Just another murder mystery… that’s what the general audience might think, but Manvat Murders is more than that. In fact, it needs to be more than that for SonyLIV. No, they aren’t fighting for life and death, but if Manvat Murders doesn’t take off, SonyLIV will definitely lose some of its credibility.
But why is it so important?
It’s actually about the uniqueness. Now, if you talk about the major players in Indian OTT—count in names such as Netflix, Prime Video, Zee5, SonyLIV—they all play on familiar turf. Either they pick up something in Hindi to please the northern audience, or they produce content in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, or Malayalam to cater to regional viewers.
Streaming from the 3rd of October, the show is suffering from the most common issue in Indian entertainment: lack of advertisement. Like most regional shows, it has faced the same fate. However, the unique part is that it’s not in one of the so-called ‘popular’ regional languages—it’s in Marathi. And just to refresh your memory, platforms like Netflix or Prime Video haven’t touched this market yet, making the regional audience an open goal.
But for a platform like SonyLIV, there’s one hurdle—Zee5. They are experimenting with markets like Marathi and Bangla, despite already being a nationwide OTT platform, and the audience loves it. The big reason? The production cost is generally higher than that of smaller regional platforms.
If either SonyLIV or Zee5 can achieve a high standard in terms of word-of-mouth, they will definitely see exponential growth. SonyLIV is already working with the Bangla audience by dubbing its original series. Meanwhile, Zee5 is already investing in original Marathi series, with Kaantaye Kaantaye becoming a moderate hit.
Now, SonyLIV does have an edge over Zee5, thanks to its sports broadcasting factor. However, if Manvat Murders fails, it will not only discourage them from promoting regional content but also be a big miss, as there’s a significant gap waiting to be filled.