AHA FOUNDER ALLU ARAVIND, CEO RAVIKANT SABNAVIS ON TREND OF REMAKES: 'IT'S DYING'
Popular producer Allu Aravind, at the recently held South Indian Film Festival, explained that the trend of remakes is dying. Being the founder of the home-grown OTT platform, Aha, Allu Aravind said that 'remakes are not viable' any more. Aha's CEO, Ravikant Sabnavis concurred and said that audiences' taste has evolved over time, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.Â
At the film festival, Allu Aravind said, "The trend of remakes is dying. I have made several remakes as a producer in the past. I am not looking down on remakes, but on a business aspect, it is not viable any more. Thanks to OTT platforms, people can watch the film in its original form."Â
In an exclusive conversation with IndiaToday.in, Aha's CEO Ravikant Sabnavis spoke on the same topic apart from the growth of Aha over the last four years.
Excerpts from the conversation:
Q: How do you think the audiences' taste has changed?
A: From a consumer perspective, audiences have been exposed to different kinds of content, and they now want more, be it Indian or international. As Allu Aravind sir said, people see films in their original language. He mentioned that the trend of remakes is dead. Earlier, it wasn't the case as the exposure is wide. Remaking now has its limitations now. Be it stories or quality or language, audiences have evolved and are still evolving.
Q: What kind of changes you brought in?
A: Change is the only constant. We're still a start-up and are just four years old. In the last 12 months, we are getting a deeper understanding of the market. What will allow us to sustain over years is to have stories that resonate with audiences. The content you will see rolling out in the next few months will be based on consumer understanding. These will be stories resonating with the Telugu viewers.
The youth segment on Aha is growing faster than other segments. We've concentrated on building stories more for the younger audience (18 to 24 years), while continuing to engage the family audience.
Q: In 2022, Allu Aravind said that he will be investing 1,000 crore into Aha. What's the update on it?
A: What you've been seeing over the past 12 months is the result of the investments that have been coming in. We're investing in curating films, web series, long format (50-60 episodes) and reality shows. Our vision is to have Aha in every Telugu household. We're now trying to create content belonging to different genres and sections. We have sports, cartoons, shows for youngsters and for education as well. We collaborated with the Telangana government to have two educational channels.
Q: You also ventured into the Tamil market. What are the takeaways from your business in Kollywood?
A: The first year of launch, we had big films and big shows. Here, we have an immense understanding of the market. In Tamil, the first year was just a trial, and we spent time understanding the market. We understood that youngsters like long-format shows, especially a show like 'Vera Maari Office'. That show did really well for us, and we did a spin-off for Valentine's Day. We have Season 2 coming up as well. We understood that we needed to target this space.
Q: People now go to theatres for the big-ticket films and watch the other ones on OTT. How are you tapping into that?
A: I believe that people strongly pick content-oriented films. From a consumer point of view, I understood that it's about the content and not about how big the star is. If it's a star-driven film, it does help in the initial push. So, when we acquire content, we are careful in what we choose to put out.
Q: What are some of your takeaways from Aha?
A: We are consciously trying to do stories on navarasas to appeal to a wider audience. 'Yaari No 1', 'Sam Jam' and 'Unstoppable With NBK' have been extremely successful. We have also made our original films and web series with relatable stories. We also have shows like 'Indian Idol', whish has been renewed for Season 3. We're going to continue doing that. 'Baby', 'Polimera', 'Samajavaragamana' and 'Keedaa Cola' did well for us after its theatrical release.
Q: Where do you see Aha in the next 5 years?
A: We want to be able to follow the consumer and sometimes be ahead of the consumer. Brands which were able to anticipate better, worked in the long run. We want to provide content ahead of time rather than behind time. At the core of everything is sticking to our Telugu-ness in the Telugu-speaking states and the same goes for our other languages as well.
2024-03-29T10:02:50Z dg43tfdfdgfd