to screen. The first season has eight episodes of about 50 minutes each — that is 6.7 hours of tense, gritty, well-written, feature-film quality content. Saif Ali Khan is brilliant as inspector Sartaj Singh, an honest, middle-rung man trying to unravel the mystery that gangster Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) offers him just before dying. You could argue that many OTTs are making gritty crime shows and they are good too. Even Amazon Prime Video commissions copious amounts in India, so what is special about Sacred Games?
The $11.6-billion Netflix is one of the world’s largest pay-driven streaming services. More importantly, it also now the world’s largest studio. In 2017 it offered its viewers 82 films and 700 new shows either produced or procured. Most studios average about 8-20 films a year. Netflix commissions globally – that means its shows are offered across the world with subtitles, dubbing and what not. Many of its popular shows are from all over the world — from Germany ( Dark), Nordic countries ( Nobel) and Latin America ( Narcos). On July 6, Sacred Games, a Hindi show with a smattering of Marathi and Punjabi, began streaming in 190 countries to 125 million subscribers. It was reviewed by every major publication in the world from The Guardian to The New York Times. No Indian TV show or film has ever had that kind of global platform — in audience size and buzz.
For Netflix, Sacred Gamesis as important as Narcos or Orange is the New Black. It is always searching for stories that work for its 2,000 ‘taste clusters’ or groups of viewers. And for some reason it seems to have a lot of faith in Indian creators – it has commissioned seven scripted and two unscripted shows from India. That is more than from any other country, says Ted Sarandos, chief content officer.
Couto thinks Sacred Games will have the KBCeffect only on Netflix’s premium audience. Maybe. Irrespective of how it does it has set the benchmark from the Indian market on scale, showmanship and quality. Just like KBC in 2000, it showcases some of the best Indian film work on a global platform and opens the whole wide world for the Indian entertainment industry to explore. If it works, nothing stops Hulu, HBO Go or other major streaming and broadcast brands from commissioning from India. It is Indian entertainment’s big chance to cross over geographically and economically while keeping its unique idiom intact.