“Next trend in OTT will be genre mashup”: MX Player’s Gautam Talwar

The streaming platform’s chief content officer speaks to afaqs! after its series Campus Dairies and Bhaukaal 2 crossed 100 million views each.

Roohi. Ghanchakkar. Go Goa Gone. Laxmi. These are some of the Bollywood films that have traversed genres. They have brought together action, horror, drama and comedy (in different combinations) on the same scene. We may soon see this trend in the OTT space as well.

“The next trend in OTT will be genre mashup. This trend is emerging all across the world. People have begun to experiment with it. It's tough to crack it, but if you do then there is merit in it,” said Gautam Talwar, chief content officer at MX Player.

Besides genre mashups, Talwar says the other trends will be regional content, augmented and virtual reality.

“Moving forward regional is going to be big for all of us. We need to relate to people in their language, cultural milieu and context. The other trends taking shape are interactivity, AR and VR. We haven’t really explored the dystopian world. This genre is being looked at very seriously,” he explained.

Keeping these trends in mind, MX Player has three main focus areas for 2022- the long format shows, stronger regional pipeline and sequels to their shows.

“We're going to double up our attempts on Tamil and Marathi content. Also we are creating sequels to most of our shows. This year we will be releasing the sequels to Aashram, Raktanchal and Queen among others. Hopefully the audience that liked these shows will come back to watch the sequels. With this franchise creation is becoming a reality for MX. The shows have been so successful that is why we are creating its sequel. And of course, there are some more big tentpole shows that will make 2022 a lot more interesting,” he shared.

Among these shows is the platform’s new launch, a reality show - Lock Upp: Badass Jail, Atyaachari Khel. Hosted by Kangana Ranaut, the show will have 16 controversial celebrities locked up for months, stripped of their amenities. The entertainment app has partnered with ALTBalaji for it. Talwar says that such collaborations will fuel the future of OTT content.

“Consumers chase good content and if you can create that content with collaboration there is no reason why you should not be doing it,” he said.

MX Player and ALTBalaji will be livestreaming the show 24x7 on their respective platforms and the audience can directly interact with the contestants. They can even ‘punish’ or ‘award’ the contestants. Talwar says such interactivity will become a part of digital viewing irrespective of fiction or non-fiction formats.

“The interactivity can be built into storytelling itself. That's a trend that is definitely going to happen in the near future. With more and more content it will become a staple in the next five years. We have also been writing something on the interactivity platform for a fiction show,” he said.

The Covid19-induced lockdowns proved to be a boost for the OTT segment. During the first wave, streaming platforms in India recorded a 30 percent rise to 29 million paid subscribers in July from 22.2 million in March, according to industry estimates. During this time there was no new content on television and theatres were also shut. But as the country now limps back to normalcy, how does MX Player plan to retain its audience?

Talwar says that for the 18- 30 years, their target TG, there is a sense of comfort with OTT, making it their first preference. “They've cut the cord with television long ago. But they did not know where else to watch their content because the television was largely catering to the women. Also with cinemas being shut OTT got its boost. So the behaviour change has already happened,” he said.

Having said that, he believes that if they don't get good content they will be disappointed and will go away. “This is the Taka Tak generation. Their attention span remains only for 15 seconds. So it is a challenge to keep them hooked for 300 minutes. But if we provide them engaging, relatable and aspirational content, they will be loyal. So we have to make sure that we give them more of what they want to see,” he said.

In a bid to retain the audience for a longer time, they are also experimenting with the ‘very long format’. In this format, the web series would have around 30-50 episodes rather than the current five to 10 episodes. And the episodes will be released on the platform on a drip and not the whole season together.

“People are watching content in the very long format with Turkish, Mandarin and Korean shows. We have them on our platform as well in a separate tab called MX VDesi. That tells us that there is a hunger for content for a longer period of time. We're trying to create originals around that and hold on to the audience much longer. They will come in parts. There's no point in putting all the episodes together. The whole point is to make sure that the audience keeps coming to you more often,” he added.

The youth drama Campus Diaries was released earlier this month and within two weeks of its launch it crossed 100 million views. Last week the crime thriller Bhaukaal 2 was released on the platform and it also crossed 100 million views. At a time when the audience is spoiled for choice on OTT platforms, how does MX Player manage to pull crowds?

Talwar attributes it to the quality of content and the user experience of the app. “If you have a good piece of content, the audience will find it. We need to make sure that the content’s quality is something that the consumer is looking for and make them aware about it. Then it's also about the user experience. When they want to forward a scene or pause they should be able to do that,” he said.

So what is the kind of content that MX Player’s audience prefers to watch? Talwar says that in the last two and a half years the audience’s taste has not changed much.

“The need gap for crime, action and thriller will always remain because unfortunately that need is not satisfied by either television or cinema. Theatres have been closed for about two years now. So they gravitate towards OTT to watch a good crime thriller series or a slice of life comedy,” Talwar said.