New Delhi: Till five years ago, Indian television was dominated by Saas-Bahu soap operas and family dramas. Repetitive content and limited choice left the audience wanting more.
This boredom started paving the way for the streaming platform like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Disney Hotstar. These platforms offered a wide range of content across all genres and languages. With the audience shifting towards OTT platform, daily soap viewership started dipping. However, the worst damage was done during Covid.
As the shoots were stalled, there were no new episodes on TV serials. Since people were locked at home, they had ample time. This led more and more audience to shift and explore content of streaming platforms and Youtube.
A few months later daily soap shoot restarted and GEC channels started airing new episodes but a large chunk of audience refused to shift back to regular saas-bahu drama on Television.
This led sharp drop in viewership on Television. Speaking about this content disruption seasoned director Ismail Khan states “People are bored of the same content over the years. Same stories are repackaged and served to the audience.”
According to Ismail Khan, another reason for the drop in daily soap viewership is the rise of OTT. “Lot of people have subscribed to Disney Hotstar and other platforms. New episodes are uploaded on it before the actual telecast on TV, so people prefer to watch it on OTT as per their convenience.”
Ismail also insisted on the need to give a chance for story evolution.
“Channels hardly give time to any show. It the show does not show positive results in two weeks, the entire story is changed which leads to huge disruption. A show needs time to grow. So channels and makers should be little patient. At least a month’s time should be given and original storyline should be followed.”- states Ismail .
Ismail’s wife Supriya Khan is also from TV industry and have played multiple roles in a number of shows. She addresses the concern of actors who are always on the edge. “If the show does not do well, the story is changed and eventually the characters are changed. Overnight actors are asked to leave the show” – says Supriya Khan.
With Indian viewer’s journey going through remarkable transformation next 3 years is going to be make or break year for Indian GEC.
