Farhan Akhtar says OTT has expanded scope of stories, helped storytellers make bold choices

The actor-director-singer said that OTT has allowed a massive outreach to the audience. IT has also helped the creators in tapping the audience which wouldn’t go to the theatres back in the day, and consumed only international content as they relied on illegal download. The medium of OTT has had a negative impact on illegal downloads, and streamlined the revenues for the industries across the world.

Farhan told IANS, “The audience has expanded because of the advent of OTT. There were an entire lot of people out there, who would not go to theatres to watch films. They would be watching some foreign content. The same content came into their homes in some kind of way. Somehow OTT has helped us reach those people. The kind of viewership that certain streaming shows get, theatrical footfalls just can't match up to them”.

He further mentioned, “People who generally don’t go to a theatre, are waiting to watch something when it comes on OTT. So their tastes are different. Their sensibilities are different. As a production house and a storyteller, you want to engage with all kinds of people, obviously not putting aside your morality, and aesthetic. You still have certain standards to maintain. When you are representing a company. Or you are representing a film. So that is something we are very careful with. But beyond that, I think it has given us an opportunity to do it”.

He shared that before OTT came along, one could only make theatrical experiences for people. So the filmmaker or producer had to be a lot more selective of what went out because the business was only defined by what happened in a theatre. Today, creators are making bold choices because OTT gives them that kind of reach.

“Now there are many more avenues”, he added.

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