From the current edition of NEM Dubrovnik, Manjyot Sandhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Narativ Media, spoke to ttvnews about the company’s first year in business, its digital-first distribution strategy, the growing potential of microdramas, and how AI-powered localization is helping premium content travel beyond its traditional markets.
Produced by Luis Cabrera, from Croatia
One year after launching Narativ Media, Manjyot Sandhu, CEO and Co-Founder, returned to NEM Dubrovnik, the event which marks the completion of its first year in operation. Established as a joint venture with Paris-based creator investment fund Copyright Capital, Narativ has rapidly built a business focused on content distribution, digital monetization, and international expansion.
While traditional distribution remains a key pillar for the company, Sandhu believes the industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Beyond representing thousands of hours of content from regions including Latin America, India, Turkey, and the Middle East, Narativ is increasingly focused on helping rights holders unlock value through digital platforms, particularly YouTube, and through localization strategies that extend content into new territories and languages.
Present at the event, the CEO spoke to ttvnews about the company’s goal to position itself as a perfect ally for content owners to exploit their catalogs’ full potential, by combining AI-driven localization, digital expertise, and a network of strategic partners.
When did Narativ first launch?
We launched Narativ Media last year in June. In fact, we are finishing our first year here at NEM Dubrovnik. Our first market was NEM, so this is the perfect place to complete one year.
It’s a joint venture between myself and a fund based out of Paris, called Copyright Capital. Copyright is one of the largest creator funds globally. We partnered with them to set up Narativ.
What is the company’s business model shaped like?
In terms of the company, we have three core verticals that we work on. One is the distribution side of the business, where we represent about 7,000+ hours of content. We work exclusively with Viu in the Middle East. Viu is one of the largest OTT platforms from Southeast Asia. We represent their catalogs.
We’ve also got a lot of content that we get from Latin America. We’ve got a lot of Spanish movies that we represent exclusively. We’ve just started to work on some Turkish telenovelas as well for select markets. So that’s a new acquisition. We have a large Indian catalog that we work on as well. But if I look at NEM specifically, I think our core concentration here is the buzzword across microdramas.
So Narativ is a distribution partner with the COL group who run ReelShorts and Flareflow. It’s one of the largest microdrama libraries in the world. So we distribute their content.
We also sell their IPs. We work on telco integrations. So that’s something that the team works on. YouTube is becoming very, very important for us. We’ve got about seven to eight CMSs in-house. We are looking at partnering with content owners.
And we will invest in the localization. We will invest in non-core languages that people are looking at. I mean, there’s some great premium IP out there, which is not monetized in, for example, markets like India or Middle East, etc. So we are looking at investing in localization and then taking it from there.
When you see a market like NEM Dubrovnik, where do you see the biggest opportunity considering all you’re doing right now?
I think the beauty about NEM is it started off as a CEE, Balcans-focused market. But I think it’s become a truly global market now. And that’s the change that we’ve seen in the last two to three years. You’re getting buyers from all over the world. So we don’t consider it as only a Europe-focused market.
What are your main goals for the event?
Our priority at NEM clearly is microdramas. And our second priority is talking to content owners on digital partnerships.
I think what we want to do as a differentiator is we want to become a digital-first distributor. A lot of people have premium content, but they don’t know how to distribute it on digital. Many people are having conversations on YouTube, Meta, etc., but they don’t have the expertise to do that.
Where we bring that expertise is we’ve just got Timur Altop, who’s come and joined us. Timur used to be the head of YouTube in Turkey for the last eight years. So he’s driving our entire YouTube strategy. I mean, they understand that space. So we’re looking at content partnerships on the digital side.
And of course, the catalogs that we have, the distribution team is always there.
What are content owners missing if they’re not participating in that area of business with YouTube?
Anything is better than zero. So right now, what they’re doing is they’re concentrating on their core languages that they operated. And for example, there could be a great catalog owner from Europe who monetizes that catalog really well in this territory. But what we’re willing to do is open up what we call non-core markets. There’s potential for that content to travel into the Middle East, to travel into Southeast Asia. But localization is important there.
And that’s the investment that we bring to the table. We come and take the risk with the content owner, saying, okay, you give us your content, we will invest in the localization. And then we take it to non-core markets. We’ve seen success with a lot of catalogs like that. So I think that’s a key selling point.
I think the first question that I ask a content owner is, “you tell me what your holdbacks are”. So you tell us, these are the markets that you can’t touch. These are languages you can’t touch. We will come back to you with a strategy of how you can tap the rest of the world.
