Netflix goes to ‘Tollywood’ and beyond chasing growth

In south India, it is common how devoted fans worship film and TV stars like gods, erecting huge statues of actors which are bathed in milk as part of prayer rituals for a movie’s success.

This is the market Netflix Inc, a streaming laggard in India, is now eager to tap. It has a range of Indian films across various regions to showcase but for TV series – key to keeping viewers loyal to its platform – it only has a few hit shows in Hindi and no TV shows at all in regional languages.

The US company has greenlighted at least six TV shows in southern languages this year, aggressively chasing deals in Tollywood as the Telugu film and TV industry is known,