Vikram Johri: Streaming change

With Amazon launching its Prime Video service in India on November 9, the company will bring its most exciting new offering to a market that it is in a fierce race to conquer. In August, the company launched Prime for its e-commerce division, which offers users a series of benefits such as endless free shipping and early access to discounts. (The annual fee in India is Rs 499.) In a statement released this week the company said the Prime service was the bestseller during the just-concluded Great India Festival sale.

Leave aside the financial incentives, though, for customers can expect a series of original programming under Prime Video. Amazon has already confirmed that it has hired Farhan Akhtar's Excel Entertainment to produce two shows that will be offered to Prime subscribers. Power Play will be a cricket-themed show to be helmed by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti. Another show will be a crime drama set in UP.

Amazon's decision to produce original programming in India may be a response to its rival's plans. Even as it takes on competition like Flipkart and Snapdeal in its bread-and-butter retail business, Prime Video shows Amazon's commitment to making it in India after its disastrous showing in China.

Prime Video's entry comes on the heels of Netflix announcing that it has hired Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films to adapt Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games. Netflix entered India in January and is busy building a local team. In August, the company hired Swati Shetty, formerly of Balaji and Walt Disney, as head of content development.

In the US, Netflix and Amazon have upended traditional entertainment. With its original programming, Netflix has become the face of digital content globally. It has produced some of today's most popular shows. Stranger Things, about the disappearance of a boy in Indiana in the 1980s, is its latest critical darling. It also hosts Orange is the New Black, a drama set in a women's prison; House of Cards, about a Washington politician who will go to any lengths to hold on to power; and Narcos, about the Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar.

Prime Video, under Jeff Bezos' leadership, has been catching up fast. While the video-on-demand service has been around since 2006, it has come into its own only in the past few years. Its show Transparent, about a man transitioning in his 60s, is breakout hit that has earned critical and commercial acclaim. Other shows, such as Mozart in the Jungle, a behind-the-scenes look at a New York orchestra, have also done well.

While television today is generally acknowledged as the place for high-quality content - classics such as Breaking Bad and Mad Men have appeared on American network TV - commercial considerations have kept the networks from fully exploring diversity on television, a space that has greatly benefitted from online streaming services.

Netflix, say, has done wonders for a show like Aziz Ansari's Master of None, which would have never made it to network TV. A comedy set in New York, Master of None stars the brown Ansari in the lead. (Priyanka Chopra's Quantico on ABC is an exception, but it is a terror-focused drama, a genre that naturally permits diversity, in contrast to comedy.)

The other advantage of Amazon and Netflix is their vast repository of old content - from films to TV shows - that can be viewed legally. In India too, Amazon has entered into content tie-ups with marquee names like Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions.

More than all the above, though, is the ability of streaming services to offer fresh, edgy content that need not constantly look over its shoulder. Brahman Naman, a quirky sex comedy set in the quizzing community of the '80s, was released directly on Netflix in July. Its director, Qaushiq Mukherjee, explained his decision not to release the film in theatres on his eagerness to avoid unnecessary run-ins with the censor board. Who can blame him, given the fracas surrounding Udta Punjab?

Crime as a genre, say, requires a fair use of offensive language to create an aura of authenticity. Imagine an Omkara without Langda Tyagi's filthy but richly rustic language. Or Definite's bike chase sequence in Gangs of Wasseypur with all the staccato cuss words bleeped out. The resulting films would be poor approximations of the force their directors, Vishal Bharadwaj and Anurag Kashyap respectively, wished to breathe into them. By doing away with censorship, online channels allow viewers access to superior programming.

One wonders if it is the ability of crime series to nurture a dedicated fan following that led both Netflix and Amazon to debut with crime shows in India. Be that as it may, the entry of these big players into the Indian market should do a world of good for online content, which has been a story of islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity. For every TVF, the maker of such hits as Permanent Roommates and Barely Speaking with Arnub, there is much online programming that is poorly scripted, acted and produced.

Netflix and Amazon are expected to pour serious money and thus rejig a space that has so far worked only in fits and starts, but whose potential to disrupt TV and film is huge.

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