The fall in the releases of originals in India is sharper when one considers the past one year period. Between 2023 and 2024, there has been a drop of 18% in the number of originals released by streamers in India.
| Year | Total Originals* |
| 2018 | 114 |
| 2019 | 234 |
| 2020 | 294 |
| 2021 | 337 |
| 2022 | 368 |
| 2023 | 383 |
| 2024 | 315 |
| *except YouTube |
Ameya Naik, producer and founder-Fantasy Films, an event management company said, “The drop in the releases of originals in 2024 by streamers in India is largely connected with economics. Today, an original web series may take a year to make. Then, there are costs and time attached to it. For streamers, it makes sense to selectively buy more films than invest in originals.”At present, it is estimated that there are more than 250 mid-budgets which are already made and yet to secure deals with streamers, point out trade analysts.
The research of Ormax Media notes, “The drop of 18% in supply in 2024 can be attributed to reduction in number of originals on Prime Video, Ullu, Hoichoi, and ALTT (drop of more than 10 originals), followed by ZEE5, Disney+ Hotstar, Aha, Addatimes, and Discovery+ (drop of 5-9 originals). Amazon MX Player and Sony LIV launched more originals in 2024 compared to 2023, while Netflix and JioCinema maintained their 2023 count in 2024 as well.”
| Format-wise share of Number of originals in India (%) | |||||||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
| Fiction | 59 | 70 | 59 | 40 | 69 | 71 | 68 |
| Direct to OTT Films | 20 | 19 | 33 | 53 | 23 | 16 | 18 |
| Reality Shows | 19 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 10 |
| Documentaries | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
According to the Ormax Media research, Hindi remains the dominant language of originals released by streamers. It accounted for 65% of the total originals released by top streamers by subscribers in India in 2024. After Hindi, Bengali produced the most number of originals, showed the research.
| Number of Originals Across Languages in 2024 | |||||
| Language | Fiction | Direct to OTT Films | Reality Shows | Documentaries | Total |
| Hindi | 138 | 40 | 15 | 11 | 204 |
| Bengali | 30 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 42 |
| Telugu | 15 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 28 |
| Tamil | 18 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 21 |
| Others | 13 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 20 |
| Total | 214 | 58 | 30 | 13 | 315 |
The research by Ormax Media takes into account four formats of storytelling produced by streaming platforms in India. These categories are: fiction series, direct-to-OTT films, reality shows, and documentaries.
It has been observed that since 2022, fiction web series has been the dominant format of storytelling. The research observed that 70% of the content produced by streamers was largely fiction web series. In 2024, 214 shows of 315 originals released by streamers were fiction web series. In 2023, of the total originals of 383, the number of fiction web series were 272. This means that between 2023 and 2024, the number of original fiction web series released by streamers in India declined by 21%.
In terms of content strategies pursued by streamers in India, the Ormax Media research notes that Amazon MX Player, Sony LIV, Disney+ Hotstar, Ullu, and Hungama Play focused largely on fiction series in Hindi. It noted that ZEE5 followed the strategy of releasing the highest number of direct-to-OTT films in India, prioritising the format over web-series. On the other hand, the research observed that streamers such as JioCinema, Netflix, and Prime Video struck a balance in content offerings across fiction series, direct-to-OTT films, reality shows, and documentaries.
