Deepak Dhar is the man credited with being the key driving force behind the content production in India, bringing a unique combination of creativity and commerce to the fore. After being the brain behind some of the most successful fiction and non-fiction formats in his various avatars, Dhar collaborated with Paris-headquartered content powerhouse Banijay Group and set up Banijay Asia. As the founder, CEO of the company, his aim is to create premium content for television, films and OTT platforms, with expertise across all genres including entertainment, factual, scripted and reality across all territories in Asia.

Banijay Asia has now brought to India its first-ever interactive reality special- Ranveer Vs Wild with Bear Grylls. Dhar spoke to e4m about his show and more.

What are the factors you consider while adapting an international format to Indian audiences?

For me personally, it’s really about having very endearing characters. Once you have endearing and likable characters, the show is going to have a good trajectory. People can engage with those characters and feel emotional about them and then they want to consume more and more. You can then put those characters in different settings, different places and different geographies but as long as those characters work even in a reality show, you know you are onto something that can be built over time. 

So for me personally it’s all about endearing and emotional characters, and in this case, we had Bear who’s a massive international adventure specialist, and we have India’s biggest super star Ranveer Singh coming together so obviously there was a lot of emotion at play. They are both very endearing personalities. They were really bonding as friends and really helping each. They were really pouring out their life experiences - one who has done this on the trot every year for many years and one who is doing it for the first time and leaving all his inhibitions and all his city life experiences and jumping into this on the back of Bear Grylls. It was very warm, captivating and emotional and as you see the show, as you consume the show, you get more and more immersed and sucked into it. As a result, we feel we are, fingers crossed, onto something good and we are hopeful that this will open up a new category in the Indian space as well.

What was your vision while conceptualising this show?

We’ve brought in a lot of reality shows and franchises into the country for many years now. The idea now was to see how we could really up the game, push the envelope on what could be the next hit reality show and what could be more unique in the times to come. 

The thought really was born from the fact - what if we took some very iconic characters that were born out of the Indiana Jones series where you bring in a specialist and you bring in somebody who’s more of a rookie together in a game like setup and put that into a new show - what could that show look like?  That was the brief that was floating around between the team here at Banijay and we started building this. That is how we started. 

We said ok why don’t we get Bear Grylls who’s an international adventure survivalist and a specialist to the table along with India’s biggest mega celebrity super star. So went to Ranveer Singh and asked him if he was ready for this wild adventure and he loved it instinctively and signed on. Together they made a great team, signing on for this wild journey somewhere in the world in the jungle. This really was the genesis of this idea and then we said ok why don’t we gamify it just like Temple Run and started layering the show. And this was the birth of what we call India’s first interactive reality series where people can decide the outcome of the show. They engage with the character, decide how far the character will go, should they go left or right, the choices the character would make and hence the effect of it on this game. 

We co-developed it with our partners at Netflix, who have been extremely instrumental in bringing this show to life and it couldn’t have been done without their technology power. So together Bear Grylls, Ranveer, our teams here at Banijay Asia and Netflix started putting the blueprint of this project together to make Ranveer Vs Wild with Bear Grylls.

What you see on TV today at times feels like it's cut from the same cloth. Do you think traditional TV needs a big IP to add and create more value for advertisers and viewers?

It’s very cyclic. There was a phase, if we go back a few steps, there were a lot of singing reality shows that we were really consuming at one point in time and then came KBC and then there was a massive disruption in the market. That ran for many years and then came in a show called Bigg Boss, which I brought into the country, and that was a massive disruption. It just changed the ecosystem and the entire wallpaper around the kind of content changed. So every four or five years, there needs to be a massive disruption and massive new IP coming in. I think we are constantly, as content creators, finding the next big thing to jump into at any point in time. So yes, it’s always good to have some sort of a disruption every four-five years and I think the time has come to really land that very soon. 

Our attempt and our role and responsibility is only to bring something unique. Viewers are constantly pushing us to think in different ways, more unique ways. They want something that doesn’t feel like it’s cut from the same cloth. So as creators, content producers we are constantly looking to find new spaces to get into. But, this has happened overtime, right. 

Things that have been more unique and things that have been slightly ahead of time, do tend to be very successful but here in this case, we are taking very measured steps. We are very excited and nervous at the same time because this is very unique for India. But I think if you allow the viewers to really control the outcome of the game we are only giving them a more amplified experience of a reality show. Instead of maybe a one dimensional experience, here in this case, we are giving them more of an immersive experience because they are deciding the outcome of the character.

We are living in a world where you have multiple platforms. How relevant is traditional entertainment television? What evolution does it need from here on and how will it pan out? 

I am actually quite an optimist and I see growth on both sides of the spectrum. For me, I enjoy making the traditional Kapil Sharma show which is catered for the single TV household and I enjoy making a Ranveer Vs Wild which is India’s first unique interactive reality show so that’s the spectrum I operate in. I make traditional shows for the linear broadcasters and I love it. Shows like The Voice, which is a massive international singing talent format, currently we are making India’s Laughter Champion which is a stand up reality hunt. 

So these are very unique but still made for the traditional space. But at the same time, we are making shows like Ranveer Vs Wild with Bear Grylls for Netflix. We are looking at a lot of limited series for the OTT space so we oscillate across spectrums and we’re enjoying delivering a lot of content.

Talking of technology and content, how do you think the two will play out from here on? 

We are already seeing that Ranveer Vs Wild with Bear Grylls is not just a content piece, it’s content and technology. It is the best of both worlds. I think lines are blurring between content and technology, and  as we go forward, we are going to see a lot more of these kinds of formats and a lot more of these kinds of activities. 

For me, content and technology go hand in hand and now more so because thanks to our friends at Netflix, they’ve really managed to bring Ranveer vs Wild completely to light.