You turn on the television and you see naagin mutants or crazy machchhar reincarnations on shows supposed to showcase some version of real life. I know we all die chuckling when exposed to a seriously real (seriously?) Sasural Simar Ka And then, one is forced to either find solace in western television series or to curse the Indian masses for their bad taste.
Luckily, God gave us the internet to expel us from this suffering and the internet gave us webseries. Indian webseries. Praise the Lord!
Internationally, the web series, as a concept, took off in early to mid 2000s. In 2003, Red Vs. Blue, an American comic sci-fi series, was distributed independently using online portals like YouTube. It reached the 100 million views mark and is the longest running series till date (it ended last month). Soon, it wasn’t just about hits, but serious awards. Netflix original and Kevin Spacey-starrer political drama, House of Cards (2013 onward), became the first web-only TV series to receive major Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Another Emmy winner is Jason Bateman-starrer Arrested Development. After the channel, Fox, cancelled the show in 2006, Netflix revived it, and released it exclusively on the web, in 2013. USA also has awards such as the Webby Awards and Streamy Awards that celebrate web series.
Why webseries matter
Because they revolutionized the entire small screen industry! So much so that the internet domain has become an industry of its own.
They have been able to accomplish this because they are realistic. And trust me, after coming to terms with Baa’s immortality in Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, we did get disillusioned with the reality that TV serials serve us.
We NEED webseries as TV shows, but we can’t
Now with the perks of web-series being discussed, what one must be thinking is what can’t we swap the currently telecast shows with these ones? Simple question, simple desire but there’s a very complicated story behind this. Or simple, if we understand how the silver screen actually operates.
- The content of web-series is sometimes too bold to be approved by the Broadcasting Content Complaint Council(BCCC). BCCC’s strict guidelines would make it very difficult for web-series to slide away. And hey when even cinemas are not free from censorship, it is far easy to filter the small screen.
- Web shows have limited episodes, and the Indian audience has unlimited desires. Added to that, the thirst of production houses is never-ending. Limited episodes means that the current business of studios might be affected because they earn a lot from daily TRPs.
