A regulatory trap for storytellers

Since streaming video had no constraints, it offered storytellers phenomenal creative freedom. That is what got in the viewers, got them to subscribe and kept them there

Baltasar Kormákur’s Trapped begins with the discovery of a torso in a small town in east Iceland. As the bodies pile up and a snowstorm cuts off the town, it falls to the bulky, gentle police chief, Andri Ólafsson and his deputies, Hinrika and Ásgeir, to figure things out. The biting cold winds, snowfall, an avalanche, a shipload of stranded passengers, a blackout, everything adds to the feeling of being trapped. As this Icelandic drama sucks you into its world, you learn to read a look, long silences and to not shirk from a relentlessly honest camera. Twenty episodes and two seasons later I am hooked to “Nordic noir” as the critics call it. This week I begin with The Valhalla Murders.

Ten years ago what was the possibility of finding an Icelandic show, enjoying it and looking for more? The rich haul of stories that streaming video or OTT offers from around the world is wonderful.

Now flip this. Just like you and I are discovering Columbian, Spanish, German, Turkish or Korean shows and films, millions of people across the world are discovering Indian ones. Paatal Lok, Mirzapur, Scam 1992 are as deeply rooted in India as Hinterland is in Wales or The Motive is in Spain. These are local stories, told by Indian storytellers in Indian languages. Putting them on streaming is taking them global in a way we couldn’t have imagined. Every Indian show released on a Netflix or Amazon Prime Video is available in about 200 countries. Many of them are reviewed in some of the leading newspapers in the world. Some of the biggest Indian releases overseas — Fox Studios’ My Name is Khan (2010) or Disney’s Dangal (2016) — did not get that.

It is becoming evident that the world’s largest film producing industry that employs almost 0.7 million people and is the most potent symbol of India’s soft power, tells great stories. For two years now, Indian shows — Remix, Sacred Games, Lust Stories — have been nominated for the international Emmys. Last year Delhi Crime won one.

All of this makes the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, notified by the Indian government on February 25, worrisome. Of these, the OTT guidelines, which this column is about, are fine. They are essentially what the Internet and Mobile Association of India had suggested to the government. These have age and content ratings and guidelines on access control.

The chiller is the grievance redressal mechanism. It has a heavy regulatory hand, including an inter-departmental committee of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The damage this can do to a creative industry is evident in television. For over a decade, Indian television has been hemmed in by regulatory snarls around free pricing. This led to very little experimentation, an overdose of mass, ad-dependent programming and poor monetisation. Since streaming video had no such constraints, it offered storytellers phenomenal creative freedom. That is what got in the viewers, got them to subscribe and kept them there.

You could argue that in a conservative country, OTTs were pushing their luck. With no censor board or body like the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council, they had a great run. Maybe. But there are two strong arguments against the grievance redressal system (not the guidelines).

One is public versus private viewing. On internet-based platforms, there is curated (pay or subscription-driven a la Netflix or Hotstar) and non-curated (free and user generated a la MX Player or YouTube) content. The curated content that you access after making an informed choice, using your credit card, putting in parental controls, et al is not public exhibition. “So the (constitutional) exception to the right to freedom of expression in 19 1 (a) doesn’t apply. You are exercising a private, individual right,” says one lawyer. Where things change is with free content, which can be deemed to be public exhibition. In this case the exceptions apply.

Two, the business. Over 400 million of the 662 million Indians online watch videos on any of the 60 brands currently on offer, according to Comscore. The Rs 8,000-crore OTT industry is going through a double-digital surge in viewership and revenues. Media Partners Asia estimates that investment in programming by OTTs more than doubled from Rs 1,690 crore in 2017 to Rs 4,320 crore in 2019. It was expected to touch Rs 5,250 crore in 2020. The numbers, however, aren’t out yet.

Every major global OTT is spending anywhere from $2 billion to $15 billion on sourcing stories and India gets a growing slice of that. This is not just for the viewership within India but also outside. For instance, since its entry in 2016 till late last year, the world’s largest subscription-driven OTT, Netflix, has announced over 60 titles to be sourced from India, among its largest markets for programming.  

After the fracas over Tandav, A Suitable Boy and other shows, there is worry across the creative ecosystem. Many writers admit they are self-censoring or are being asked to keep their imagination in check. If Indian storytellers can’t tell their stories, if the industry goes the TV way, then not just our soft power, capital too will flow out to countries where the freedom to tell stories exists — the UK, Spain, Germany or Iceland. 

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