In 2018, Netflix and Amazon Prime arrived in India to offer web series on OTT platform. Prior to that Indian audience was attracted by foreign web series such as Game of Thrones — that facilitated the acceptance of Indian web series.
A movie has a duration of 2 to 2.5 hours, but for some stories this is not enough. Such stories can be offered as web series. As there is no censorship, there is full creative freedom. A smart phone user enjoys the series all by himself on his device. Web series weave the plots around sex and violence for the young audience. Anurag Kashyap, Neeraj and Vikramaditya directed Sacred Game. Hindi web series set the norms for theme and presentation. The theme should engage the audience every minute and this covers a period of 400 minutes (the length of 3 feature films). It uses mostly unnecessary sex scenes, hyped dialogue and cuss words. It ends for season 1 on a hook to keep the audience waiting for the next season. These are the ingredients of the web series. It cost Rs.100 crores to produce season one’s Sacred Game which generated an estimated revenue of Rs.900 crore. This gives an idea of the economics of the web series. If the first season is successful, the budget goes up twice or thrice for the subsequent seasons.
On the lines of Sacred Game, other web serials were launched — Mirzapur, Patallok, Asur and Family Man. On Amazon Prime, there was Breathe. There was a hero challenged by the circumstances. He commits crime. There is a bold inspector who investigates the crime. There is a tragedy in the lives of both these characters. It affects them psychologically. There are references to Indian mythology and characters. Along with this story line, there are stories of terrorism and Indian investigators who are at beautiful places abroad to crack the crime. Shrikant Bashir on SonyLiv is an illustration of this type. There is a mix of terrorism, bank scam, ebola virus in the series. Some series are exceptions to this trend — Panchayat, Made in Heaven, Taj Mahal, Bandish Bandit. The last one allows the enjoyment of Indian music.
Smart TV makes it possible to see the series on big TV in the drawing room with the family. Internet penetration has allowed even rural audience to enjoy web series.
As the audience expanded and family viewing too, the exaggerated elements were diluted. It was self-regulation. It is to be seen whether it will continue to be self-regulated or censorship will be imposed on it. What format the web series assumes after censorship is a matter of speculation. It should be different from the traditional mother-in-law and daughter-in-law TV serials. All the web series respect the regional elements. They portray the life style, local politics and power centres. Serials such as Mafia, Naxalbari and Betal narrated the struggle of Naxalites and nomads. However, the treatment is superficial and not deep enough.
Web series have changed the costing of entertainment industry. They threw open the doors for talented actors. Even some neglected actors came into focus. Many new producers have come on the scene. As the medium has tremendous reach, even locally produced serials get a wider audience.