It’s Emmys season. Close on the heels of the Prime Time Emmy Awards a couple of weeks ago, it’s now time for the announcement and conferring of the International Emmy Awards. For those who don’t know, Emmys are given to shows developed and created in the USA. International Emmys are conferred on outstanding shows created in countries outside of the USA.
This week saw the announcement of the nominations for the International Emmy Awards. The list of nominees is eclectic, with several popular and well known shows bagging nominations. British comedy drama ‘Sex Education’, French crime drama ‘Lupin’, limited series ‘Help’, along with ‘A Royal Secret’, ‘Narcos: Mexico’, ‘Dr. Brain’, among others, have bagged International Emmy Awards nominations in various categories.
In the midst of all the nominations for deserving International shows, one important thing sticks out like a sore thumb. Not a single Indian web series or documentary has made it to the list of International Emmy Awards nominations – yes, not even one. From a total of 23 countries represented in 15 categories and 60 nominees, no Indian series has qualified to be nominated in any category – not Best Series, Best Actor, Best Actress, and certainly not Best Direction or Best Story.
And this, when India has one of the most cluttered OTT markets in the world. At least a dozen OTT platforms are actively engaged in churning out web series in astonishing numbers. Yet, not a single web series is good enough to get nominated for the International Emmys. Says a lot for the quality of content coming out of our OTT platforms, don’t you think so?
This only serves to prove how Indian OTT content has fallen in quality, creativity and innovativeness. Three Indian shows bagged nominations in 2019 – Sacred Games, Lust Stories and The Remix. In 2020, Netflix’s ‘Delhi Crime’ made the country proud by winning the International Emmy Award For Best Drama Series. In 2021, Sushmita Sen’s Aarya was nominated for the International Emmy Award for Best Drama, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, for Best Actor for Serious Men, and Vir Das for Best Comedy Program. But in 2022, it is zilch for Indian OTT at the International Emmys nominations.
It may sound harsh, but it’s a matter of shame for the huge Indian OTT industry that not a single Indian show is worthy enough to earn a nomination at the International Emmy Awards. Let’s hope that Indian OTT platforms learn a lesson or two from the shame and ignominy of this, and crank up the quality of the content they are churning out.
And let’s hope that an Indian show is able to make the cut next year and win an Emmy for the country.
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