The TVF story | From being rejected by MTV to giving hits like Aspirants, Kota Factory and Pitchers

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Launched in 2010, The Viral Fever (TVF), won the hearts of its targeted millennial audience with its relatable shows catering to their interests. The Indian digital entertainment platform that caters to the needs of the younger generation who seldom watch television has gained widespread popularity and has an enthusiastic viewership. What many don’t know is that TVF has an IIT Kharagpur alumnus behind its conception. It was not a brainchild of a director, producer or someone who studied films, rather it was an engineer behind its making. Arunabh Kumar knew engineering was not for him, and his true calling was somewhere else. 

The Epiphany

Even after landing at the prestigious IIT Kharagpur, Arunabh Kumar knew he was not meant to be an Engineer. Right after his engineering he took up a job as a research consultant in the US Air Force and was supposed to move to Tokyo. He recalls, "I was sitting at the Mumbai airport, from where I had to go to Delhi for visa formalities to go to Tokyo. I had not boarded the plane yet. They kept announcing my name but I couldn't go. I came back from the airport, resigned from my job and started going to various production houses looking for a job." 

He started cold calling a plethora of production houses and soon out of kindness a chief assistant director ended up giving him a meeting. 

Arunabh landed up at the office of Shah Rukh Khan's production house, Red Chillies Entertainments, asking Farah Khan for an assistant's position. Recalling his experience with Red Chillies he says, “In Red Chillies, I was nothing but an assistant director. That is what everybody starts with. Your role involves doing the running around, and pretty much everything…behaving like a spot boy, and doing everything from taking print outs and helping in everything. And that’s what you start doing.”

Perhaps it was because of Kumar’s humour and self-deprecation, Red Chillies decided to give him his first break and he served as an assistant director in Deepika Padukone’s debut Om Shanti Om.

The creation of TVF

Arunabh’s thought behind starting TVF was to reach out to the current internet savvy generation who seldom watch television entertainment. "I knew for a fact that there was a section of society that hadn't watched a TV serial in a long time," he explained in a chat at TVF's studio in Mumbai.

Talking about what made him create such different digital content Arunabh says, “The whole idea of inspiration was, can we make stories that I will want to watch? So saas bahu is something that is not relatable to the Indian youth, right? It is not even relatable to saas bahus maybe. So that’s the thing. And the whole idea was, can we at least try making something which is very new...which is contemporary.”

Arunabh's conception of TVF was a source that provided him with the much needed creative output. TVF planned to create content that appealed to an underserved audience who relied on “low quality” content – internet-savvy Indian millennials.  

Pitching this to MTV, the group’s content was rejected. MTV said he was “delusional,“ and nobody would watch his content.

Busting the major misconception that TVF was born post a rejection by MTV, Arunabh explains, “TVF didn’t really start from this rejection. TVF Media Labs was a company that I started for branded content production, and it was pretty established much before. It was started in 2010-11...so it’s a misconception that I started TVF because the show got rejected. I had TVF and I had enough money.”

It was after he had enough monetary backup that he decided to make some TV shows which got rejected, and that is when he, “thought that maybe I should try and make my own show online. That’s how the TVF online network came into existence...So, I think the whole idea of starting TVF online – happened after the rejection. I realised that if I have to do this, I can use technology, I am an engineer. And I can use that sort of expertise to do something. That’s when I thought that okay let’s try and make something called online television for the youth.”

And with this, they would end up producing a spoof of MTV’s Roadies. Rowdies Qtiyapa racked up 1.1 MM views in 5 days. Instead of wanting to supply content to MTV, TVF was in a race to replace it. 

TVF was one of the pioneers of the Indian digital entertainment industry with videos covering a broad range of topics from Indian politics, movies, lifestyle to emerging social concepts. The Viral Fever was one of its kind in the segment of web series in India with massive hits like TVF Pitchers and Permanent Roommates, which debuted in 2014 and by June 2015 became the world’s second most-viewed web series.

As of the latest updates, TVF has gained over 9.11 million (91 lakh) subscribers on YouTube. TVF also runs the app and website, TVFPlay, to host their videos. 

TVF has given the Indian digital entertainment industry and the millennials multiple hit shows, ranging from Pitchers, Permanent Roommates, Tripling, Kota Factory and Aspirants etc. to name a few.

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