Category
Film
Tv show
Documentary
Stand-up Comedy
Short Film
View All
Genres
Action
Adventure
Animation
Biography
Comedy
Crime
Documentary
Drama
Family
Fantasy
Film-Noir
Game-Show
History
Horror
Kids
Music
Musical
Mystery
News
Reality-TV
Political
Romance
Sci-Fi
Social
Sports
Talk-Show
Thriller
War
Western
View All
Language
Hindi
Telugu
Tamil
Malayalam
Kannada
Abkhazian
Afar
Afrikaans
Akan
Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Aragonese
Armenian
Assamese
Avaric
Avestan
Aymara
Azerbaijani
Bambara
Bashkir
Basque
Belarusian
Bengali
Bhojpuri
Bislama
Bosnian
Breton
Bulgarian
Burmese
Cantonese
Catalan
Chamorro
Chechen
Chichewa; Nyanja
Chuvash
Cornish
Corsican
Cree
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Divehi
Dutch
Dzongkha
English
Esperanto
Estonian
Ewe
Faroese
Fijian
Finnish
French
Frisian
Fulah
Gaelic
Galician
Ganda
Georgian
German
Greek
Guarani
Gujarati
Haitian; Haitian Creole
Haryanvi
Hausa
Hebrew
Herero
Hiri Motu
Hungarian
Icelandic
Ido
Igbo
Indonesian
Interlingua
Interlingue
Inuktitut
Inupiaq
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kalaallisut
Kanuri
Kashmiri
Kazakh
Khmer
Kikuyu
Kinyarwanda
Kirghiz
Komi
Kongo
Korean
Kuanyama
Kurdish
Lao
Latin
Latvian
Letzeburgesch
Limburgish
Lingala
Lithuanian
Luba-Katanga
Macedonian
Malagasy
Malay
Maltese
Mandarin
Manipuri
Manx
Maori
Marathi
Marshall
Moldavian
Mongolian
Nauru
Navajo
Ndebele
Ndebele
Ndonga
Nepali
Northern Sami
Norwegian
Norwegian Bokmål
Norwegian Nynorsk
Occitan
Ojibwa
Oriya
Oromo
Ossetian; Ossetic
Other
Pali
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Pushto
Quechua
Raeto-Romance
Romanian
Rundi
Russian
Samoan
Sango
Sanskrit
Sardinian
Serbian
Serbo-Croatian
Shona
Sindhi
Sinhalese
Slavic
Slovak
Slovenian
Somali
Sotho
Spanish
Sundanese
Swahili
Swati
Swedish
Tagalog
Tahitian
Tajik
Tatar
Thai
Tibetan
Tigrinya
Tonga
Tsonga
Tswana
Turkish
Turkmen
Twi
Uighur
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Venda
Vietnamese
Volapük
Walloon
Welsh
Wolof
Xhosa
Yi
Yiddish
Yoruba
Zhuang
Zulu
View All
Release year
2024
1900
Rating
Must Watch
Good
Passable
Poor
Skip
Yet to Review
View All
Platform
View All
Search

SonyLIV’s Tamil, Telugu Bid: Will It Impact Amazon Prime, ZEE5, Aha Video?

By Binged Bureau - Jun 18, 2021 @ 07:06 pm

In recent days, homegrown streaming platform SonyLIV has made its intentions loud and clear. News that it plans to get into streaming regional content has been creating a buzz since long. But SonyLIV has demonstrated exactly how serious it is about those plans. SonyLIV has hired two well-established, extremely knowledgeable honchos to lead its Tamil and Telugu content divisions. It has hired Dr. G. Dhananjayan As its Tamil Content Head, and Sreedhar Reddy Komalla as its Telugu Content Head.

The move is unprecedented in the Indian streaming space. Not even biggies like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or ZEE5 have separate dedicated heads for Tamil and Telugu content. By hiring big guns for its Tamil and Telugu content divisions, SonyLIV has sounded the bugle of competition for leading regional content players, Amazon Prime Video, Aha Video and ZEE5. SonyLIV has shown that it will be as aggressive in its pursuit of Tamil and Telugu streaming leadership as it has been for Hindi language streaming.

Ever since the launch of its revamped avatar, SonyLIV has delivered hit after hit in Hindi. Scam 1992, Undekhi, Your Honour, A Simple Murder, The Gone Game, Gullak and now Maharani, have dominated the charts. The occasional Tamil hit, such as Iru Dhuruvam, has added to its allure.

SonyLIV has already acquired a bunch of Tamil films to strengthen its Tamil content. Naragasooran, Laabam, Kadaisi Vivasayi, Thaen, among others, are some of the film names being speculated about on social media. There’s no word on its Telugu slate yet, but given its serious intentions and deep pockets, it won’t be long before SonyLIV picks up the best of Telugu content on offer.

In the last two years, Amazon Prime Video has established itself as the undisputed leader in regional content. It hasn’t created much of Telugu or Tamil content, but has acquired the most plum regional movies with big names attached. Soorarai Pottru, Karnan, Drishyam 2, Master, Jathi Ratnalu, Ponmagal Vandhal, Kala, Ek Mini Katha have been blockbuster hits for the platform. Similarly, Aha Video has established itself as the leader in Telugu content. It has not only created engaging Telugu content in-house, but has been at the forefront of getting Telugu dubbed versions of popular Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films for Telugu viewers. ZEE5 was the first OTT platform to have dedicated Telugu, Tamil and Bengali divisions on its platform. But the offerings have been sporadic at best. A show and movie or two every few months is all that they bring for their regional viewers.

SonyLIV’s Tamil and Telugu foray will most certainly eat into the viewership of Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5 and Aha Video. With dedicated Tamil and Telugu divisions on its platform, SonyLIV will be better placed to focus solely on delivering value to its regional subscribers. The move is great news for regional content creators too. They have more platforms willing to pay good money for their new and stuck content.

Ultimately, though, it is the regional viewers that are the big winners. Until now a neglected category, they will soon be spoilt for choice with the wide variety of content being made available for them.

If you ask us, we believe that Amazon Prime Video has become too big a player in the regional content space to be dislodged by SonyLIV. Add to it, Amazon Prime Video has big moolah and resources to spend, to shore up its regional position. Aha Video too should be able to maintain its leading Telugu platform position.

That said, Amazon Prime Video, Aha Video and ZEE5 need to pull up their socks, and soon, if they want to fight off the new competition from SonyLIV. Let’s see what the future holds for regional content leadership in the Indian OTT space.

We’re hiring!

We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.