A DOSE OF REALITY

NON-FICTION SHOWS ARE BEGINNING TO FIND AN AUDIENCE IN INDIA, ENCOURAGING STREAMING PLATFORMS TO BROADEN THEIR PROGRAMMING SLATE

- SUHANI SINGH

SAI ABHISHEK HAS BEEN developing non-fiction programming for Discovery for over a decade, but he firmly believes 2023 was a watershed year for the genre on streaming. Head of factual and lifestyle cluster, South Asia, Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes Discovery Plus, an OTT platform reserved for non-fiction programming, Abhishek reminds you how the first Indian production to win an Oscar was a documentary (The Elephant Whisperers) and how with Amazon Prime and Netflix joining the fray, the hours devoted to factual programming have increased. Netflix perhaps set the ball rolling, when it gave us a glimpse of the elusive filmmaker Aditya Chopra in The Romantics, followed by the fascinating The Hunt for Veerappan; Amazon Prime scored a hit with Dancing on the Grave, about the Shakereh Khaleeli murder case, and drew acclaim for Cinema Marte Dum Tak, a love letter to the pulp film industry of the 1990s; while Discovery Plus got eyeballs for Hunt for the Indian Mujahideen and History Hunter. “It’s heartwarming to see,” says Abhishek, “that a category that’s dying for an industrywide uplift is finally seeing it.”