Banijay Asia is spreading to Indonesia, locks content deals
Banijay Asia doubles the expansion of Southeast Asia with new deals that are locked in Indonesia and the improvement of a reality show that will send participants to space, founder and group Deepak Group revealed Dhar at the APOS conference.
About a panel entitled “Culture to Content: How’s Creative Ecosystem from Asia is going worldwide,” Dhar announced that the company “has already closed a few deals in Jakarta” for both scripted and not -written titles. The expansion includes the previously announced cross-border reality series of Banijay Asia about “finding an Indian and finding an Indonesian who we can send to space in a blue origin rocket.” The series was previously aimed at finding only one Indian.
The expansion comes when Banijay Asia scales its enormous Indian activities, where the company produces’ 800 days’ Big Boss’ [the local version of ‘Big Brother’] In our calendar year of 365 days, “which demonstrates the appetite of the market for glory content.
“The timing is good for us personally, because we are happy in the position we are in India, and now we can concentrate our bandwidth on the rest of the region,” said Dhar. “We really double on Indonesia and then in Thailand.”
Banijay Asia has successfully localized international formats during the development of Indian originals. The adaptation of the “Night Manager” company for the former Disney+ Hotstar delivered huge figures, and they currently work in season 2. The company also recently restarted Legacy Crime procedural “CID”, which lasted 18 years, giving “mass strong results on Sony Television” before he had it to Netflix.
Disalada “Stang” Disayanon, head of the content on the Kantana Group of Thailand, pointed to the original “Master of the House” of the company as proof that authentic local stories can travel worldwide. The series reached the top 10 in more than 63 countries within the first week.
“If we choose what content we should do, we should choose local, authentic Thai stories,” said Disayanon. “In the case of ‘Master of the House’, we focused on the dynamics of household staff and works in rich families, who are still relevant to Thai culture today. We wanted to dramatize, and moreover we are in universal themes such as power struggle, inequality and family relationships.”
The company has also been expanded to horror with ‘Watcher’, based on its own IP, which is sold theatrical to 20 countries and will have a permit on a streaming platform worldwide. Kantana is currently developing a show that combines Muay Thai with a zombie apocalypse in Bangkok for Netflix.
Nicholas Simon, founder and CEO of Indochina Productions, outlined the evolution of his company from production services to original content creation. Founded 14 years ago, the company worked in 14 countries and recently completed large international productions, including “White Lotus” season 3 and the upcoming film “Send Help” by Sam Raimi.
All three managers noted that global appetite for Asian content is increasing, especially after the success of shows such as ‘Squid Game’.
Dhar summarized the regional ambition: “It is really time that an Indian story also attracts the fancy and the attention of the global audience. So that is really something we are enthusiastic and work.”
