American streaming platform Netflix is set to spend ₹3,000 crore to create content in India over this year and the next, says CEO and founder Reed Hastings. “We are only getting started here and the centerpiece of our story is content," he added. Hastings was speaking at the 17th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi on Friday. The streaming service has 160 million subscribers globally but has not revealed its India numbers yet. He also commented on the kind of content which has been successful in India.
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Video Summary
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The speaker discusses the expansion of a streaming service in India, highlighting significant financial investments in local content and the diverse viewing habits of the Indian audience. By blending international hits with relatable local dramas, the service aims to mirror the personalized experience of reading a novel, moving away from the constraints of linear television.
Tell us about your reading of India because you've come to look at India and understand
India from a very unique perspective. Sure. What people watch, right? So what does that tell you
about the country, about its people? Well, our audience, you know, we launched in 2016,
we've continued to invest, so we've got obviously a lot of content from the states in the UK and
Spain and then we're developing our Indian and local content here. This year and next year,
we'll spend about 3,000 crores developing content, so you'll start to see a lot of stuff hit the
screen, big investment. We've got about 100 people, employees in Mumbai and a couple thousand
that are working on the different productions. So we're really, you know, trying to invest in
that becoming, you know, more Indian in the content offering. What have we learned? Little
Things is one of our top series this week, a new season came out, season three, so that's two young
people living in an apartment first time, you know, so very relatable for young people, kind of
honest life. Deadly Crime and Sacred Games have been two of our biggest successes here. So people
love, you know, big drama, those kind of shows. When you look at your Indian audience, and I know
you're not going to give us a number, you're not going to tell us how many people you have here,
but my guess would be anything between 1 million and 2 million. It's 160 globally, so it's a big
number, but like you said, we're just getting started here in India. Yeah, sure. What do they
watch more? Do they watch local content or do they watch your international content more?
You know, the great thing about on-demand service like Netflix, you know, or Hotstar or Amazon is
you get to choose what you want. So people watch a mix, it's all over the board. So some people
watch Friends from 25 years ago and others watch Beast of No Nation. So it's an incredible variety
and that's really what the internet's about and it's, frankly, it brings us back to the book. So
people say, oh, Netflix invented binge viewing, but the truth is the original binge view was
the novel and you got to stay up late at night and read it and take it on holiday and it was
personal and you have great choice of thousands of great books. You know, and then there was this
temporary era of linear TV and now with the internet, it's coming back to this more personal
market like books are.
