Rajshri Productions to foray into south via digital content

Rajshri Productions, the renowned banner behind several Hindi blockbusters including the latest Salman Khan-starrer "Prem Ratan Dhan Payo", hopes to soon foray into the southern market via content for digital platforms.

Despite being active in film production since 1947, the banner is yet to tap the southern market.

"At Rajshri, it has always been about the question of finding the right project and understanding our audiences. We don't understand the southern audience as much as the Hindi audience. The way I see it, our foray into southern market will be via digital but not via cinema," Rajjat A. Barjatya, managing director and CEO, Rajshri Entertainment, told IANS along the lines of ongoing Indywood Film Market.

The digital content will include music, web series and even short films.

"That way we can target southern audience outside of India as well. We have popular channels for Rajshri Tamil and Telugu on YouTube. We are now looking at creating content exclusively for these channels," he said.

The banner, according to Rajjat, is quite popular among southern industry as well.

"My grandfather spent most of his initial years in Chennai (then Madras). We have dubbed all major releases in southern languages including 'Maine Pyar Kiya' and 'Vivah'. All these versions have done reasonably well too," he said, adding dubbed versions of films work if the content is good.

"Prem Ratan Dhan Payo", which has already grossed over Rs.200 crore at the ticket window, has been received well in Tamil and Telugu languages.

"Although our primary market has been the Hindi market, we've been dubbing our films to attract some additional audience. If the content is good, the film will work irrespective of the language it is dubbed in," he added.

Currently working on scripts of their future project, the banner is keen to create exclusive content for television and digital medium.

"We are working on several TV shows which will be broadcast by several Hindi leading broadcasters. There's lot of stuff we are doing on the internet. We are also launching English language music label through which we plan to produce music content the whole world can dance to," said Rajjat.

Commenting on the phenomenal success of "Prem Ratan...", he said, "Film has struck a chord with families across the world. It has recorded very good numbers in India as well as abroad. We are very happy with the performance of the movie".

(Haricharan Pudipeddi is in Kochi at the invitation of the All Lights India International Film Festival organisers. He can be contacted at haricharan.p@ians.in)