Inside Edge star Richa Chadda believes web series pushed Bollywood to do better

• According to Chadda, the rise of OTT platforms in India have pushed Bollywood to create better content.
  
• Chadha believes OTT is the present of the entertainment industry.
  
• It is pushing the Bollywood industry to make quality content to be in par with what OTT players are offering to the audience.
  
  

The rise of OTT platforms in India have disrupted the way people watched series or movies. According to Inside Edge star Richa Chadda, web series have pushed Bollywood to create better content.

“The threat to cinema will not come from OTT platforms. It has actually nudged the Bollywood industry," said Chadda.

Before her stint with Prime Video’s hit series on IPL, Chadda was known to play the off-beat roles like Bholi Punjaban in Fukrey - a hit Bollywood franchise. Later, she became one of the first few Bollywood actors to experiment with web series.

Good TV shows from the DD era

For Chadda, web series will bring bcl quality content like Hum log or Duniya which were a part of Indian TV, before they became mass entertainers with soap operas. Like many of her generation, she could not relate to Hindi television series and shifted to American shows.

"There was a huge gap between the content I wanted to watch on television to what was available for my parents. When Inside Edge was offered to me, there was no Amazon Prime in India. When I said I will be doing this new web series, people were like yeh kaun dekhega (who will watch this?. But now, they are forced to take part in it," says Chadda, at the 14th India Digital Summit of IAMAI.

Bollywood wants to be in par with OTT platforms

A lot of talented Bollywood actors are finding a second coming in the original web series -- like Shefali Shah from Delhi Crime or Pankaj Tripathi from Mirzapur.

"Two years ago, people used to say digital is the future. Now, it is the present. Some are exploiting the lack of censorship, while some are finding a balance. The production houses that are known for television, they tend to create shows on digital that are similar to television,” said Chadda delivering a critique on the quality of web series.

According to Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2019 by Duff and Phelps, web series are now attracting the best of Bollywood - including actors and directors. Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, and Zoya Akhtar are creating content exclusively for GenOTT, the report released on February 4, said.

“OTT has changed my life because suddenly my audience is everywhere. It empowers me to be

more complex, denser and [to not have] to explain so much. I don’t have to alter my way of looking at the world,” Anurag Kashyap, co-director of Netflix’s Sacred Games told Anupama Chopra in an interview.

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