productioninterview
Surge party Cinta Fitri
Indonesia’s MD Corp is at the centre of Southeast Asia’s streaming hotbed, with at least 13 feature films streaming across platforms, new original series and titles sold to virtually everyone: Disney+ Hotstar, WeTV, Viu, Netflix, Vidio, Migo and Telkomsel Maxstream. The company’s founder and chief executive, Manoj Punjabi, talks about dealing with the surge in demand, how he views the shifts in release windows, production partnerships, and what comes next after blockbuster earnings reports. How have you changed your business to deal with the surge in de-
My Lecturer My Husband, immediately
mand? “For the last four years, we focused on feature films, but I’m a
became number one... That
huge fan of OTT. The pandemic really changed the situation... we’ve piv-
shows that one local title can
oted 100% to OTT, across everything, including series. We have 22 original
change a platform, it shows
series in the making and so many OTT movies. This is the future.”
the power of local content. And again, Antares, is
What are you forecasting about the level of demand for Indonesian con-
number one of all time. It’s
tent? Do you think the demand for content you’ve seen during the pan-
breaking records.”
demic will continue even as things open up? “I think this will continue and grow. OTT is inevitable, it’s everywhere, and the high demand for local
With all this demand,
content will remain in countries like Indonesia, India and China, which
have production bud-
have huge populations. Local content will not be stopped. Foreign con-
gets and talent costs
tent still has a 60% market share in cinemas against 40% local. But in OTT,
increased
the ratio will be 80:20 in favour of local. Or maybe even 90:10. We’re at
cantly? “Budget will
a very early stage. Many players are not here yet. But even now, with
increase
a couple of big players, there’s already a huge change. I believe this
what’s required. It just
growth for Indonesian content is not going to stop here, that will be the
can’t increase for the
game changer. For example, our first original series release on WeTV,
sake of ‘I just want to in-
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on
contentasia november 2021