Netflix. Amazon Prime Video. Disney+ Hotstar. ZEE5. SonyLIV. Eros Now. Aha Video. Voot Select. Alt Balaji. Neestream. And many, many more. These are the names of the few popular OTT platforms which currently stream content in India. And they all have one main thing in common – they all stream South Indian content; some of them even create original content. There is a storm brewing behind-the-scenes, the only indication that there is an actual war, a war for South-Indian content.
Now obviously, OTT platforms will always try to find new, exciting and popular content and try to take over the market. An excellent example of this is Netflix and anime. When the global streaming conglomerate saw the demand for anime (both series and movies), they decided to stockpile on the international streaming rights of the most popular anime, while buying up the production rights for popular manga series (Japanese comics), so as to adapt a few original anime content of their own. Netflix has pretty much taken up the International market, but now Sony has bought Crunchyroll, the largest international anime streaming service at one point in time. This is another clash worth keeping an eye out for.
However South Indian cinema is a different case. Any Indian OTT will know that, even if Bollywood reigns supreme (in India), the Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali film industries are quite big as well, with Malayalam and Marathi film industries slowly growing in popularity. So, many of them had a head start in knowing which film industries to target while the International ones such as Netflix and Amazon Prime only went for Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood content. But because of the interest of International platforms, the regional OTT platforms had to up their game in the market, to make themselves desirable (creating a better interface, ease of access, cost of subscription, etc.) so as to get the streaming rights of the big films.
Still, it was not enough. International OTTs like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video managed to convince many big film productions to part with the streaming rights to make their content available for the International market (which means, making the film available outside India as well), beating most regional content. But the Indian film community as a whole is still not convinced with the whole OTT format and so most of the owners of major big budget films like ‘Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea’, ‘RRR’, ‘K.G.F: Chapter 2’ are all waiting for theatres to open at full capacity, so they can finally release their film.
So now, OTT platforms are releasing their own South-Indian content, by teaming up with filmmakers from the South. Surprisingly, Amazon Prime Video and Aha Video are currently in the “lead” per say, by releasing quality South-Indian content regularly. Netflix is fairing decently as well, while Neestream came into the spotlight with the surprise hit ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’. Voot Select and Alt Balaji are releasing original content at a decent rate as well. Streaming platforms are now targeting specific individuals – For example:- Fahadh Faasil, Kalpana and Joju George from Mollywood, Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi and Madhavan from Kollywood, Allu Arjun, Prabhas and Anand Deverakonda from Tollywood & Yash and Puneeth Rajkumar from Sandalwood. These actors have been proven to be popular either through OTT releases or their fan base in their respective film industries. While targeting specific actors and filmmakers, these OTT platforms are gearing up to create some quality content.
All of this makes the “South-Indian OTT War”, a good thing for us. Gone are the days of boring generic stories, for content is king now. This will force filmmakers to make better movies, and we are glad for that fact alone.
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