MUMBAI: People tend to have a fixed perception when it comes to actor Rana Daggubati – that of a consummate action hero. What they don’t know is that the Baahubali star is a man who dons many hats – producer, VFX supervisor, master of the gab, entrepreneur. Recently, Daggubati launched his very own YouTube channel South Bay, marking his entry into the world of content creation.
Rana’s South Bay will offer content from varied languages with duration ranging from ten seconds to ten hours. The actor’s intent behind this YouTube channel is to provide a platform where not only mainstream talent will be able to create cultural content but also to shine the spotlight on upcoming independent creators.
South Bay will host programs cutting across genres and formats: from live chats, snackable short forms, news, music, animation, to fiction & non-fiction – there is enough and more for everyone. Daggubati described it as a launchpad for filmmakers who wish to go on major OTT’s.
The driving force behind South Bay is to make it possible for those in the alternative sub-culture space to come into the mainstream, highlighted Daggubati. The idea is to start off with the YouTube channel and then take on Instagram’s IGTV. Their long-term plans involve hosting all content on their own platform – Southbay.live. On festival days, there will be two-hour-long live streaming sessions. He’s excited about his show Why Are You, which will feature Bhuvan Bam, Taapsee Pannu, Karan Johar, Ram Gopal Verma, Kangana Ranaut, Nargis Fakhri and many others. As the show progresses Daggubati wants to rope in politicians for the commentary piece.
“We wanted to bring a system of fair play where the large part of user base is scrolling and watching OTT content where there is so much to watch. But the idea hear is to start curating that content and then go back live system. First source of monetization is going to be through advertising and secondly through YouTube and Instagram monetization,” he said.
For Daggubati, cultured content has always been on the cards but there was a dearth of platforms that were picking up content based out of India. Hence, he decided to launch a channel that focuses on India’s pop culture and something that address the newer generation. He added, “I have observed that in India everything is growing except cultural content. If something is sub-cultured ten years ago, it still continues to be sub-cultured and it never takes mainstream stage. We wanted to go digital because that is where the audience is. Another important aspect is the creator owns the IP as long as he lives. The problem with most content that is built, is the creator loses the value or the IP very quickly but here we are making sure we have enough creators who will stay with us for a longer period of time. We will help them with the monetization and grow further.”
With its millennial news segment, South Bay will tap into the rising trend among young internet users to consume news on social media. For the uninitiated, 15 years ago Daggubati owned an animation company, but nothing worked out. Now, through his YouTube channel he wants to chase his passion with shows like Irreverent, promises to be a gamechanger in the Indian animation ecosystem. Unscripted content is also in the pipeline, with two shows featuring bonafide South superstars – Coming Back to Life with Lakshmi Manchu and Secret Box with Shruti Haasan – which will bring together personalities from across the globe for a conversation on life post the pandemic. For music enthusiasts, Sublime Collective will serve as a six-month-long campaign to promote handpicked independent artist across the country. Clearly, the programming line-up is packed with edgy, engaging and entertaining offerings.
Viewers belonging to the age group of 16-45 years are South Bay’s primary target audience. For now, most shows will be in South Indian languages, while a few are going to be in Hindi. Post the first live show, Daggubati will start dropping content in independent languages. He has set his sights on bringing premium curated content in a free-play system. By generating a global awareness for Indian content, he wants to connect creators the world. Being present on the digital platform will provide them a chance to come together and build an overall ecosystem.
South Bay has also collaborated with Triller as their exclusive and official short form video content partner. Through cross promotions South Bay and Triller will promote the respective content, programming of every single show will be packaged and uploaded specifically for the Triller format.
Much like the characters he plays on-screen, Daggubati has undertaken a daunting endeavour in building a multi-cultural content platform that gives independent creators the chance to showcase their talent. But he’s confident and has developed a taste for success – be it on the big screen or small – and he’ll draw on his well-spring of diverse know-how and flexibility to ensure that his latest experiment pays off in a big way.
