Close to three decades ago, a youngster straight out of college, joined Prime Sports in India (later renamed Star Sports) as a production runner. With absolutely no prior ambition of making it big in the production business, he confesses that his motivation was simply to collect some ‘free caps and shirts’. But the universe had big plans for him - making him stumble upon his passion unexpectedly, as he went on to build one of the biggest content/ production houses in the country. Today, Deepak Dhar is the Founder and Group CEO of Banijay Asia and Endemol Shine India that has given blockbuster titles like The Kapil Sharma Show, MTV Roadies, Dahan, Bombay Begum, to name a few. Dhar quips that it was a summer internship that has stretched for a good 30 years.
Endemol India, the earlier avatar of Endemol Shine India, entered the country in 2006. The mother company changed hands so many times that if it were a person, it would have proudly flaunted multiple citizenships in less than a decade- Dutch, British, American or French, its roots being as varied as the content it produces. In 2023, French global entertainment giant, Banijay, took full control of Endemol Shine India and consolidated that along with the Banijay Asia business under Deepak Dhar’s leadership.
But Deepak Dhar is no stranger to Endemol, having played a big role in turning it into a content powerhouse in India, since 2006. He actively worked his way to the top, first becoming the MD of Endemol India and then the MD & CEO of Endemol Shine India, post the merger with UK-based studio Shine Group. During that phase, he launched popular shows like The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and produced adaptations of popular international formats like Bigg Boss and Khatron ke Khiladi which became Endemol’s calling card, the former is in its 18th season while the latter in its 14th. In fact, India is the only country where Bigg Boss has been adapted in seven different languages.
More recently, Dhar has also expanded to South East Asia with the content studio CreAsia. Talking about the expansion, Dhar says, “What really excites me is creating content for different geographies, nationalities, in different languages, and that keeps me going. Currently, to give you a sense of the scale of what we do, we produce 600 days of Bigg Boss content in a calendar year, and we want to increase it to 1000 days."
In FY23, Endemol Shine India is believed to have recorded revenues of over Rs 450cr. Around 800cr was reportedly paid for buying out Endemol Shine India from CA Media. So, between the two which has the upper hand in revenue at this point, Dhar’s former baby, Endemol or his passion project Banijay Asia? Dhar responds, “I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. Endemol is an 18-year-old company, while Banijay is just six years old, both have their strengths and weaknesses.”
Between them, the two companies have launched some of the biggest titles in the entertainment space, both on linear TV and OTT platforms in India. Trial by Fire, Aarya, MasterChef, MOM – Mission on Mars comprise some names from the Endemol stable. On the other hand, the Banijay catalogue includes mega hit adaptations like ‘The Night Manager,’ ‘Hostages,’ ‘Call My Agent,’ ‘The Good Wife’ and on the non-scripted front, shows like ‘Into the Wild with Bear Grylls.’
Banijay Asia’s latest foray has been into cricket and live entertainment space with the global launch of Banijay Events and Banijay’s acquisition of live entertainment specialist Balich Wonder Studio. The most recent development has been Banijay Asia’s partnership with Ravi Shastri’s Sporting Beyond, which aims at redefining the landscape of cricket entertainment through content and live events. Dhar and Ravi Shastri incidentally go back a long way. Dhar fondly recounts that post an India-Zimbabwe match in Odisha, during the early years of his employment with Prime Sports, the flight that he was to take to the next match venue turned out to be overbooked. Dhar was asked to take a bus to Delhi instead. Staring at the 5000-rupee wad of cash given to him, he was pretty clueless on how to cover the many kilometres between the two states, when, miraculously, his superior called him back to say, that they have somehow managed one seat. To his surprise, Dhar was ushered into the Business Class, where he was surrounded by the top cricketers of the country like Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri and there was his first rendezvous with Shastri, as a fanboy.
Talking about the business partnership between the two, Dhar says, “Cricket as such is something that we are competing against as entertainment producers because cricket takes away so much of the advertising dollars in the market. So, we said, ‘Why compete with them? Play with them instead.’ That was the philosophy. And we then created Banijay Live, to be really at the centre of all the action of cricket. And who better than Ravi Shastri to strategically guide us and take us in that direction?”
