Will Hansal Mehta Rescue The OTT Platform?

Of late,  the digital  domain is dishing out more drivel than we can  digest. One  after the  other the big OTT players  like Netflix , Amazon, Zee5 and Hotstar are  churning out garbage  in the name of home entertainment.

The quarantined masses are not amused.

Says  Roshan  Singh  a leading  film exhibitor  from  Patna,  “In the  past two months when  I had the chance to watch some indigenous  content at home  I  haven’t come  across a   single  Indian show worth watching. Even  Pataal Lok on Amazon  which has been praised, is only relatively better as compared with Netflix’s shows like Betaal.And that  isn’t saying much.”

 Sammir Dattani a Mumbai based  actor and  business man says, “No Indian show is even remotely comparable with Netflix’s  international shows. I watch some of  their international content. But sorry, nothing  Indian.”

Actor-influencer Sidharth Shukla says he  is  completely off  the binging route. “I don’t watch  any of the  OTT  shows. It’s addictive  only because  you’ve nothing better  to do  but ultimately   futile. I would rather use my time to  talk to old  friends on the phone.Whatever  time I spend  in front  of  the small screen   I watch news. Depressing as  it is, it is still  better than the fantasy version of reality on the digital shows.”

There is  hope for the Indian OTT platform, though. Shoojit Sircar’s latest feature film Gulabo Sitabo is all set to be  premiered on Amazon early June.

Another  very promising forthcoming  series on  the digital  platform  is the Hansal Mehta-helmed  ‘Scam 1992’. It  is a financial crime thriller, adapted from Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal’s bestselling book The Scam, based on the true-life story of the Big Bull, Harshad Mehta.

Defending the quality of content on the Indian OTT platform, Sameer Nair the CEO of Applause Entertainment the producer of   Scam 1992 says, “  For a platform that offers everything from A to  Z for a monthly subscription fee, there is something for everyone and there will be hits and misses. But their machine intelligence keeps improving their algorithms which increasingly guides their buying and selling decisions.Missteps do happen, as they should, in a creative business but fewer and far apart, makes for a safer, sustainable business model.”