After MTV, it looks like Sony is also now looking at web-only content for its audiences. The company’s music label Sony Music India is distributing a web-only series called Happy To Be Single targeting Tamil speaking audiences, produced by Madboys Entertainment. (Hat-tip: Karthik Srinivasan)
Speaking to Medianama, Shreekarthick, Creative Head of Madboys Entertainment and Director of the series said that the copyrights of the series will remain with Sony and they do not have any guarantee of receiving a revenue share from Sony. The revenue will be determined by the views and ad revenue generated on YouTube for the show.
“We don’t have a following on YouTube. So we wanted to work with a channel that had an existing base of subscribers. We browsed YouTube and found Sony to be interesting. They also liked our idea when we approached them with this show,” said Shree Karthick.
The series will only include 5 episodes, each with a duration of 10-12 minutes since the concept of a web series is relatively new in South India. Madboys Entertainment intends to release the next season with more episodes once the audience becomes more familiar with the concept.
The production house has spent Rs 7 lakhs in producing the series along with a music video for its promotion. It is looking to partner with brands for title sponsorship or in-videos ads for the next season. “We wanted to get sponsors but then brands didn’t want to sponsor because the concept was entirely new. Once this season is successful, we will look for title sponsors for the next season,” added Shree Karthick.
Made in Tanglish (Tamil + English) and targeting the age group of 15-35 years, Happy To Be Single is a dialogue based comedy which revolves around the life of three people who fall in love. The first episode released on November 8, 2013 and the company intends to release a new episode every Friday on YouTube with subtitles in English. At the time of writing this story, the first episode of the show had received 4,744 views on the channel.
Earlier this month, MTV India in association with McDowell’s No. 1 soda had also launched an exclusive 12 part web series Saturday Night, Alright!