Talking about what kind of content works today in the Indian market, Dhar says, “Indians as a community are emotional. So, stories and characters in our reality shows that can make people emotional is something that we’re constantly looking for. It’s the first ingredient that gets me excited to tell a story. Outside of that, there is Cricket-tainment of course.
Talking about what their ambition looks like, “We don’t have a timeline for when we will be the number 1 content producers in Asia but I can tell you that we are very aggressive and focussed. We don’t want to be seen as the champions in the game right now, we are the contenders in the game and are constantly looking for the next big opportunity. CreAsia Studio is a little over three months old. We only started in Jan this year. We are obviously investing a lot of time, money and energy into building that part of the business and are pretty sure that we’ll get there very fast.”
I am running 3-4 races at a time: Deepak Dhar
Deepak Dhar, Founder and Group CEO of Banijay Asia and Endemol Shine India tells Neeta Nair, Editor of IMPACT Magazine about how they are diversifying, going beyond scripted, unscripted shows and adaptations of international formats to enter the world of events and cricket because that is where the next big opportunity lies.
Q] At the Cricket World Cup last year during the Indo-Pak match, we saw your foray into the live entertainment space. After giving several hits on the packaged entertainment side, are you planning to focus on sports-related IPs now?
Sports is a gap that we hope to fill really fast, be it live entertainment, live events, reality shows, or shows that give a platform to tell stories about the big sporting heroes. Back in my day, I was really enamoured by this one show called Bodyline. It was an 80s series based on the rivalry between England and Australia, dramatising the events of the most controversial 1932–33 Ashes series. I’m pretty sure, a show like that would come out of one of our companies very soon.
Q] Both Endemol Shine India and Banijay Asia are well established in content production. What really will be the differentiating factor between the two, going forward?
Historically, Endemol has been structured around a cornerstone called Bigg Boss, which is a monster franchise for us. It is a juggernaut that is landing big, big numbers in pretty much all the markets, be it Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam or Hindi. This year, we’ve had the best year for all these shows. So, Endemol is structured around a lot of reality shows and television shows, and that historically has been the strength of that brand. We would like to build on that going forward too with shows like Bigg Boss, Fear Factor (Khatron Ke Khiladi) and now MasterChef, which is adapted in three languages. So, for us, telling these stories in different languages and formats is the fun part. We are also slowly building the scripted side at Endemol. On the other hand, Banijay is more scripted with shows like ‘Night Manager,’ ‘Hostages,’ and ‘Call My Agent.’ So, it’s very complementary and at the same time both the brands are competing with each other. Let the best idea win.
Q] Endemol Shine India is among the few content studios in the country that has built scale due to ownership of IP rights, unlike others where the IP is owned by broadcasters and streaming companies. To what extent is your dependence on IP rights and what are the other streams of revenue for you?
Bringing to India, a lot of international IPs is our core expertise, which we have built our business around. I feel that’s our calling card, and we use our strength to our advantage, wherever we can. We also tell a lot of original stories, a strength organically built by our teams here. But outside of that, licensing and merchandising is a big part of the game, digital activation is another and so is interactive revenue. But by far, IP and production is the biggest revenue driver for us.
Q] What are the new IPs on the anvil?
Last year, we aired the first season of Temptation Island, an adaptation of the American reality TV show in which several couples agree to live with a group of singles of the opposite sex, in order to test the strength of their relationships. It shocked the audiences here but we had a fun time producing it. There will be more seasons of that and also of Survivor, another monster franchise from our global catalogues. There will be a lot more on the scripted side, so Indian adaptations of Monk, House, and Suits will come out very soon from the Banijay stables. So, yes, there’s a lot more in the pipeline. We have just got started.
Q] Indian audiences today have become very touchy. When you produce content, how tricky is it to draw that line between something that grabs eyeballs and what is plain insensitive?
Yes, we produce shows like Bigg Boss and Temptation Island where people start accusing us of going too far. Every producer has to know his boundary when it comes to content. We have to draw a very strong line as content creators, that is our local and international mandate. We are constantly doing a lot of self-censorship.
Q] And yet there are many bodies that feel it is not enough. We are seeing multiple proposals to regulate or censor OTT content. What are your views, should there be third-party involvement here?
While we are doing self-censorship of our content, regulation is welcome because there are times when things go out of hand and get abused. Regulation always helps, there is no issue with that.
