OTT platforms in India have been on a roll churning new content week after week to keep users entertained especially in the COVID-19 lockdown since March. Ever since then Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar and SonyLIV among others have collectively released more than a 100 new web series that have an Indian star cast and production.
And almost all of them have been overwhelmingly from one genre: action/crime thriller.
In this article we’ll explore why OTTs have been making and promoting TV shows that are increasingly violent, dark and focusing around crime drama stories.
Netflix has released ‘Sacred Games’, ‘Delhi Crime’, ‘Bard of Blood’, ‘Ghoul’ and ‘Jamtara’ that are sub-genres of the Indian thriller category. Amazon Prime is not too far behind with shows like ‘Pataal Lok’, ‘The Family Man’, ‘Mirzapur’, ‘Hostages’, ‘Breathe’ and ‘The Forgotten Army’ which have similar dark and gritty themes throughout the show. Disney+ Hotstar’s ‘Hostages’, ‘Special Ops’, ‘Aarya’ and ‘Criminal Justice’ have also taken on the crime drama tag to deliver gruesome and violent storylines to viewers. Other regional streaming platforms have released shows such as ‘Asur’, ‘Rangbaaz’ and ‘Abhay’ on their respective platforms to give users an unforgettable and engaging series to binge.
All of these shows and more have dominated the popular lists of their respective platforms and been heavily promoted by the OTTs making them the most-talked of and most-watched shows online.
One of the reasons that there has been a significant rise in dark and gritty web series is because of the lack of censorship that OTTs enjoy. Creators, while making web series for digital streaming, are given a free reign as regards the script, the cinematography and the implicit and explicit themes they can explore through the medium. As a result violent gory scenes showcasing murder, kidnap, rape or torture have become the norm and creators also don’t shy away from such topics.
Another reason is the basic psychology of ‘we want what we can’t get’. Viewers have been at some level been deprived of TV shows that clearly show such taboo topics and hence are on the lookout for content that satisfies their need to be creatively entertained and not just pass time watching mediocre content. These shows are more promoted because platforms know that these are the big-budget shows that will attract the maximum views and give highest return-on-investment on the costs incurred for making these fast-paced action and crime thrillers.
This genre has the potential to be ‘fast-paced’ and ‘exciting’ to watch as compared to genres such as romance or comedy. This makes the shows easily binge-able, which is the USP of OTT platforms. The shows get a huge boost online as well making them popular choices and that makes new subscribers watch the show for fear of missing out on current trends.
This is not to say that shows such as ‘Laakhon Mein Ek’, ‘Stories by Rabindranath Tagore’, ‘Made in Heaven’, ‘Taj Mahal 1989’, ‘Pushpavalli’, ‘Panchayat’, ‘TVF Tripling’ and ‘Little Things’ among many others haven’t found success in the drama, comedy or romance genre but the fact remains that the views received by this category are significantly less than the former unless the show has a big production or star cast backing it.
But the dark crime thriller genre doesn’t even require a big budget or solid backing, the genre sells itself which has been one of the main reasons in the dominance of action and crime thriller shows on Indian OTT platforms.
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