We are trying to become more Indian in content offering: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

PTI, Dec 6, 2019, 2:21 PM IST

New Delhi: Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings on Friday said the company has placed great emphasis on creating original Indian content for its audiences in the country and has invested Rs 3000 crore towards that in 2019-2020.

Hastings said the streamer is committed to ramping up its original Indian content, something that will be visible to the audiences in the coming months.

“We launched in 2016 and we have continued to invest. So we have a lot of content from the United States, the UK and Spain. We are developing our Indian content here.

“This year and next year, we spend about Rs 3000 crore developing content and you will start to see a lot of stuff hit the screens. We got about 100 employees in Mumbai and a couple thousand working on different productions. So we are trying to become more Indian in the content offering,” Hastings said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here.

He said the top performing Netflix shows from India include Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer “Sacred Games”, “Little Things” and “Delhi Crime”.

Hastings said not just Netflix, all the streaming services are betting big on Indian content in terms of investment, which will herald the golden age of television in the country.

“The next 5-10 years will be the golden age of television. You are seeing unbelievable and unrivalled levels of investment. Partially from global companies like Apple, Amazon, Disney and Viacom. There are all investing here in India as well as in the UK and the US. We are seeing more content made than ever before. It’s a great export.

“The internet has the possibility to really transform the Indian content market to be export-driven. So far, we have had some amazing successes. ‘Sacred Games’ travelled around the world. We are really excited about those stories,” he added.

Hastings cited the example of animated series “Mighty Little Bheem”.

“In the last one year, 27 million households outside of India have started watching ‘Mighty Little Bheem’. So, Indian ideas and characters are spreading. We got one eye on being very local and authentic and one eye on what will be shared around the world.