Catching Up To Foreign Rivals: Hotstar Ups Content Creation Game, To Add Slew Of Web Originals This Quarter

Star India’s OTT platform Hotstar will be increasing its original content offering by launching the Hotstar Specials, the Television Post reports. The platform will compete against both foreign and local rivals like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, ALTBalaji, Zee 5 and SonyLiv.

The content, with few of the shows set to roll out this quarter, will be accessible after paying. However, consumers will be able to watch a few pilot episodes for free. All content will be made in seven languages as well as be dubbed in other languages.

Hotstar has revealed collaborations with 15 top movie producers for creating original content. Currently, Hotstar provides various originals like ‘Tanhaiyan’, ‘The Fanatics’, ‘CinePlay’, ‘Sarabhai vs Sarabhai’ and ‘As I'm Suffering From Kadhal’.

Star India MD Sanjay Gupta said, “Today we feel that the time is right to take the next leap from a Star perspective and take the next leap in storytelling and tell the biggest stories that India can tell and reach out to hopefully a billion screens as we move forward in the next three to four years.”

The Star India president and head Hindi GEC Gaurav Banerjee adds that Hotstar Specials aims to be ‘mass in the scale’ and not just ‘play in the niche area’. Further, the platform will allow Star experimenting with content that is not allowed on TV.

The projects are in production since the last six to eight months and the aim is to ensure whatever is created is spread across the country and languages.

Clearing the misconception of Hotstar being known only for watching cricket and sports, Hotstar head original content Nikhil Madhok, says, “While sports play an important role in the content consumption mix led by the IPL, but it is not the only driver. Hotstar has added news, and this will be important keeping in mind the General Elections”.