Even as the likes of Pathaan and Barbenheimer have revived the big screen buzz this year, OTT content continues to grow in popularity among Indian audiences. With streaming platforms and their libraries growing by the day, Ormax Media has released its ‘Streaming Originals in India’ report, which highlights the best-performing shows and films in the streaming market for the first half of 2023.
The report is limited to assessing original content in Hindi and English available on Indian OTT platforms this year. It only includes content that made its way directly to OTT, which rules out theatrical releases that came to streaming services a few weeks or months after their box office release.
For estimating viewership, Ormax counts the number of people watching at least one episode of a show or 30 minutes of a film, with individual users, not accounts, taken into consideration. For analysing buzz, Ormax allocates a score between 0 to 100 to indicate the ‘talk value of the property’. Lastly, on the matter of most-liked, Ormax’s calculations are based on an internal formula that provides an ‘Ormax Power Rating’ (OPR) to shows and films factoring in likeability and completion rates.
It has been a remarkable run for Shahid Kapoor on OTT in 2023. First, his Prime Video series Farzi managed to garner 37.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Hindi show of the year so far. Second, Kapoor’s Bloody Daddy became the most-watched Hindi film of the year, roping in 16.6 million viewers on JioCinema.
As for the rest of the Hindi shows, The Night Manager (in two instalments on Disney+ Hotstar) was seen by 28.6 million people, ahead of Taaza Khabar’s 23.5 million (also on Disney+ Hotstar) and JioCinema’s second season of Asur, which had a viewership of 19.3 million. Disney+ Hotstar has three entries in the top five, with Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo attracting 16.2 million viewers.
When it comes to Hindi films on OTT, Gulmohar (Disney+ Hotstar) lost out narrowly to Bloody Daddy, with the family drama accumulating 16.3 million viewers. Gaslight (Disney+ Hotstar) and Tiku Weds Sheru (Prime Video) were next with figures of 12.5 million and 11.1 million, respectively. Rounding off the top five was the sole Netflix entry, Mission Majnu, with 10.8 million viewers.
Citadel and The Mandalorian top the charts for international content
Prime Video’s action drama Citadel, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, was the comfortable topper on the list of most-watched international content on Indian OTT, with an audience of 17.5 million. Second place went to the third season of The Mandalorian (Disney+ Hotstar), which received 11.3 million viewers. Extraction 2 (Netflix) at 9.6 million, The Last of Us (JioCinema) at 9.5 million and the fourth season of Jack Ryan (Prime Video) at 8.6 million completed the top five.
Ormax’s most-buzzing Hindi shows at the halfway point for 2023 were Farzi (with a score of 45), Asur (34) and The Night Manager (21). The same parameter for Hindi films saw Bloody Daddy (21), Lust Stories 2 (17) on Netflix and Mission Majnu (15) occupy the podium. For the most-buzzing international content, Citadel (23) and Extraction 2 (15) finished one and two, with the fourth season of Never Have I Ever (10) on Netflix coming in third.
In terms of the most-liked Hindi shows, Asur (with an OPR of 78) edged past Farzi (77), with Taaza Khabar (66) not far behind. The most-liked Hindi film was Mission Majnu (69), beating Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (67) on Zee5 and Bloody Daddy (64). The international content space featured Extraction 2 (75) as the most-liked, trumping the third season of The Witcher (63) on Netflix as well as AIR (62) on Prime Video.
