Paatal Lok creator Sudip Sharma says Amazon doesn’t share data with creators so they can’t ask for bigger budgets: ‘Information is power’

Kohrra and Paatal Lok creator Sudip Sharma shared why he feels streaming platforms don't share viewership data with filmmakers.

Sudip Sharma has worked on Paatal Lok and Kohrra.

Sudip Sharma, the creator of acclaimed shows such as Paatal Lok and Kohrra, spoke about the differences in collaborating with the two major international streaming platforms in India, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Sudip co-created the crime drama Kohrra for Netflix last year, and created Paatal Lok for Prime Video in the first wave of Indian streaming nearly half-a-decade ago. In an interview, he appeared to prefer working with Netflix, because he finds Prime Video to be too guarded with crucial data.

Chatting with Suchin Mehrotra on The Streaming Show, Sudip was asked if he’d want to highlight the differences in his experience working with the two platforms. He said, “Beyond a point, they’re all the same… They have different cultures, and the personality of the person you’re dealing with… Because the systems and processes aren’t well defined, they’re still finding their space in India. The processes at Netflix are more attuned to doing this, they take their role of being a media company very seriously, because that’s all they are. If s**t happens to these processes, s**t goes down, that’s how they look at it. Compared to Amazon, where (producing films and shows) is a small part of the beast, it’s a hobby. If I was the richest man in the world, I would also want a few Hollywood stars to come to my party, it’s that…”

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Sudip said that based on the information that Amazon has given him about Paatal Lok’s viewership, he has no idea if it was a hit or not. He said that no platform is entirely transparent with numbers, but Amazon is extremely secretive. “Netflix shares more information than Amazon does. Amazon shares no information. I honestly have no idea how big a hit Paatal Lok was,” he said.

He speculated that the reason behind this lack of transparency is to not allow creators to have a bargaining room. “There’s a deliberate reason why they don’t tell you. Information is power. I would ask for a bigger budget if I knew how big a hit it was. By that, I mean I’d ask for the right budget. I would have more bargaining power. Also, I would be comparing like-for-like; that comparison is not available to me. I cannot ask them why they gave another show a bigger budget even though it did fewer numbers.”

In a recent interview on The Comment Section, Sacred Games creator Vikramaditya Motwane revealed that he wanted Sudip as a writer on the show as a writer, but Netflix put their foot down because he was working with Prime Video. Vikram told them that this isn’t how they’re going to make progress, because there is anyway a small talent pool to choose from.

Sudip is now gearing up for the release of the second season of Paatal Lok, which will be released over four years after the first one. He didn’t discuss the reasons behind the delay, but admitted that the process was ‘tough’ and has ‘aged’ him. He did, however, tease that it’s the best thing he’s ever done. After Paatal Lok 2, he’ll begin work on the second season of Kohrra.

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