PremiumListen to this article |
Over-the-top streaming platform Amazon Prime Video will premiere a new series A League of Their Own on 12 August. The show stars Abbi Jacobson, Chanté Adams, D’Arcy Carden, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Roberta Colindrez, Nick Offerman, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Kate Berlant, Kendall Johnson, Kelly McCormack, Alex Désert , Priscilla Delgado, Aaron Jennings, Molly Ephraim, Melanie Field and Dale Dickey.
American films, television shows and programming in Turkish, German and Korean languages, including their dubbed versions, are emerging as a big draw on over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services, making up as much as 30% of overall viewership, said senior executives at several of these platforms.
While such international content finds ready takers among young urban Indians in the metros, those in small towns benefit from their dubbed versions in both Hindi and regional languages.
Netflix’s Extraction and The Kissing Booth have been popular in Hindi and Tamil as have Amazon’s The Boys, The Tomorrow War, Wonder Woman, and Parasite. Walt Disney, too, has decided to tap smaller towns by making Disney+ (including Marvel) content available even on its cheaper price plans in India to expand reach.
While a handful of niche, foreign language TV channels and torrent websites on the internet had introduced Indians to international content earlier, OTT platforms have helped improve ease of access.
Amazon Prime Video has also launched Prime Video Store, a transaction-video-on-demand (TVoD) offering that allows Prime subscribers as well as non-subscribers to access movies on rent. Users have to click on a separate tab on the app and website to access the pay-per-view service, with prices ranging from Rs. 69 to Rs. 499 for one-time access.
This April, Prime Video said that it would double its investment in India for the next five years and launch 40 new titles in the next two years, including originals, and enhance the scope of its unscripted series catalogue to explore genres such as biographies, true-crime, and investigative docudramas.