Paris-headquartered content firm Banijay Group, that makes The Kapil Sharma show for Sony television in India, recently bought out venture capital fund CA Media’s 49 percent stake in production company Endemol Shine India after a three-year arbitration. Endemol Shine produces reality shows such as Bigg Boss and Khatron Ke Khiladi. Deepak Dhar, founder and group CEO of Banijay Asia and Endemol Shine India, said the two content firms will function as separate entities under Banijay to grab a larger share of business from the market. In an interview with Storyboard18, Dhar said the company is coming up with the second season of Dahan and looking to offer quality original content to regional language audiences.
Edited excerpts:
What does the complete acquisition of Endemol Shine mean for Banijay?
For me personally, it’s an emotional homecoming. I have worked at Endemol and I’m happy to be back with my former colleagues. Overall, what it means is that the team which makes Bigg Boss, Master Chef and Trial by Fire is coming into the Banijay family with the vast and varied experience, catalogue and formats that they have. They are coming into the family that delivers shows such as Kapil Sharma, Night Manager and The Trial. So, it’s quite a potent mix of ideas, formats, teams and people coming together.
Endemol will operate as a separate company under Banijay. We’re taking a leaf out of what Banijay does globally, that is, have multiple companies, labels and teams working in the same ecosystem. We want them to have a healthy competition among themselves and to really try and bite into more and more of the (content business) pie.
Endemol was a global acquisition. Are you also looking to buy some local companies?
Honestly, we are just done with this. It is quite a Herculean task but there are some thoughts and plans on building an eco-system of multiple companies.
What would you describe Banijay’s last five years achievements?
It’s been quite a journey. There are very few companies that deliver unscripted, scripted, linear TV and streaming content. Everybody’s taking a position of either being in the TV or in the streaming world. But we have not taken that position because we see tremendous growth in bringing the discipline of TV to the premium nature of cinematic storytelling. We are in the thick of growth.
The favourite household star Kapil Sharma is our standout legacy show we have been doing for five years. Lately, Night Manager has been very well received.
Does Banijay produce more international adaptations than Indian originals?
Our focus is 50:50 between adaptations and originals. Personally, I love telling original stories. We’ve done a show called Dahan which is supernatural meets folklore meets zombie culture. We made Matsya Kaand which is a con story from the heartlands of India.
But to keep the scoreboard ticking we do adaptations as it’s easier to bring in international formats. There’s a great appetite for it and they are kind of faster to produce. Originals take time because we’ve got to let the writers really craft the story in the best possible way.
You have been in the entertainment business for a long time. How would you say the audiences for TV and streaming have evolved?
There’s a difference between the TV and the streaming audience. But we’re seeing a quick trend towards streaming where everybody wants shorter, tighter episodes and more finite storylines with recurring seasons.
While there’s a migration (from TV), I’m a big advocate of the fact that India is like six or seven countries put together, maybe more. There’s so much that can be offered. I don’t think streaming services are growing at the cost of television. There is a fair amount of growth in TV too and we are targeting both sides. But yes, attention spans are shorter. Then there is this massive trend in the last four to five years of people binge watching.
But the typical linear TV shows have not changed much. How come TV viewers haven’t evolved?
I think it’s difficult to break a habit. People love to watch their 30-40 minutes of content every day. For instance, homemakers like their stories and a certain narrative style. So that’s not changing overnight.
But I think there is a massive disruption going on right now. Streaming is changing the way we consume, make and sell content. We are at the cusp of unlearning and learning how to create different kinds of content.
It has been pointed out that as more streaming content is watched on connected TVs, it may become less edgy to cater to family viewing. Do you agree?
Well, I think every platform has its own philosophy and trajectory. No one philosophy fits all. There cannot be a herd mentality where everyone creates one kind of content. In an average Indian household, there is a little kid as well as a senior citizen watching television. So India will be different. We will not follow so much of the western model of really moving towards streaming and only one kind of content.
What kind of opportunity does Banijay see in regional language content?
It’s massive. Like I said earlier India is like six or seven countries put together if not more, and I really mean it because Bigg Boss has moved to Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bangla, Marathi…the works. Each of these markets have their own content tastes, consumption habits, superstars, celebrities, heroes and protagonists. Obviously, for content creators like us it is very exciting to do different stories in different languages. At Endemol we have done that very successfully.
At Banijay Asia we have also delivered a show called The Fall for Disney Hotstar in Tamil. We’re already working on multiple other shows in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam languages. We currently have a show running in the Kannada market called Rani which is a linear television soap and very successful as well. So, yes, we believe regional is really where the opportunity lies.
The idea is to deliver a different scale of content to our regional audiences because they are used to certain kinds of stories, narratives and scale. We want to go forward in this market with our philosophy of scale, speed and surprise.
Being the group CEO, are you personally involved in show pitches and pilots?
There’s no other way to do this. You have to love sitting in a narration for 3 hours. You have to sit and watch a lot of Work-in-Progress edits. I have seen Night Manager maybe 15 times before it was streamed. I have seen The Trial at least 7-8 times. I probably know the scenes in reverse order. It is a lot of long hours but very exciting at the same time because you’re creating new worlds through stories.
What are content creators biggest challenges today? Cost, talent, censorship?
As content creators, we have either done TV or cinema. The middle world never existed because weekend TV or finite storytelling was something that we never did. That only started in the last five years and we learnt on the job. Though some of the shows coming out of Banijay and Endemol have been stellar, there is lots of catching up to do. We need to build the talent base and that is where the challenge is. I’m talking about writers, directors and technicians. They should be on top of our agenda because finally they are the ones who are going to create.
Aren’t budget cuts by streaming platforms a bigger challenge?
I’ve been in the business long enough to have seen such cut back cycles come and go. I don’t see that as a challenge. We have to adapt to market pressures. I think we are quite resilient as a creative community.