Programming for a country as diverse as India is a “mix of art and science” with intuition playing a critical role, Netflix India vice president for content Monika Shergill has said.
Speaking to PTI, Shergill said the responsibility of an entertainment streaming service is to offer audiences “everything and more”.
“Every time members tune in to watch Netflix, they should have something new, something exciting, something really special, something really classic, something from a deep part of India, something in a different language and from across the world. That has been the mission for us as a company — to entertain the world,” she said.
Shergill said the company’s 2026 slate, unveiled on Tuesday, reflects that approach. The lineup features 30 new projects, including 19 series and 11 films, led by actors such as Sunny Deol, Madhuri Dixit, Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor.
The slate includes films such as Ikka, Hum Hindustani and Kartavya, and series including Family Business and Operation Safed Sagar, along with new seasons of Mamla Legal Hai, Kohrra and the final season of Mismatched.
“Intuition is very important and really understanding what speaks to a very wide range of audience, what speaks to certain specific sets of audience and then applying the lens,” Shergill said in the video interview.
“For us, it is about programming in a very diverse way… A streaming service allows for that plurality of programming. It is not a single screen where a push format of content is there or storytelling. It is a full format. You might like something else that exists for you. I might like something else that exists for me. And it's our responsibility as an entertainment streaming service to give everything and more,” she further said.
On the growing debate around streamers evolving from niche storytelling to more populist programming, Shergill said the shift is natural. “It's a natural journey to keep widening the funnel for your audiences to become more and more relevant and closer to your audiences. But for Netflix, it's really important to hold to its core and do the whole gamut of programming,” she said, citing titles such as Delhi Crime, Raat Akeli Hai, Kohrra and the upcoming Red Chillies Entertainment-backed Kartavya starring Saif Ali Khan.
According to Shergill, audience preferences vary widely. Some viewers gravitate towards The Great Indian Kapil Show, renewed for a fifth season this year, while others prefer lighter stories such as Chumbak or are curious about new formats like the telenovela-style Yeh Dil Sun Ra Hai.
“It's not necessary that a high conversation story is always a high watch story. Many times it is, but sometimes it may not be,” she said. “The audiences are actually very smart. And eventually the agency has now come to the audiences. It doesn't lie with a small pool of people judging what should come or not come”.
“I feel that this year's slate captures the many moods and flavours and genres that our audience really expects from a service like Netflix. We want to be the most wholesome, loved entertainment service in the country. And I think this year's slate will be one more step closer to that,” Shergill said.