Currently, we are localizing in about 23+ languages already. And we’ve got teams sitting out of Turkey. We’ve got a YouTube team sitting out of Sao Paulo. They understand that ecosystem. We’re coming in more as digital monetization consultants.
Could you share success stories?
To give you an example, Viu, the OTT platform, had produced over 45 original Arabic language shows, which were on their platform. While it took us time to convince them, as we speak, we are onboarding about 1,000 hours of their catalog in original Arabic. And we’re going to further localize it into French, Spanish, and German.
Now, as an Arabic content owner, they would be very happy with making money in the Middle East. They’ve got their own platform. But there is a serious opportunity on that content to be localized. And we’ve identified French, German, and Spanish. That content will now travel the world. Otherwise, it would just lie there in the catalog and they would make no money on it.
So that’s education that we’re talking about. In fact, I think in the next two days, we’ll also announce one or two other big content partnerships. So that’s one part we’re really going after aggressively.
And also, traditional distribution is changing. You can’t just be trading in content anymore. There’s just so much content, so many companies. You need to bring that differentiator somewhere.
We take pride in being digital monetization consultants. And we do that very well. We’ve seen a lot of large catalog owners coming and speaking to us. We look in our teams. So that’s what we do. And it necessarily doesn’t need to be on our YouTube.
We also find the right partners. For example, if you’re talking about a Hindi language in India or whatever, we take you to the people who are experts in that. So otherwise, we don’t have that strategy of keeping everything to ourselves. That never works. I won’t have expertise to monetize in 15 languages. But we get you to the right platform and the right audiences.
How are you overcoming the hurdle that is localization right now, the spike in prices?
We hugely are using AI. But the thing is, we have an exclusive AI partner that we work in. And these guys have offices across multiple cities. We started out working with them on the creator side of the business, where I told you Copyright Capital has creators. So we localize thousands of hours of content. We started to train them on premium IP. We are fairly confident -at least on French, Spanish, and German- that we’re hitting about 85% accuracy. And the proof of it lies on when we put that content on YouTube. Because on YouTube, you get real-time responses from people. I think that’s the hurdle that we’ve crossed already.
But what we also do is, if we see an opportunity on a digital plus broadcast play, for example, if we have content in English and French, then we do studio dubbing. Because we do the first window on digital, and then we can license it into territories like Africa or non-core markets. So we’re also doing multi-tier distribution planning. And I think that’s something that’s missing in most distribution companies.
I mean, they have set agendas, they want to license to broadcasters, they don’t want to take that risk of investing into localization. And that’s the risk that we’re willing to take. And I think that’s the only way to do it. Because eventually you can’t base your risk on, I will sell this content to one broadcaster. We’re putting layers to it.
So we have multiple layers of monetization. And that’s the only way to do it. So that’s the conversation that we’re having with people, and I think it’s resonating with them.
How do you monetize these microdramas?
We don’t do monetization ourselves. But again, that’s the difference between narrative, going and selling microdramas, versus 10 other companies trying to sell microdramas, is we are partners with people who understand microdrama monetization.
They’ve run ReelShort, they’ve run Flareflow. That’s one of the biggest in the world. So we also go and educate people on how they need to monetize. Because I know a lot of people are making this mistake of putting microdramas on existing OTTs. And that’s not the way to do it. That’s what most people do. And that is why they fail. And then they say, oh, microdrama doesn’t work for us. So I think that’s also education that we do.
We do a three-tiered approach on microdrama sales. We do masterclasses. We get people from ReelShort and Flareflow, who teach programming teams about how monetization is happening. We’ve also tied up with COL, who has a large production facility in Macau, where we offer production services. And they know how to produce microdrama because they’ve produced thousands. All you need to do is take your script, take your cast, and you’ve got the entire ecosystem with you. So like I said, there’s education, there’s production facilities, there’s technical know-how.
So it’s not about another catalog lying with us. And when we go and pitch microdrama, we go in with education. I mean, to be honest, I’ve had conversations with certain platforms where we have openly said, don’t waste your money.
Because you eventually need to be able to monetize it. And monetization comes from spending serious money on marketing. Like if you look at the microdrama ecosystem today, 80% spends done by large platforms is on marketing.
At least 70% to 80%. So you need to commit to that kind of money on the team. So I think that’s a great differentiator for sure. So that’s something that we build in well.
