Battle for online video and music streaming is getting intensified in India and Amazon Prime appears to be beefing up its offering for Indian audience with original content. The streaming giant has announced three new reality formats for its Indian subscribers, out of which two are centered on local stand-up comedy while one a musical talent competition.
The new three shows include a travel comedy show ‘Jestination Unknown’, a music reality show ‘The Remix’ and a comedy show ‘Comic Kaun’ to discover comedy talents across the country.
Jestination Unknown will be a six-episode traveling comedy format featuring Indian stand up sensation Vir Das along with other comic actors - Sharul Channa, Ashwin Mushran, Kavi Shastri and Anu Menon. Each episode will go to a new city on the subcontinent, looking at how comedy pertains to the local culture, and translate in a stand-up performance
Das featured on rival Netflix in its first Indian stand-up comedy original ‘Abroad Understanding’, which aired in April this year.
Comic Kaun (working title) will be a nationwide hunt to find India’s next comic sensation. The 10 episode series will feature a panel of top comedian judges picking hidden gems in stand-up comedy. Importantly, the show will be produced by entertainment production house Only Much Louder.
‘The Remix’ is a talent-hunt format picked up from Turkey’s Global Agency that has been sold in 15 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. The 10-episode competition will pair up DJs and singers to create remixes whose work will be judged by top notch Bollywood singers Sunidhi Chauhan and Amit Trivedi and EDM producer Nucleya.
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Amazon Prime Video director of content Vijay Subramaniam told The Hollywood Reporter that the three new shows “will go live in the first quarter of 2018. Unscripted shows are definitely a beginning for us and we hope to develop this further.”
Earlier, this month, Amazon Prime’s rival Netflix announced two new original series – ‘Selection Day’ and ‘Again’ from India.
With original content and partnership with leading bollywood stars, the content war between Amazon Prime and Netflix in India has reached another level. While Netflix had sealed a deal with Red Chillies Entertainment for both his existing and upcoming titles, Amazon Prime won the streaming rights for Salman Khan’s past and future movies.
Besides Netflix and Amazon, home-grown production company – Balaji Telefilms is also planning to produce content exclusively for its digital subscription platform, ALT Balaji.
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