Ananya borgohain explores how digital platform TVF pioneered a revolution for young entertainment seekers. From hiring tech experts from Silicon Valley to gruelling scripting and improvising sessions to effective and efficient brand integration, the founder, creative director, writer, and actors share their visions
The term ‘Indian urban middle-class youth’ not only refers to a pertinent section of our population but also has four distinct attributes in its name itself. It is no longer driven by manipulative melodrama and social conformism. This is the age of adventures and experimentation. While the senior generation may have believed in certain notions of idealism, the millennials are not preoccupied with such entitlements. They are relatively, and to generalise, fascinated by materialism, and how! In the era of smartphones and tablets, even the dictionary suddenly needs a prefix (“urban” dictionary) to look updated and righteous while informally incorporating slangs. The change in urban India and its understanding of entertainment, in this matter, have exuded much flamboyance and finesse. The youth today is mobilised by a drive to set themselves apart from the crowd, to walk off the beaten path, to be innovative. A house and a car, unlike what they meant for their parents, are not immediate requirements for survival for the young lot. They may quit secure jobs to travel; they may drop out of college to participate in reality shows; or they may give up sports to pursue academic credibilities. largely, they are opinionated, quirky, reckless, talented and witty. Keeping this in mind is perhaps what helped the famous online entertainment network TVF (The Viral Fever) make history.
TVF is an online entertainment network founded by Arunabh Kumar with the objective of providing digital entertainment particularly to the young generation. With all members under 40, this network of young people has made some of the most successful shows in India such as Permanent Roommates, Pitchers, Barely Speaking with Arnub, Chai Sutta Chronicles, Tech Conversations with Dad, Tripling, Humorously Yours, F.A.T.H.E.R.S, among several others.
Today, five years after its very first video Rowdies (it had one million hits in less than five days) went viral, TVF has attained acclaim internationally. It has been a pioneer in the Indian digital entertainment forum. Rowdies was India’s first original web content; TVF’s Gaana Waala Song was the first digital content created for film promotions; TVF was also the first network that brought Indian film celebrities to star in the web shows — from Shah Rukh Khan to Anurag Kashyap to Ranveer Singh to Sunny leone; its Permanent Roommates was the most viewed branded web series in the world in 2014 on YouTube; and its Pitchers (along with Permanent Roommates) are the only two Indian series to be listed on IMDb.
In the IMDb ratings, they even beat global hits like House of Cards and Homeland. In fact, in 2013, TVF was the only YouTube network that represented India at the international YouTube Fan Fest, while Arunabh was the only representative from South Asia who was invited to the 2015 Global Creators’ Summit in New York. TVF has also created India’s first online women-centric channel, Girliyapa.
More recently, the network was also showcased as the next generation of story tellers in the world at the biggest content conference in the world, MIPCOM, the first ever for India at a platform that TVF shared with Snapchat, Viacom and the Homeland makers.
For three years consecutively (2015, 2016, 2017), Arunabh was featured on Fortune’s “40 under 40” list of India’s top business leaders. In 2015, he was awarded GQ’s Most Influential Young Indian award and in 2016, he was GQ’s Man of the Year. An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Arunabh originally wanted to make a show for TV. When his idea was rejected, he conceived TVF, which today has millions of subscribers all over the world. As the Creative Experiment Officer (CEO) of the network, he talks about the work culture that he has inculcated in the company and says, “Culture materialises on its own. It’s organic and cannot be implanted. Our motto is ‘lights, Camera, Experiment’. We subscribe to the Buddhist philosophy, ‘Be open to ideas, attach to none’. So, our objective is to explore. From the CEO to the intern, we take everyone’s inputs seriously. Today, we are a network of 300 people bound by the common goal to entertain and experiment.”
Hailing from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, he reveals, “I come from a place that hardly anyone outside of Bihar must have heard of. My hometown still faces severe electricity shortages.” That could be quite a bummer for his family given that TVF is primarily an online forum. Arunabh laughs, “Well my nephew is quite intelligent. He downloads the videos on a pen drive whenever he can and watches later!” It’s redounding how this one online network revolutionised the Indian online eco-system.
Arunabh explains, “We understand that the young generation is mostly online. We have a very strong inhouse team that is adept in data and technology. We have some of the best practices in scripting. We were the first ones to use 5D in our web series (instead of huge cameras), we were also the first to use the Adobe premiere pro editing tool. Of course, that’s also because when we had started we couldn’t afford the expensive gadgets but we left no stone unturned in making things work. We also outsource third party studios to collaborate with us. Our programming team is meticulous and involved right from conceptualisation to production. When we launched the TVF app, it crashed a lot. That’s when we consulted with a tech leadership team from Silicon Valley to sort our issues. We have provisions for androids, we’re still working on iOS and we are also modifying our chromecast feature.” How do they manage sponsorshipIJ He says, “We are an advertisement and brand-sponsorship made platform so we have worked with more than hundred brands, more than anybody else in this country has, I guess. These big brands tell us that the younger generation is not on TV but on TVF! Every brand that has the objective of reaching out to the younger generation is certainly working with us. We work with them on different models, from media inventory to innovative ad cards to social media posts to deep integration into stories, and so on. At the same time, we also give them the effect that even TV could probably not offer them.”
