The Viral Fever’s Meteoric Rise: Shaping the content narrative of India

From being a passion project of college students to being one of the biggest content houses in India, TVF’s journey has not been short of anything miraculous and they might soon see unprecedented success in the year 2024.

TVF is a household name in India and several other countries. It is hard to imagine a content production house that chose a unique path of creating content for the internet in 2011 reached this height today. They can very well be called one of the most influential content houses right now in India. The grip that they have created with the young audiences in India is unparalleled and while several Bollywood production companies claim to have Youth Connect, they all envy the unparalleled reach of TVF in this demographic.

First Big Mark made by TVF

It was a slow start for TVF as they were grappling with having a steady revenue stream and developing habits for its audiences to look out for content in digital space. But things started turning around when they released their web show, _Permanent Roommates_ . TVF team always was inspired by the rich content library of several international production houses like Breaking Bad and The Office. At the time, the long-format content was ruled by TV Soaps on GEC channels which were predominantly consumed by elders of middle-class joint families. No one bothered about a big segment of Indian youth which was more and more getting alienated by glossy unrelatable movies of big production companies.

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Permanent Roommates instantly hit the cord and became very successful. The progressive theme of a couple in a metro city trying to fit in and make the best of the situation became relatable. It also helped the elderly in the series were not evil and plotting to get the couple separated. The success built the confidence of the makers and they started something that paved the way for modern storytellers.

OTT Boom and Lockdown

Post the success of Permanent Roommates, TVF instantly started working on several different contents like TVF Pitchers, Humorously Yours, Yeh Meri Family and many more. All this became an instant hit and paved the way for OTT platforms in India like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

While both Netflix and Prime Video were also inspired by the meteoric success of Hotstar to venture into the Indian content market, it can’t be denied that the success of TVF in the content space also encouraged them to find audiences which have been fed up with TV Soap and unreliable movies.

They started with big crime dramas like Mirzapur and Sacred Games but soon started investing in more relatable content like Panchayat and Kota Factory. This change was also aided by COVID-19 lockdowns in India which propelled the middle-class content-watching in India. No more dark content like Mirzapur and Sacred Games were watchable on streaming platforms as most of the households turned towards OTT in this period. This showed in the success of season 1 of Panchayat which was released on 3rd April 2020. Right into the peak of COVID-19 lockdown.

TVF took the lead in the lockdown period with their few of the best content like Gullak, Kota Factory, Panchayat and Aspirants. It also helped that all their content was unique and was reaching out to a slightly different audience at the same time being very universal. It can be very well argued that TVF emerged as the biggest content creator right around this time.

Year 2024: Year of TVF

Post-COVID-19, TVF maintained the ground that it had captured during the lockdown period and became a benchmark for other content creators to adapt to new TVF forms of stories. It is not a coincidence that a few of the best movies 12th Fail and Laapataa Ladies have very similar troops of a typical TVF show. This was a significant signal that big production houses like Vidhu Vinod Chopra Films and Aamir Khan Productions were inspired and got confidence in such stories after the amazing success of TVF.

TVF is also cognisant of this and has been trying successfully to become the torchbearer of new content in India. In 2024, they released a new web series Sapne vs Everyone with amazing response and viewership. They are gearing up for one of the biggest years with new seasons of Panchayat, Kota Factory and Gullak announced. They at the same time experimenting with newer and bigger stories. They have announced a new series The Great Indian Code dedicated to the IT revolution of India in the 70s and 80s. This is looking like their one of the most ambitious shows.