Q] There was a time, when Anu Malik, Pritam and even R.D. Burman were accused of ‘copying’ music from the West. Now we have a glorified term which is ‘adaptations’. In the Indian content market today, are adaptations the surest way to succeed, can you manage without them by focussing on originals alone?
In fact, there is tremendous scope for originals with so many great stories being told here. The odds are 80-20, tilted towards originals and that’s why they are getting pushed. When a big show comes in, it gets instant attention, for e.g., if you have brought in a show like Night Manager, everybody talks about it. But at the same time, we’ve done shows like Dahan, there are a lot of big shows from other companies like Scam 1992, which have done equally well. So, there’s enough and more that’s being created and produced in the originals space. But yes, formats or adaptations tend to get a fair amount of mileage.
Q] How much time does it take to create an adaptation versus an original?
That is a good question because the gestation period for adaptations is much lesser, say 8 to 12 months. Originals could take over two years to be put together. Which is why, we are constantly looking at both sides of the puzzle to find the next big format along with finding the next big original story to be told. Quick runs on the board with imported formats, and big hits from the originals help populate the scoreboard beautifully.
Q] With CreAsia Studio, you have expanded to Southeast Asia, would the focus be on making adaptations of your successful IPs or locally creating original content?
We brought in a couple of storytellers in the markets of Southeast Asia which we identify with. We want to create India as an outsourcing hub for these countries. We have so much of infrastructure, technical know-how that we can use and stories, that we could tell from here for a wider region as well.
Q] Regional content has gained prominence in the past few years. If you have to rank that along with unscripted, scripted formats and originals in the order of importance for Banijay Asia and for Endemol Shine India in the coming years, what would it look like?
That would be very difficult, because for us running three or four races simultaneously at the same speed is of extreme essence. So, we’re constantly trying to take all our shows to the regional markets because India is like a European subcontinent - if it works in one market, there’s a good chance that it would in the other markets too. So, we’re constantly pushing that along with some of our scripted shows. We are not talking about dubbing it it into regional languages, but remaking it for those markets. So regional adaptation is big for us, as the value of the property starts increasing immediately because it’s the same script that is getting moved into different markets. Outside of that, scripted and unscripted formats are our bread and butter. It’s very difficult for me to choose there. And live event is the newest baby on the block, just 8-9 months old. In a very short span of time, we have organised the opening ceremony of the India-Pakistan World Cup game, the Miss World event, etc., so it has become a big focus area for us.
Q] Back in 2017, Endemol Shine India ventured onto the big screen with four films - Brothers, Traffic, TE3N and Anaamika (bilingual - Tamil & Telugu). We have not seen you very big on films ever since then. Will that change in the near future?
It will. Strategically, we wanted to sequentially set up all our companies. So, the first one was to bring Endemol into the Banijay family, which took a fair amount of time. Then we wanted to set up CreAsia Studio, as the second strategic pillar. Simultaneously, we were waiting and watching the game because post COVID, the repercussions on the film business have not been very easy to tackle. Now that it has settled down, it is a better time to get out there. And for me, timing a jump is very important because you want to be on the right side of the wave. Now people are going back to the theatres, watching movies, doesn’t matter big or small, people are lapping up great stories. So now we will pick that business up as well.
Q] At this point, what would you say are the biggest hurdles for a production house?
The growth of the creative industry hasn’t matched the demand - be it films, streaming shows or reality shows. The creative community is very short staffed. At Endemol and Banijay, as an overall group, we’re constantly investing in that to create more strength, investing in more writers to tell us the next big story. That’s the key focus area. We’ve tried to do that in the very early days of Endemol and are continuing to do that successfully at Banijay Asia too.
Q] Which are your most successful partnership deals with international and national content houses, any new deals on the cards?
We are producing a lot outside of the Banijay catalogue as well, like for CBS, ITV and NBC. So, those are our big international collaborations that keep happening.
Q] Consolidation of the broadcasting sector has become the buzzword in the past few months, how will that impact content production houses?
Consolidation is unfortunately the flavour currently, internationally and in India at the same time. But we’re not unduly worried by consolidation because most of our brands are up and running. Most big players are constantly wanting more and more ideas or formats from our catalogue. I’m not too perturbed by it purely because I feel we are a company which can give you that one big impact show, be it unscripted or scripted. But yes, it is going to be critical to manage in the next 12 to 24 months.
