‘We have done 70 Indian Netflix originals, 90 are in the pipeline'

Reed Hastings, founder and co-CEO of Netflix is bullish about India. In an interview to Pankaj Doval, Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta, Hastings and the company’s vice president for content, Monika Shergill, detailed the India strategy and spoke on a range of issues from what Indians are watching to regulation. Excerpts from the conversation:

- Pankaj Doval, Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta

What is India strategy for now and the content play that you are engaged in?

Reed Hastings: Many of the shows that Monika is doing here are extraordinary. We have launched 70 Indian Netflix originals already. Some have won international Emmy. White Tiger got a lot of positive accolades. Monika is expanding regional content from the South. Now we have got 90 shows in the pipeline already that are developed. 70 done, 90 commissioned and in the pipeline.

Monika Shergill: The way the Netflix model works beautifully as we have experienced across countries is that consumers come to Netflix for both quality and diversity. For us what actually works is diversity, because your Netflix is different from my Netflix. Which is why when we say we have done 70 titles in India — this is across doc series, this is across content like Indian matchmaking, content like the Emmy award-winning Delhi Crime, Jamtara which is on phishing, the crime dramas.

The new slate actually what we are coming out with will be a significant sort of step-change in the market, also the way we have planned it, hoping very humbly that it lands like that, is the velocity of content, the kind of stories that we will bring at scale and at velocity which Netflix is globally known for. So that is what we are aiming to do from the end of this year.