MUMBAI: Endemol Shine India (Endemol Shine), best known for producing shows such as Bigg Boss, Master Chef, Khatron Ke Khiladi and Dance India, has a lot going for it this year. The company will produce the second season of The Test Case for Balaji Telefilms’ OTT platform ALTBalaji after tasting success in the first season. Moreover, the production house is planning a slew of originals after securing book rights from Indian authors and publishers.
In an interaction with Indiantelevision.com, Endemol Shine CEO Abhishek Rege said that while the focus remains on unscripted shows, it is the scripted shows that will help the company grow leaps and bounds. During the conversation, Rege revealed that Endemol Shine could dabble into owning an IP for a show if there is scope for pre-selling the material to broadcasters.
Recently, the company joined hands with the premium video-on-demand service Viu to produce a localised, ten-episode adaptation of global phenomenon The Bridge. Going forward, the production house has set its sights on producing more original shows.
Edited excerpts:
Tell us about your plans for 2018.
We are discussing the next subsequent series for The Test Case with ALTBalaji. We are also looking at a lot of developments in terms of originals, based on book rights with Indian authors; I think we will be able to make an announcement by May. We have tied up with Indian authors and publishers for the same. It’s still in the development stage; it could be in the international production level as well. We have reached non-scripted shows and will continue to grow with the same format. Having said that, what will help us grow is scripted shows. We treat digital or traditional TV platforms as scripted. Those are the growth areas that we see. As a company, we want to produce more original shows. We are expecting an increase, both in terms of revenue and bottom-line.
What is your take on production houses retaining show IPs?
If a project comes by and if we are allowed, we could take that risk but, ideally, not right now. The story should be good enough to take it to the international markets. We could do a pre-sale because we have the backend to do that. We could flip the model a bit, but broadly the same model applies that the Indian broadcaster would be paying much lesser than the cost.
What do you think about GEC viewership being impacted during IPL season?
We have probably moved past that thanks to the second screen. Largely, sports and news are already consumed on the phones. At the end of the day, traditional TV still survives because it’s the mass promotion mix. Whatever you do with the IPL, you have to advertise on the screens. Every individual will have their own screen. They have sports, Olympics to watch on one screen, they will have traditional TV to watch for something else. So, Amazon and Netflix are not affected and TV is also not affected.
What is your take on mythological shows?
As they say ‘old is gold’, all the old songs still work. Ten to fifteen years back, 18-20 year olds also watched that. Your grandparents taught you about mythology for your understanding; some are forced to consume these shows, while some willingly watched it. For instance, take a show named Jai Malhar, grandparents forced the youth to watch this show. The youth didn’t go to watch it, it was the pre-teens and the younger lot, in the evening, after coming back from playing or school, their grandparents have the TV on with Jai Malhar.
What is your thought on content segmentation strategy?
I don’t think that really exists. It used to be 10 years back. The assumption was that the channel wanted to keep their viewers to them, it was never a fight about the product, it was a fight about the channel. So, the idea behind it was, no one moves to another channel as the control shifts, the housewives will take over or the grandparents will take over...that was the theory earlier as it was channel to channel. Later there were many shows on different channels. So, right now it is more of a psychological thing rather than a strategy.
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