While Arunabh has been applauded all over for his business skills, Creative Director Biswapati Sarkar is as known for his writings. Both Pitchers and the chat show with celebrities, Barely Speaking with Arnub (in which he plays the host) have been extremely popular with the audience.
Originally from Rourkela, he is an alumnus from IIT-K as well. Speaking about what may trigger an idea in him, Bisso, as he is popularly known, says, “It could be a line or a scene that you imagine and then you realise that you have to make a story out of it and then narrate it. That is the instinct that drives me. Comedy comes out of anger. It is anger that creates cynicism which in turn creates humour.”
Bisso considers Stephen King, David Mamet and Quentin Tarantino among his influences. He adds, “Not that I like only foreign writers but in India we have very few celebrated writers such as Salim-Javed, or even Kader Khan. We are a bunch of IIT-K alumni who were active in the theatre club of the institute. I used to write short stories. So when I got the chance to tell our stories with Arunabh, leaving a secure job was easy.
I follow the pattern of ‘therefore, meanwhile’ which means that there should be a reason for the events that unfold in your story. If a gun, for instance, appears at a point, there should be a preset context for it. We also jam a lot. After the first draft is written, we take the inputs of around 20 people. Following their feedback, the second draft is made. These rounds of feedback goes on till a final script is readied after which the punching-up sessions start where we sit and improvise. In these, the script is made more conducive. After the actors are locked, the table reading sessions begin. Everyone in the team is respectful of one another and united by the mutual goal of improving ourselves.”
TVF has also presented to the country some of the most loved and popular actors in recent time. Nidhi Bisht (whose new show Bisht Please is ready to release this month), who is often addressed as TVF’s casting director, clarifies, “Not many know that I am actually not a casting director! But yes, I did cast Mikesh and Tanya (the leads in Permanent Roommates) and Mandal (Pitchers). I have a theatre background through which I knew resourceful people including these actors and Arunabh. So casting happened accidentally. In fact, for Pitchers, Navin’s boss was the only role we had held auditions for. I graduated from Jamia Millia Islamia and was a lawyer in Delhi for one year. I also did theatre with IPTA. Arunabh was the first person I met when I had come to Mumbai. He was working for a Pritish Nandy film back then that never got made. I was teaching drama in schools and also directing plays back then. It was in 2013 that I took it up as a full time job.” Nidhi says that it’s sincerity and instinct along with a fair share of judgement that has helped her find the right actors for the roles.
Nidhi Singh, who plays the universally adored Tanya in Permanent Roommates, says, “The good thing about working with TVF is that there is no hierarchy. They are organised and diligent.” Nidhi is originally from Allahabad but has grown up in Maligaon, Assam. After she completed her studies, she worked in advertising as well as an Assistant Director. While freelancing, she also dabbled as a theatre actor. She mentions, “My father is a doctor and mother a teacher. So it took me a bit to convince them that I wanted to pursue acting. It was in 2010-2011 when I completely immersed myself in this medium. It’s really overwhelming to see the responses now.”
In a similar way, Navin Kasturia from Pitchers adds, “Honestly, I think I relate more with Mikesh than my own character, Navin. But shooting Pitchers was amazing. I knew Arunabh since 2009. We had the same social circle of film people. It’s quite nice to see the kind of reaction our collaboration has received. It took us 12 days to shoot the first two episodes and we shot the third after a month. But we plan to do season 2 at a stretch so let’s see.”
In TV, there is always a safe set of formulae (plastic surgery, rebirth, amnesia, love triangle, gaudily dressed vamps, and even snakes and flies now) that ensures TRPs. The digital medium in comparison could be quite brutal in terms of criticism because everyone can be anonymous there as well as because there is no formula for success for original content. So the way TVF has been reaching the zenith of success is commendable. Arunabh says, “We are still a couple of years away from it but I hope someday we create global shows. There are still talks of collaborations but it’s premature at the moment. TVF was also believed to be India’s answer to Netflix, now it’s compared to HBO. Honestly, I want TVF to be India’s Disney!” As Head of TVF Originals and director of Permanent Roommates Sameer Saxena says, “We just write what we strongly feel like, and may be because we come from middle class backgrounds, what we write is what most of the people easily connect to.”
ananyapioneer@gmail.com