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Economic Times

India on OTT screen from everywhere

India's OTT scene is booming with bolder stories, louder voices and genre-busting ambition. Every new season is breaking fresh ground, with edgier scripts, braver narratives and a fearless appetite for reinvention. Earlier this week, Ormax Media released its mid-year report ranking the Top 50 most-watched OTT originals, capturing this change in viewing mood. Leading the pack is Pankaj Tripathi's Criminal Justice: A Family Matter, with 27.7 mn views, followed by Ek Badnaam Aashram Season 3 Part 2 with 27.1 mn. Despite opening to mixed reviews, Season 4 of Panchayat comes in third, clocking 23.8 mn viewers. Three trends stand out from the report: Indian viewers are pivoting from dark, gritty thrillers to more family-friendly dramas, romances and comedies. And original language is no longer a barrier to viewership. In fact, much of this shift is being driven by the rising power and taste of tier-2 and tier-3 audiences, who are reshaping mainstream preferences. Interestingly, the Top 50 list has just 5 direct-to-OTT films. What's striking about this narrative evolution is that viewers are no longer enamoured by tales of the ultra-rich, or set in metropolitan India. Instead, there's a growing appetite for stories that reflect how everyone, everywhere lives - without the 1970s Manmohan Desai-style cliched binary of poor hero Amitabh vs rich villain Prem Chopra. Streaming platforms and content creators, many from small towns, are responding to this shift with nuance, honesty and bold storytelling. Characters are more rooted, conflicts more relatable, and resolutions less fantastical. It's a creative feast that was long overdue. One can only celebrate this explosion of perspective, language, emotional range and true diversity on screen.