Myleeta Aga is happy. The managing director and creative head for BBC Worldwide (BBCWW) India had a good 2015, a great start to 2016. She is also seeing the result of years of effort shifting perceptions of the Indian operation as more than a non-fiction producer.

“Last year we finally came into our own and have become more confident. We can do anything (fiction or non-fiction),” Aga says.

Her slate is healthy. Audiences for Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, the Indian version of Strictly Come Dancing, continue to grow. The show’s Kannada version – the third version after Hindi and Bangla – premiered on Viacom18’s Colors Kannada last year. Two seasons of Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan (How are these friendships) aired on MTV and a third is in the offing. And the 140-episode scripted series, Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai (I feel like living once again) made it to the top of India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan’s charts.

The coming year looks “hopeful”, she says.

BBCWW India premiered Girls on Top on MTV. Two big shows – Zee crime thriller Satya Ki Kiran (The ray of truth) and the Radio Mirchi-funded Classmate Spell Bee season eight on Discovery – premiered in April. Then there are more seasons and languages of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa.

At the top of her list of shows she would like to adapt for India is Top Gear, followed by some food show formats.

Aga has spent the last three years building a team and pitching for fiction and non-fiction. “We are finally getting commissions on our own. Both the MTV and Doordarshan showswere developed in-house,” she says.

Earlier, while pitching for fiction production, the tendency was to go for co-productions. That is because in India a production house is branded either as a fiction or non-fiction specialist.

“That is bizarre, because even within say non-fiction, the format of a factual show could be totally different on say TLC versus Colors,” she points out.

BBCWW set up shop in India in 2005 and entered the production business in 2006. Fiction/scripted production began four years ago. Currently, BBCWW has a full-time in-house production team of 25, which gets augmented for big projects.

Aga has worked as a TV producer in Singapore, Jakarta and the U.S. for firms such as Pearson and Discovery. She was executive producer on Emmy-nominated series, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.

Unlike markets with a strong studio model, “the ecosystem of keeping the independents competitive and hungry works for broadcasters in India,” Aga says.

She is being polite. India’s US$7.2 billion television industry is a buyers’ paradise where producers undercut freely, a bulk of the content is commissioned by broadcasters who own the IP. Except perhaps for Zee’s Essel Vision, most large broadcasters in India have not tried to set up their own studios.

Styles are very different across the markets in which she has worked.

“The U.S. has a fabulous ecosystem for everything, starting from honouring the time for a meeting. They understand how important time management is to production. There is a lot of time spent on development and pre-production. It is more conducive to innovation. You are judged very much by your work and it is less dependent on relationships,” says Aga.

Having achieved her goal of proving BBCWW’s scripted abilities, Aga’s next aim is to expand perception of BBCWW beyond production.

“We are seen only as a production business. We are a content business,” she points out. In the year ending March 2016, BBCWW India produced 270 hours of content but syndicated approximately 1,000 hours, all for the India market. Syndication brings in roughly one-third of its India revenue.

As OTT takes off, opportunities are multiplying; deals with Hungama and PCCW’s Viu have, for instance, already been done.

Happy times look set to continue.

Published on 2 May 2016