In southern India, devoted fans worship film and TV stars like gods, erecting huge statues of actors which are bathed in milk as part of prayer rituals for a movie's success.

This is the market Netflix, a streaming laggard in India, is now eager to tap. It has a range of Indian films across various regions to showcase but for TV series — key to keeping viewers loyal to its platform — it only has a few hit shows in Hindi and no TV shows at all in regional languages.

The U.S. company has greenlighted at least six TV shows in southern Indian languages this year, aggressively chasing deals in Tollywood as the Telugu film and TV industry is known, as well as in the Tamil film and TV industry, said six people with knowledge of the company's plans.