Kannada is the seventh most spoken language India. But in the streaming world, it is ‘persona non grata’. To put it bluntly, it is the one language that is consistently meted out shocking step-motherly treatment by all the OTT platforms in the country – both big and small.
This despite the fact that the Kannada film industry has given the country one of its biggest blockbuster films of recent times – the monstrous hit, KGF 1. It would be no exaggeration to say that KGF has single-handedly rejuvenated the gritty crime drama and ‘triumph of the underdog’ genre in the entertainment world; the genre that made Amitabh Bachchan the legend he is.
The OTT industry in India has been booming. Almost every prominent language content has made the most of it. Be it Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati or Bengali – every language has made hay in the OTT sunshine. All except Kannada, that is. Kannada has consistently been given the short shrift by the OTT platforms of India.
If you’ve noticed, there’s hardly any good Kannada original content on any of the OTT platforms. No OTT platform has made any effort to create original content in Kannada – whether films or series. Copious amounts of money is pumped into creating original Tamil, Telugu, Bengali shows, even Malayalam shows for that matter. But there’s not a single Kannada show created by any OTT platform. ‘Humble Politiciann Nograj‘ on Voot Select is the only Kannada series that hit streaming in recent times. Other than that, zilch.
As a token gesture of inclusiveness, all that Netflix, SonyLIV, ZEE5, Disney Plus Hotstar, Prime Video do is buy the streaming rights for a few buzzy films from the Kannada film industry – KGF, Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, Kotigobba 3 and the likes. Even in the Covid-19 glut of direct to digital releases, only very few ready-to-release Kannada films made their way to streaming platforms, that too, bought at throwaway prices. Kannada content has missed the streaming bus, and how!
This is just one aspect of the step-motherly treatment we talk about. The other pressing issue is that of providing dubbed versions of popular shows in Kannada. All top streaming platforms are guilty of the crime. They’ll dub shows and movies in Tamil, Telugu, English shows in Hindi too. But when it comes to Kannada, these platforms do the disappearing act. The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, Loki, Mirzapur, Panchayat, Hawkeye, The Family Man, and so many more hit shows in India all have one thing in common – no Kannada dubbed version for them!
Harried Kannada viewers keep demanding Kannada dubbed versions for popular films and series. But to no avail. It’s as if Kannada viewers don’t exist as a category for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus Hotstar, SonyLIV, ZEE5, and the rest.
Why the bias, folks? If a piece of content can be dubbed in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi (where applicable), then it can surely be dubbed in Kannada too.
How about rectifying this anomaly, sooner rather than later? What say?
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