{"id":10400,"date":"2024-03-18T08:50:50","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T12:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2024-03-19T10:13:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T14:13:15","slug":"navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating India\u2019s Scripted Formats Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a second season of an Indian adaptation of\u00a0<\/em>Ray Donovan\u00a0in the works, Locomotive Global\u2019s Sunder Aaron talks to\u00a0<\/em>TV Formats about getting international scripted hits remade in the country.<\/em><\/p>\n

The streaming wars have been transformative for producers of scripted content in India. \u201cThis industry, of premium scripted drama, is only about five or six years old in India,\u201d says Sunder Aaron, a former Sony Pictures Television executive who co-founded Locomotive Global in 2013 to tap into the healthy appetite for new content from the wealth of streamers, local and international, seeking to grow their businesses in India. \u201cBefore that, any writer was trying to write for either Hindi cinema or Indian television. All the writers now have a different outlet for their skills. Film is a director\u2019s medium. Premium scripted drama is a writer\u2019s medium. We saw the writers getting more respect, more attention, more value. A lot of those writers became showrunners.\u201d<\/p>\n

While working to develop locally resonant stories that will also appeal globally, Aaron and his team have also been acquiring scripted formats from the international market, turning Showtime\u2019s\u00a0Ray Donovan<\/em>\u00a0into\u00a0Rana Naidu<\/em>\u00a0on Netflix. \u201cIt was our foray to working with big South Indian stars,\u201d says Aaron of the show, which rolled out on Netflix last year.<\/p>\n

Locomotive, a division of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE) since 2021, has optioned two other scripted formats that it is currently developing for India. \u201cThey give you the structure, characters and the story arcs as a beginning point,\u201d Aaron says. \u201cThe drawback, obviously, is they\u2019re expensive, especially the premium, blue-chip ones. Platforms are rationalizing their businesses now. Now that they have to look at the economics and that additional cost, format licensing is tough. But studios and IP owners are reasonable and more and more flexible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scripted format licensing deals are a challenge, Aaron concedes, with platforms wanting local shows as well as global rights. IP owners may have to \u201cbreak a lot of old ideas of rights and restrictions,\u201d Aaron says. \u201cPeople are up for new, interesting models now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for what he looks for in projects that could be remade in India, Aaron notes that crime thrillers with a family hook continue to be in demand at the streamers, but he\u2019s also keen to pursue other genres, including lighthearted drama and comedies. \u201cOur production values are very high, and our production costs are anywhere from a fifth to a tenth of a similar production in North America or the U.K. Some genres just haven\u2019t landed yet. There is a latent demand for horror, but nobody has tapped it yet. Same with science fiction. It\u2019s chicken and egg. No one has done well with it because nobody\u2019s really gone for it. Nobody\u2019s gone for it because nobody\u2019s done well with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aaron is also championing breakthrough ideas developed locally, noting that India has the potential to develop stories that can resonate globally, as countries like Turkey, Korea and Israel have done. \u201cGetting to the point where we\u2019re creating our own original content that itself can get licensed or format licensed is exciting,\u201d Aaron says. \u201cWhen we develop something that\u2019s original, we\u2019re keeping that in mind. And we\u2019re talking to professionals in our industry that have that ability to take something and help us to spread it around the world. That is the game we want to play in.\u201d<\/p>\n

India\u2019s production incentives could help the country expand its presence in the international scripted co-production landscape. \u201cIf I do a co-production and the financing is coming from abroad, I can get significant rebates\u2014up to 30 to 40 percent. We already have low production costs. When you add this rebate on top of it, it\u2019s pretty significant. Take a show that costs $500,000 an episode to make in India\u2014and that\u2019s a pretty good budget in India\u2014and you do ten episodes. If you can get 30 percent of that back, you\u2019re talking $3 million to $4 million to make this whole series. If you write it and produce it in such a way that it is going to appeal to global audiences, you\u2019ve got a winning formula. We try to work with showrunners that have that capability to deliver something that will appeal to Indian viewers, but also can have that appeal globally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Locomotive Global\u2019s Sunder Aaron talks about getting international scripted hits remade in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":10401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,69],"tags":[3644,3645],"class_list":["post-10400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-features","category-top-stories","tag-locomotive-global","tag-sunder-aaron","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nNavigating India\u2019s Scripted Formats Sector - TVFORMATS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Navigating India\u2019s Scripted Formats Sector - TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Locomotive Global\u2019s Sunder Aaron talks about getting international scripted hits remade in India.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVFORMATS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-18T12:50:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-19T14:13:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2017\/07\/Sunder-Aaron-Locomotive-324.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/\",\"name\":\"Navigating India\u2019s Scripted Formats Sector - TVFORMATS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-03-18T12:50:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-19T14:13:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/navigating-indias-scripted-formats-sector\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Navigating India\u2019s Scripted Formats Sector\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/\",\"name\":\"TVFORMATS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvformats\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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