Mumbai: Riding high with several back-to-back successes of its original series & continuing to innovate with several new products in the last year, MX Player stands tall as it ranks #1 in India and #3 worldwide, in terms of downloads (source: State of Mobile Report by data.ai 2023). With a steady growth performance trajectory, all MX platforms are geared up to grow into their next phase by enhancing data-driven innovation, building the scale of revenue streams, and gaining maximum impact for all stakeholders.
The new products launched last year include MX Gold, MX Live, MX One, MX Blue, MX Studios, and MX Advantage. MX Player also launched many new features on the local player – MCloud, video clipping, video downloader, and video playlist and it has a separate MX gold tab and watch party.
Be it MX Studios branded content like Uni ki Yaari, Business Baazi, Salesman of the Year, Spin Around Dubai or the award-winning superhit MX original series like Campus Diaries, Lock Upp, Aashram 3, Shiksha Mandal, the long format series Roohinayat and Tu Zakhm Hain, and the latest blockbuster Dharavi Bank that has given Bollywood star Suniel Shetty the biggest OTT debut in a web series while the show continues to rank #1 for the last seven weeks (source: week 52 COTT), it’s undeniable that masses in India love MX Player's narratives, casting choices, and diverse genres. With 250 million users in India and 350 million users globally, MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar is in conversation with Indiantelevision.com on what've worked & plans ahead.
Talwar brings to the table over 20 years of experience in the content, advertising and entertainment space. He began his career with Grey Worldwide, followed by several years at Lowe Lintas in account management and strategic planning. His career path then took him to Lateral Solutions (Netpreneurship) followed by Lowe Dubai, Kaleidoscope Entertainment Pvt Ltd and then Rediffusion Y&R.
Talwar has been with MX Player for the past five years and he has been instrumental in conceptualising great content for the platform. His constant source of inspiration is music, movies and spirituality. He is endlessly fascinated by unearthing insights and motivations that drive human behaviour.
Edited Excerpt:
On the success of seasons 1 and 2 of Aashram, and the audience's expectation and response to season 3
The response has been phenomenal for 2022. Fresh narratives, new faces and diverse genres were our motto for this year and we have successfully managed to implement the same in our slate this year. IMDB gave Campus Diaries, the distinction of being the highest-ranked show across all OTTs till June 2022 and along with Aashram 3, Shikhsha Mandal and now Dharavi Bank, we believe we have accomplished the desired aim of entertaining our audiences for the year with regaling stories and continue to build a robust and exciting slate for 2023.
On the launch of Shiksha Mandal, and the kind of research that goes into these kinds of shows
Shiksha Mandal took us more than two years to write. Once the concept was approved, our research included going to Madhya Pradesh and meeting with victims of the scam, along with some people who knew the inner workings of the scam. It was disheartening to see that the noblest of all professions was brought down to becoming an industry for profiteering.
The brief for casting was to find actors who could earnestly depict the realities of the scam and we were lucky to have Gulshan Devaiah, Gauahar Khan and Pawan Raj Malhotra agreeing to essay the lead parts. They brought to life the characters embroiled in the scam and did it with great authenticity. Shiksha Mandal has also performed very well on the platform and we are proud of that show as well.
On Roohaniyat, the long format show and how does it work for your viewers
We are experimenting with long-format content and we have released two shows with episodes dropping weekly - Roohaniyat and Tu Zakhm Hai. We have a very loyal base of committed audiences who want to be engaged regularly and it is for them that we have started to make long format shows with a minimum of 50 episodes. Retention is one of the main reasons for creating such content which drives the audiences to return to the platform as and when the episodes are dropped. The experiment has been a success and now we are building an entire range of such content with at least 4-5 more shows in the pipeline.
On the launch of Dharavi Bank at the fag end of the year and the thought behind this storyline
There were two large reasons to bring this story to life on MX Player. Firstly, it's a narrative that holds mass appeal and will, therefore, strike a chord with our vast and diverse audience base and secondly, it's probably one of the most unique revenge dramas that you will watch on OTT.
The motive that drives JCP Jayant Gavaskar essayed by Vivek Anand Oberoi to bring down the ruthless Thalaivan played by Suniel Shetty goes beyond the regular cop and gangster drama. The distinctiveness of the revenge, complimented by the backdrop of Dharavi is what compelled us to greenlight this series.
The show has done extremely well for us, with a number four rank in the most anticipated list of IMDb shows before launch, Dharavi Bank has garnered a massive nine plus rating on IMDb. The platform pulled out all stops with a high-decibel marketing campaign and received a cumulative reach of over 200 million across YouTube, Facebook, Digital impact, and DOOH, in less than 10 days. The launch of Dharavi Bank also witnessed success through a customer-centric, personalised, and omnipresent marketing and communications approach across a blend of traditional and digital mediums, making it the talk of the town amongst all stakeholders.
On the project being mounted on a large scale, the script panning out, and the reason behind casting big names in the show
Yes, this is one of our marquee shows that we have mounted on a large scale. The fact that this series and MX were the platforms of choice for Suniel Shetty’s digital debut and Oberoi’s return to OTT after a hiatus is a testimony to the power of this series. Dharavi is a maze and we chose to shoot in real locations to bring alive this intense revenge thriller. We have an extremely talented ensemble to support the show ably like Sonali Kulkarni, Luke Kenny and Freddy Daruwala amongst others and the casting was done keeping in mind the representation of two diverse cultures in Mumbai.
One was the representation of Thalaivan’s Tamilian family wherein for the first time; we included talent from the South like Shanthi Priya, Bhavvana Rao, Shruti Srivastava, Sandhya Shetty and Vamsi Krishna in key roles. And then, the representation of the Maharashtrian world by Vivek Anand Oberoi as Gavaskar, Sonali Kulkarni, Santosh Juvekar, Nagesh Bhosle, Chinmay Mandlekar and others who gave it that authenticity. For the script, we all worked together as a team with the writer Sarthak Dasgupta, whose brainchild it was along with Seneka who wrote the dialogues for the series.
On Dharavi Bank being different from the slew of gangster-cop dramas on OTT and in the film genre
Dharavi is an emotion and we have treated it akin to a character for this show. We have painstakingly built a world which is immersive and the characters within the show are unique with novel conflicts and individual graphs that are so intrinsic to the plot. Along with it being a gangster and cop story, it's also a never before seen revenge drama, which can only be explained when you watch the show.
On getting the nuances right for the shows that are dubbed in regional languages and the response from the audience
I think every show has distinct data points on how the dubbed versions perform which range across factors like the backdrop of the story, the actors, or the generic theme of the plot. We usually dub all our shows in Tamil and Telugu but with shows like Matsya Kaand, we also experimented with Punjabi dubs that saw a decent uptake in the region. When the narratives are universal as are the emotions, it so happens that when a good story is available in a local language - the reach of the show automatically increases manifold.
On regional content being planned
We are one of the pioneers to invest heavily in regional shows like Queen (Tamil) and Samantar 1&2 (Marathi) and we will continue to do the same. Queen 2 is already in production and we believe we have another winner on our hands again.
On the secret sauce which drives you to come out with content like this
I think the passion and love for storytelling consume us and drive us to do better. We strive to ensure that our audiences remain engaged and entertained throughout the year and there is no bigger reward than seeing these shows excel on the platform. That's the driving force behind the originals team at MX.
