President’s Message
Dear Friends,
Very Warm Greetings!!!
Recently, at a get-together with friends, someone asked: “So, what have you been watching lately on Netflix?” And it occurred to me that this is the question that has replaced ‘What have you been reading lately?’”
Nowadays, most people subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime and have one or two shows to recommend. And the next evening at home, I was going through Netflix and Amazon Prime and based on my area of interest adding the recommended shows to my watch list.
It, indeed, has been a very long time since I viewed the regular television channels for entertainment. Ever since the advent of Netflix and Amazon Prime, the choice has been video streaming services — or over-the-top (OTT) media.
OTT Media is dramatically changing the way we access and consume entertainment in India. The enormous choice, the
ability to watch at convenience and the ability to rewind a missed joke, pause the show for a break, are some of the advantages that a fixed-time movie in a theatre and regular television do not offer. In contrast to fixed time TV serial episodes, OTT media offers the pleasure of binge-watching – who wants to wait for a whole week for the next episode to know what happens next? We want to know it now and we get hooked on to it. There is an explosion of content. For the price of one to two movie tickets (and this does not include popcorn and snacks), we have access to some of highest-rated and most-watched television shows and movies in the world.
Going to the theatre to watch a film is an entirely different experience with probably a family outing (and, of course, popcorn and snacks). But this is now more restricted when we want to watch certain films on the big screen or want to occasionally enjoy the theatre experience, especially the modern theatre experience.
The film in the theatre or the serial on TV control one’s time. OTT media on the other hand allow one to be in control of one’s time. One can spend nine hours on a weekend and finish off the full season of a serial. Or, one could watch a few episodes of a thriller, take a break with something lighter for a few evenings, and then go back to the chaos of the thriller.
What Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hot Star have also exposed us to is great international TV shows. Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hot Star are presently free from Indian censorship, but that’s another story for another time – the fact remains that these give the viewer unmatched freedom, and the content probably gives more highs than Indian television has ever given. Remember the times of the older soap TV shows such as Buniyaad, Mahabharat, Hum Log, Ramayan, Here’s Lucy, Count of Monte Cristo, The Invisible Man, etc.?
Happy Reading!
Preeti Mehta
President