Kannada content struggles for space on OTT platforms

While a handful of Kannada movies have managed to do reasonably well on streaming platforms, regional content creators from the industry overall have struggled to find a slot on OTT platforms.

With the mushrooming of streaming platforms, movies and soap operas have become accessible in living rooms across the country, breaking region and language barriers. Among the south Indian industries, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies have made their presence felt across the country on various over-the-top (OTT) platforms over the last few years, with a steady increase in non-native audiences. But, even in this gold rush, Kannada contents are still struggling to find a space for themselves.

An executive working with one of the streaming platforms that plans to expand its southern content, agreed with the lack of response to Kannada content. (AFP)

While a handful of Kannada movies have managed to do reasonably well on streaming platforms, regional content creators from the industry overall have struggled to find a slot on OTT platforms. In 2020, a Kannada web-series – Honeymoon – had a similar fate when it was not accepted by any platform. Later, a Telugu OTT platform, impressed by the content, did decide to stream it, but only after dubbing it in Telugu.

Pawan Kumar, director of the movie U-Turn, which was the first Kannada movie to get an OTT release, said that while some Kannada movies have managed to find a space in India’s OTT experiment, they were not a success story as big as Malayalam industry. “Over the years, because of various movies in our language coming out on OTT platforms, Kannada content did get some exposure, but it has not been able to create a buzz like contents from Malayalam and other south Indian industries. It was this buzz and word-of-mouth that helped our neighbouring industry become so popular on OTT services. People went looking for Malayalam movies because of the buzz,” said Kumar.

Kannada movie director Hemanth Rao, who was also a co-writer for the Hindi movie Andhadhun, took examples of short films to put his point across. “If you compare the views a Kannada short film and a Telugu short film has received, you will see the audience for the Kannada short film is less. Even the most popular short films in Kannada will have around only one million views. OTT work is based on market response. This is a reason for the poor response for Kannada content on OTT,” said Rao.

An executive working with one of the streaming platforms that plans to expand its southern content, agreed with the lack of response to Kannada content.

“In the entire country, Bengaluru reports the highest subscriptions and views. At the same time, the business from the rest of Karnataka is not as big. If you look at Bengaluru, the demand is not for Kannada content, but audiences here watch everything from international movies to regional movies. It is often the quality of movies or the buzz around them that attracts them. Kannada content per se doesn’t have such demand. One of the reasons is the low subscriptions from rest the state,” he said.

“It is not all bad news,” said writer and actor Danish Sait, who has made two Kannada movies for OTT platforms. “I’m talking from my personal experiences. While comparing the situation three years ago, Kannada movies made a big jump,” he said.

Sait added that OTT services have given a platform for content creators like him, who could not bring masses to the theatres like the big stars, but were able to create engaging content. “OTT has given a lot of people like me the big platform. We are the people who have made careers because of the internet and that is one of the reasons we know that the content we create is best suited for OTT. Because of the streaming services, we have been able to take our movies to a national audience and their response gives us the confidence to make more content,” said Sait.

However, several film critics said that compared to the other southern industries, Kannada is yet to find its niche and more importantly, the number of quality films made in the language is limited. “If you look at the Malayalam industry, post-2010 there was a paradigm shift in the movies that came out of there. The quality of the movies ensured that there was an audience for these movies across the country,” said a senior film journalist with an online platform, who didn’t want to be named.

“At the same time, Kannada movies continue to produce the so-called ‘event movies’, where the movie revolves around a superstar, and it is a spectacle created for his fans. Such a movie will never get a national audience. Yes, there have been some movies, like Thithi, but we could count the number of such movies on fingers,” she added.

A Kannada director, who didn’t want to be named, said that in the new era of Indian cinema, the industry is stuck in a catch-22 situation. “The money at present is in making mass, superstar-based movies. Only some of them, like KGF, have gained audiences outside of the state. If the Kannada industry needs to mark in this new OTT experiment, we need fresh and nuanced content appealing to the new internet generation,” he said.

“For this, most filmmakers who have the potential to make path-breaking movies need producers. But producers are not certain about investing, since Kannada movies are not getting enough space in the streaming services. In this chicken and egg situation, we are losing out,” he added.

In the past few years, several attempts have been made to make local streaming services in Kannada, but they have not been successful. “I wouldn’t take names, but there were several portals that started streaming services in Kannada. They even got some good content. But for running such a service, you need a constant flow of funds. For example, ‘Aha’ streaming service in Telugu is backed by some major business groups, who saw the potential in regional content. Here, the owners are trying struggling for funding. In the lockdown, we saw that tier-two cities consumed more online content and even paid for it. Kannada missed that opportunity,” said the executive cited before.

The film critic concluded that if Kannada movies have to make an impact on the national audience and thus on the streaming platforms, there is a need to relook at the quality of the content the industry produces. “Streaming is as big as a threatre release now. To make a mark in streaming services, our content needs to grow beyond event films for superstars. Our industry is known for producers like Shankar Nag, who were way ahead of their times. It is time to bring back such mindsets to industry,” she said.