‘The Audience Can’t Be Tricked’

‘In
the
audience’s
mind
there
is
no
urgency
to
go
see
a
film
in
the
theatre.’
‘If
you
pay
for
social
media
buzz
it
does
not
convert
into
bums
on
seats.’

Jio
Studios,
an
independent
arm
of
Reliance
Industries,
is
having
a
great
time
at
the
box
office.

Shaitaan,

Laapata
Ladies,

Baipan
Bhari
Deva,
many
of
its
releases
last
year
and
this
year
have
been
hitting
the
right
notes
either
at
the
BO
or
on
streaming.

It
ended
last
year
with
Rs
676
crore
(Rs
6.76
billion)
in
gross
domestic
BO
collection
—
this
is
money
inclusive
of
trade
share
and
taxes.

Jyoti
Deshpande,
president,
media
business
for
RIL,
in
conversation
with

Vanita
Kohli-Khandekar,
at
her
office
in
Mumbai
talks
about
Jio’s
purple
patch
and
more.

What
is
Jio
Studios
all
about?

In
2018
when
I
joined
RIL,
Jio
had
already
launched.

We
had
changed
the
game
in
telecommunications
from
voice
to
data.

Internet
consumption
in
India
was
growing
rapidly
to
be
amongst
the
highest
in
the
world.

We
were
at
the
juncture
where
we
needed
to
feed
more
video
to
the
country
to
accelerate
this
growth.

It
was
apparent
that
media
was
going
to
be
a
very
important
wheel
in
the
overall
consumption
game.

My
role
at
that
time
was
to
build
meaningful
media
businesses
together
across
the
value
chain.

I
had
board
positions
in
Viacom18,
Network
18,
etc.
(RIL
owns
Network18
and
its
subsidiary
Viacom18
and
Deshpande
was
CEO
from
2021-2023).

We
didn’t
have
a
direct
scalable
presence
in
the
content
value
chain
other
than
the
TV
programming
created
by
Colors.
So
we
set
up
Jio
Studios
with
a
vision
to
become
India’s
largest
storyteller.

But
you
had
Viacom18
Studios…

We
still
have
Viacom18
Studios.
At
the
time
Viacom
was
a
joint
venture
with
Paramount
and
we
wanted
to
own
and
build
something
to
scale
in
Reliance
directly.
Therefore,
we
set
up
Jio
Studios.

Mukesh
Ambani
(chairman
and
managing
director,
RIL)
always
had
a
mantra
of
‘Crawl,
Walk,
Run’.

Crawl
—
proof
of
concept;
Walk
—
early
test
of
scale,
Run
—
execute
to
scale.

This
ensures
quality
and
core
values
are
not
lost
when
businesses
grow.

The
question
was
how
do
you
build
and
grow
people
and
personality-driven
businesses
to
scale.

Starting
small
with
beautiful
gems
like

Stree,

Luka
Chuppi,
and

Bala,
this
journey
culminated
in
our
announcement
in
April
2023
of
a
100-content
slate
of
movies,
Web
series,
and
short-form
content,
in
Hindi
and
other
languages.

What
happens
to
Viacom18
Studios
and
Fox
Star,
Disney’s
studio
arm?
(Disney
Star
and
Viacom18
announced
their
merger
earlier
this
year).

It
is
healthy
to
have
a
separate
storytelling
capability.
We
can
all
coexist
separately
as
we
have
in
the
past.
Or
eventually,
consolidate
one
way
or
the
other.
All
options
are
open
at
this
stage.

What
is
Jio
Studio’s
relationship
then
with
all
the
other
media
firms
within
RIL?

Jio
Studio
is
an
independent
studio
and
any
relationship
with
any
group
company
is
strictly
arm’s
length.

We
also
licence
our
content
to
Netflix,
Amazon
Prime
Video,
Sony,
Zee,
or
Star.

Now
that
distribution
has
consolidated
across
four
to
five
firms
—
Netflix,
Amazon
Prime
Video,
Disney-Reliance,
etc
—
is
the
media
game
only
one
of
intellectual
property
(IP)?

Distribution
is
going
through
mergers
and
acquisitions.

Then
there
is
the
euphoria
of
selling
everything
to
over-the-top.
That
party
is
over.

It
never
helped
to
increase
the
pie.
It
only
shifted
monies
from
one
pocket
to
the
other.

The
sum
of
parts
has
to
be
greater
than
the
whole
for
the
industry
to
grow
meaningfully.

If
consumption
(from
the
end
user/audience)
doesn’t
increase,
the
industry
size
doesn’t
increase.

IP
or
stories
(whether
short
or
long
or
in
any
language
or
format)
are
at
the
heart
of
the
entertainment
business.

