Why are showrunners of OTT originals/web series paid super-high remuneration? Recently, a report stated that a Tollywood director got paid Rs 6 crore for being a web series' showrunner (allegedly, he has merely lent his name to the project). The streaming giant is spending multiples of that money to produce the series.
Renowned showrunners draw high-profile actors, directors, and crew who want to work on prestigious projects. Streaming platforms rely on critically acclaimed or broad-appeal original series to retain and grow global subscribers. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj, Raj & DK (Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K.), and Zoya Akhtar from Bollywood are believed to have made tonnes of money.
As per Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi Executive Producer Venkat Siddareddy, the showrunner is the actual boss of the entire project. "In traditional movies, the director is the person in control of the project, but in Series, the showrunner is the main creative head who plans the full story, leads the writing team, and decides the look and feel. Because a series takes many hours to tell a story, the showrunner builds the master plan and oversees everything from the top. The production then hires other talented directors to actually stand on set and film the individual episodes based strictly on the rules the showrunner already set," he writes.
