The Netflix Mantra: Shock, Awe And Monetise

Uninhibited by rising debt, Netflix is riding a tsunami of content in its push to stream to the world

On July 6, Netflix put out its first original series from South Asia. Set in India with mentions of Dubai, Egypt and Pakistan, Sacred Games is a spiralling saga of corrupt officials, gang mafia and politics in the subcontinent, based on Vikram Chandra’s critically acclaimed book of the same name released back in 2006.

And while it stars at least two of Indian cinema’s biggest names – Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui – there is nothing Bollywood about it. Freed from censorship, India’s version of Narcos is all about gratuitous violence, substance abuse, expletives, human trafficking and religious tensions in the country.

Sacred Games has been translated into English, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. The hope is that it will introduce a whole new generation of viewers to content from the Middle East and South Asia. And this is all part of Netflix’s global content strategy, something that so far has been unrivalled in terms scale and ambition, by any Film, TV or production company before or since.

“Great stories travel and they could be of many different types,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings tells Digital Studio ME at a company event in Rome. “There’s still a taste for real storytelling. And quality content that’s widely distributed, helps us grow and grow.”

The shock, awe and star power of the series makes it “probably the most high profile content that has been made,” Girish Menon, who tracks media and entertainment for KPMG, told AFP. “Others have not been on the same scale.”

BUILDING A GLOBAL BRAND