Lokmat Media, the publisher of dailies such as Lokmat Times (English daily), Lokmat (Marathi daily), besides operating news channel News18 Lokmat plans to beef up its content offering. The media firm post the roll out of its first web-series in Marathi StrilingPulling, last year, plans to create six such shows. “As a group we want to have all formats of content which is being consumed by users. We run a website called sudhdesi.com and we air the web-series,” Karun Gera, president, sales, Lokmat Media, told ETBE.

The company plans to invest anywhere in the range of Rs 50 crore - Rs 100 crore to build up video content offering over the next three years. These web-series are being made in Marathi.

According to Gera, the company is also looking at inking content syndication deals with various video over-the-top platforms. “Last time we used chat app, ShareChat to distribute the web-series. The aim is to create content, it doesn’t really matter who distributes. We are open to the idea of working with any video streaming platform,” he added.

Besides syndication, the company is also looking at other revenue stream such as branded content, in-series product placement. “Marvel’s association with Audi is a classic example of brands can be placed seamlessly to tell a story,” he noted.

Lokmat Media recently acquired Gulbadan Talkies Private Limited, a video production firm. Based in Mumbai, Gulabadan Talkies operates Bharatiya Digital Party (BhaDiPa) which produces a range of video content.

It should be noted that ETBrandEquity.com is run by Times Internet Ltd (TIL), which is a subsidiary of Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), which competes with Lokmat Media both in the space of newspapers and news channels. Further, TIL runs MXPlayer a video OTT platform which has a slate of its original content besides programmes from other players.