StudioNEXT plan shows in Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil next year. The company, which is also the content creation arm of Sony Pictures Networks, plans to undertake Bengali and Marathi in the future.
As a part of scaling up its production, over the next 12 months, it will produce six web shows and reality TV shows on digital and television platforms. The studio will pitch to other platforms moving forward.
The head of StudioNEXT told Mint that they couldn’t shoot at the time of the pandemic. This has delayed their plans by six to nine months. Moreover, they used this time for writing and developing shows. While he promised that the viewers would get to see more content coming out as they have done stable and collaborative things with businesses and production houses.
Shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati, Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story and the recently released Indian version of business reality series Shark Tank are all co-produced by StudioNext.
Two more web series and Scam 2003: The Telgi Story, Farud, The Whistleblower are in the pipeline.
Indranil Chakraborty, who is the head, said that the company works on a commission basis and that it doesn’t invest in programming. This is a reason for the company to scale up through collaborations. Scam franchise was co-produced with Applause Entertainment, an Aditya Birla group venture.
Web shows in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam languages are planned for the coming year. It also plans to venture into Bengali and Marathi in the future.
In the content creation business, broadcasters such as Sony or Viacom18 produces web shows by its new arm Tipping Point are on the way to seize opportunities.
Roopam Garg, the chief executive officer at media agency dentsu X India said that constant consumer research is key to developing content that fits the fast-evolving interests of the consumers. He said that the cognizance of the media screen should be taken into account while considering the content. To keep the costs in check and to increase the pace of content, in-house production will help.
According to him, networks needed to develop production capabilities at scale to help gain an audience against multiple cohorts.
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