Mumbai: The unending reservoir of talent emerging from the South across languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada indicates that language is no longer a barrier in the consumption of content, only quality. Experts discuss the implications of the South content market boom at Viacom18 presents The Content Hub Summit 2022 organised by Indiantelevision.com.

What genres and stories are directors and producers from the South working on? The answer to this lies in a panel discussion that brought together the prominent creators of south-based content.

The Content Hub Summit 2022 is co-powered by Applause Entertainment and IN10 Media Network. Aaj Tak Connected Stream is the association partner. Industry partners are Fremantle India, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, One Take Media, Pratilipi, Pocket FM and The Viral Fever. The Indian Motion Pictures Producers’ Association (IMPPA) is our community partner.

The session was on the topic ‘The South Content Mantra: Regionalization at its Best’ and was chaired by 91 Film Studios founder and CEO Naveen Chandra. He was joined by Indian film producer and Guru Films founder and CEO Sunitha Tati, MMTV CEO P.R. Satheesh and AHA head-non-subscription Nitin Burman.

The session moderator, Naveen Chandra opened with the question, “how can a 3.5 crore audience-Malayalam film industry make a 100-crore film? For that we need to find out how consumer habits transformed and what changes happened during the pandemic.”

Panellists think that pandemic has changed the consumption habits dramatically and the growth of OTT platforms has bridged the gap between the masses and South India content.

AHA head-non-subscription Nitin Burman opined that the craze for South movies is not recent. It has been there for a long time but it’s the numbers which have notably spiked now. "Earlier, access to this content was not there for the general audience," he added.

Indian film producer and Guru Films’ Sunitha Tati said that the way we look at the content is changing. “Post-pandemic, we distinguish between stories on whether it’ll draw audiences to the theatres or do we need to take it to the people on OTTs," she said. Talking about the unique marketing strategy she remarked, "we actually learnt marketing from Bollywood, but we took it to the next level."

Talking about the growth of the South content industry MMTV CEO P.R. Satheesh said that people are now very particular about the quality of content. He noted, "it’s no longer about language. Language is no longer a barrier- it’s the quality of content that matters. And as we talk about the quality of content, the South industry is in its best stage right now," he added.

Watch the complete video of the discussion below.