Leverage
over
it
results
in
a
sustainable
competitive
advantage
for
the
eventual
winner
who
aspires
to
take
it
all,
or
at
a
large
chunk
of
the
market
share.

Where
is
the
slate
of
100
right
now?
Are
they
all
produced
by
you?

We
have
released
50-plus
films
and
web
series.
Eight
of
the
films
such
as

Baipan
Bhari
Deva,
Teri
Baaton
Mein
Uljha
Jiya
and

Laapataa
Ladies
have
been
back-to-back
successes.

The
top
three
movies
in
India
on
Netflix
for
the
past
couple
of
weeks
(when
this
interview
took
place)
—

Shaitaan,
Laapata
Ladies,
Article
370
—
are
our
films.

We
put
together
100
pieces
of
content
through
a
mix
of
co-productions,
productions,
and
acquisitions.

The
IP
for
all
of
these
is
owned
by
us.
The
100
figure
gave
us
an
opening
balance
to
jump-start
the
Jio
Cinema
platform
as
well
as
licence
at
scale
to
third
parties.

Going
forward
we
would
be
doing
maybe
15
to
20
projects
a
year.

This
will
include
a
carefully
chosen
set
of
tentpole
films
with
A-list
talent,
medium-budget
stories
like

Bloody
Daddy
or

Zara
Hatke
Zara
Bachke,
and
also
content-driven,
small-budget
movies
like

Laapata
Ladies.

IMAGE:
Jyoti
Deshpande,
CEO,
Jio
Studios

What
seems
to
be
working
especially
in
the
theatres?

It
involves
a
lot
of
intuition,
conviction,
and
self-belief.
No
one
sets
out
to
make
a
bad
film.
But
the
market
has
changed.

The
audience
cannot
be
tricked.
Great
stories
that
carry
positive
word
of
mouth
(more
than
reviews
from
critics)
or
a
very
visceral
never-seen-before
viewing
experience
are
the
very
minimum
any
film
needs
to
deliver.

Also,
there
is
this
prescriptive
window
of
8
weeks
for
release
on
OTT
after
theatrical
and
12
weeks
on
TV.

In
the
audience’s
mind
then
is
there
is
no
urgency
to
go
see
a
film
in
the
theatre.
And
social
media
is
a
monster.

If
you
pay
for
social
media
buzz
it
does
not
convert
into
bums
on
seats.

If
you
can
create
(organically)
social
media
conversations,
dinner
table
chats,
WhatsApp
chats,
and
trailer
views,
only
then
does
the
film
stand
a
chance.
Because
the
consumer
already
has
the
OTT
option
in
his
pocket.

Has
streaming
changed
the
economics
of
film-making?

The
unit
economics
have
not
changed.
The
multiplexes
always
say
they
are
bleeding
and
are
always
pushing
for
better
terms
from
content
businesses.

The
theatrical
BO
has
not
grown;
new
theatres
are
not
being
built.

Our
markets
are
underserved
and
therefore
piracy
thrives.
It
is
not
as
if
content
is
not
being
consumed
—
it
is
just
that
the
money
is
not
flowing
into
the
industry.

OTT
has
grown
in
lieu
of
TV
and
theatrical.
An
eight-week
window
is
a
honeytrap.
It
has
created
a
(consumer)
habit
that
‘I
will
see
it
on
OTT’.

Meanwhile,
production
costs
are
not
going
down,
and
actors’
costs
are
not
going
down.

The
unit
economics
of
this
business
require
a
disruption,
a
paradigm
shift
as
the
risk
and
rewards
currently
are
not
equitable.

What
can
be
done?

The
creative
part
of
the
value
chain
in
the
Indian
entertainment
industry
is
so
fragmented.

The
producer
wants
his
release,
the
exhibitor
wants
his
share,
the
South
is
doing
its
own
thing,
and
other
regional
languages
are
marginal.

Hollywood
is
consolidated
into
five
neat
studios.
Here
there
are
hundreds
of
producers
and
few
studios.

Each
producer’s
interest
is
not
aligned;
A
pure
studio
like
Jio
Studios
wants
to
maximise
all
windows
of
monetisation.

A
studio
like
Netflix
or
Amazon
Prime
may
be
wanting
to
produce
content
to
mainly
serve
the
OTT
window
at
the
cost
of
the
other
revenue
streams.

So,
each
is
looking
at
it
from
a
different
angle.
There
is
no
common
vision.

The
only
thing
that
everyone
seems
to
agree
on
(except
the
stars)
is
that
content
prices
must
go
down.

Feature
Presentation:
Rajesh
Alva/Rediff.com