The success of OTT is purely on the count that content is the new star. Small filmmakers, rich content and novel stories are the toast of these platforms
During the 80s, there was a perceptible drop in the quality of movies. Colour TV had been introduced around that time in India and the “serial” age began in right earnest, attracting Bollywood majors.We had thought then that the end-game for films had begun. The situation only worsened for film-making in the 90s and smart serial-makers occupied a big chunk of entertainment viewership. But those were still laid-back days for the average Indian citizen. We were not hard pressed for time and as new filmstars arrived on the scene, bringing freshness, we accommodated them as well as their films.
In the new millennium things really began to happen and new-age filmmakers like Farhan Akhtar, K-Jo, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Anurag Kashyap, backed up by new age multiplexes began giving viewers reasonably good films with enhanced cinema experience. And after a dream run, television began to falter. The reasons were not difficult to see. Balaji Telefilms, the serial giant kept coming back at us with their “K”s, the process of trivialisation of news had set in big time, and for the last few years, the news channels have been looking like theatres of the absurd.
But by then, an average citizen’s time was also beginning to get squeezed. There was increasingly lesser amount of time available to carve out in order to watch a movie. For average person, the annual frequency of visiting theatres came down in last 5 years as compared to 10-15 years ago. It was in this backdrop that the OTT (Over-The-Top media service) phenomenon occurred. It was bound to happen as there was need to see something different. Bollywood, especially the stars and the czars, began to take viewers for granted.
Let us check out a few reasons why OTT has actually gone “over the top”. As pointed earlier, due to the compressed time for average viewers it is becoming increasingly difficult to venture out for a movie, committing 4 hours at stretch. Thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, quite a few of us are doing “WFH”, and OTT is allowing them to do a different “WFH” — Watch from Home. Television watching has become adjustable to our timings. And today’s viewers aren’t the couch-potatoes of yesteryears. Engagements at home are being balanced nicely with viewing as OTT allows us to start and stop, watch in instalments, re-run sequences for better understanding, plan our watch either in one-go or in part(s).
There were stories which needed 7-8 hours to be told and obviously were not theatre stuff. OTT has allowed these stories to be told as web series and smart makers have made smart sequels gobbling up hours of viewer’s time. These web series have a beginning and there is a closure even if it is open-ended. They don’t go on endlessly, aimlessly like TV soap operas. OTT gives a peek at short movies (who don’t have other platforms for release) as well. It presents us with huge canvas which stores old movies, documentaries, infotainment content.
The usefulness, convenience, content variety and affordability of OTT presents a big challenge to the movie makers and theatre owners. TV did give them a second chance, but they have frittered it away. What they have not quite understood is that no matter how big a star one may put in the movie, viewers will not relish sub-standard content. Bollywood seriously has to do a reality check and content check. They need to relook at the recent, forgettable efforts made by the jaded czars resulting in Bunty-Bubly-2, Sadak-2, Hungama-2. How on earth do they expect people to watch these movies even on OTT platforms, leave alone in a theatre @400 bucks.
These are dangerous time for multiplexes. The star bazaar is melting down. The success of OTT is purely on the count that content is the new star. Small movie makers, rich in content, telling novel stories are the toast of these platforms. The TV serial boom of the 80s gave us great stories and several good actors like Om Puri, Anupam Kher, Irrfan Khan, Raghubir Yadav, Satish Shah, KK Raina, MK Raina. The OTT boom has also given us several new actors, who have worked in web series and several quality films. There is place for everyone except jaded stars if they continue with their old, formula “tricks”.
The business model needs a drastic change. A newly-released movie has just a 3-4-week window to milk out the maximum from the theatres, before it is parked on OTT. The stars will have to re-invent themselves or Bollywood will have to invent new stars to lend shine in their ventures. Right now,some of them are busy comforting themselves in dishing out ordinary web series following herd mentality. Here too, the initial promises shown in their earlier works have faded and the latest offerings are trash. A case in point being the series - “Inside Edge; season-3” which missed the outside edge of our collective brains. The big shots of Bollywood have to get their acts together for finding the right content and right scale. Big production surely knows that the big moolah is in theatre releases only and we have a pretty big network of multiplexes for leveraging.
All said and done, it may not happen that people will give up watching movies in theatres. Many of us preserve the desire to venture out, and experience the cinematic experience in theatres, even if it is once in a while. Outing plus cinema is a concoction which has always worked in the past and will work in future also, adjusting off-course for any adverse pandemic impact. But disappointing fare will reduce that desire to visit theatres.
The question is that can Bollywood make content which would lure us back to the theatres more often in current circumstances, given the fact that good, relatable, and decipherable-in-our-language stuff is available at our fingertips and we are spoilt for choices and convenience.
This formula of Star + any content = good opening + great returns does not work anymore. And it will not work on OTT also. They got away with “Suryavanshi” as viewers flocked theatres which had opened after a long time. But a similar “Chandravanshi” is going to be punished. We now have the power to punish and that’s the biggest gain of having OTT- it has strengthened the market forces
More realistically, they can check how the South Extension of Indian cinema combined star power with interesting content (eg. “Jai Bhim”, “Pushpa”), which has worked massively on all forums and more importantly worked Pan-India. So, when 4 out of 5 persons whom you speak to, sound pessimistic about Bollywood then the concerned need to realise that there is something wrong.
But we, the viewers are not complaining. We have enough variety and quantity in our plate. And Bollywood should not complain afterwards either. They have had enough warnings.
(The writer is a finance professional and a cinema and sports enthusiast. The views expressed are personal.)