According to Monika Shargill, VP Content, Netflix India, Indian streaming audiences are open to consuming diverse content post pandemic.
Shergill stated this Tuesday at the APOS India Media Conference. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve had a dramatic growth… what we really seen and learned over the last couple of years, particularly, is that Indian audience is really ready for a lot of experimentation.”
Shergill was originally from linear TV, and had stints at Star (then Fox) or Sony. She stated that because the medium appealed to a broad audience, it led to a thriving industry. “homogenized creativity, where [creators] had to stick to certain kinds of storytelling,”But that is changing quickly. Shergill points out a nearly 400% increase in Korean content viewing, huge take-up of Spanish programming, 100% rise in children content consumption, and a 250% increase of nonfiction and unscripted content viewing from different regions of the globe, as reported by Netflix India.
“The one thing that matters to us most is how do you push the known and the familiar,”Shergill. “You program to the audience taste and you push back on the audience taste and you make them have an acquired taste.”
India should therefore have a strategy. “deep and broad”A wide range of Hindi-language programming including commissioned original series and licensed films. We also grow documentary and unscripted content in South Indian languages Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam.
“Netflix is perceived as a global brand, telling global stories and in every country having the kind of impact that it has, but if I just look at the core of Netflix and what the service is designed as, I would say that it is so well designed to be a very Indian service, because if you look at Indian audiences, we are such a heterogeneous audience, the tastes that we have, culturally we are such a diverse population,”Shergill.
“I feel Netflix is so culturally relevant to India, because we are geared up as a service to program to different formats, genres, tastes, moods,”Shergill was also added.
According to the executive, streaming content has led to an increase in the number of creative talent.