Daybreak - Ekta Kapoor built her own OTT app. Now she's betting on YouTube

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

In the 2000s, Ekta Kapoor's serials ruled Indian TV every night on weekdays.Then as, audiences moved from TV screens to smaller ones and streaming, her company, Balaji Telefilms followed. It bet on its own streaming app: ALTBalaji.For years, it lost money. Until finally, it shut down last year after a government ban in 2025. Now, Balaji is taking 5 new shows and a combined 200 episodes to Youtube. Premium, shot in 4k and free to watch.So why is India's queen of TV soaps, skipping the subscription model? We dig into her belief in an audience that no one is serving, the Pakistani drama effect and whether a bet on Youtube's ad model is enough for TV.This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the early 2000s, every weekday at 10.30 p.m., because sas b'as Bih Bha Hsu, ruled Indian TVs. And in 2001, when the show killed off a main character, nationwide protests made the show bring him back. More than a dozen women in white saries showed up at the actor's home to mourn. Other viewers actually pelted stones at the Balaji Telefilm's office in Mumbai. And within 10 days, Iqda Kapoor, the producer of the show,

show brought the character back. And in true soap opera fashion, with amnesia. The episode with his return was watched by one in every five TV screens that were being measured in the country. That's the kind of hold Kapoor and her production house had over Indian audiences. And as people slowly started moving from TV screens to phone screens and streaming, Balaji followed them with its own app. In 2017, it launched Alt Balaji.

later renamed to just alt. Eight years later now, though, that app is gone. It had actually been losing money for years and the final nail in the coffin came last year when the government banned it along with 24 other apps for obscene content. Kapoor and her family actually distanced themselves from the app by saying that they'd ended their association with it all the way back in 2021. And now, India's queen of TV soaps has a new plan to meet viewers where they're at.

Early this month, Balaji announced five new shows with a combined 200 episodes premiering over this festive season. They're all going to be short in 4K, they're all going to be premium, and all of them are going to be free to watch on YouTube. That's when Banerji already has a multi-year deal with Netflix. So why are these new shows going to be free and why on YouTube? Well, part of the answer could be the tough spot that Netflix is currently in. Twice in less than a week this month, two major Wall Street banks warned investors to be cautious about betting on Netflix.

Both Wells Fargo and HSBC said the same thing, that Netflix hasn't had any big hits recently and YouTube has been taking over TV screens. Recent US data from a Nielsen study showed that YouTube captured a record 14.2% of TV viewing. Netflix captured only a little more than half that. point eight percent, which was actually less than the 8.8% it had last year. In India, meanwhile, viewers are returning to TV screens. The connected TV audience here grew from about 130 million in 2025 to over 200 million in 26. And according to ComScore data from the last two years, YouTube is a platform with the most reach on these TVs. So this time, Ektakapur is betting on following this audience.

because she thinks she knows exactly who they are and what they want. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Tieter Virgis, and every day of the week, my co-host, Nita Shama and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 30th of September. So who is Kapoor making this shift for? She explained the case for the partnership in a recent variety report.

She said that there's an audience that no one is really serving. These are the Indians who don't watch broadcast TV. They're not sitting in front of screens at 10.30pm every day and they aren't fully serviced by the more niche content on paid apps. Kapoor believes that young Indians want content that is relatable, which isn't exactly fully niche or fully mass. She calls them a TV plus audience. People who have given up on appointment viewing time

in favor of what she calls comfort viewing, but not their appetite for long. running stories. And there's actually evidence that this audience does exist on YouTube. Look at how well Pakistani shows have been doing on the platform, which we'll get into details soon. Now, like I mentioned earlier, Alt had never really taken off. In FI22, for example, it made a little more than 100 crore rupees on revenue, but lost nearly 140 crore rupees. After a shutdown last year, its streaming has now been through different platforms. Even right now, the The slate that Balaji is releasing on YouTube includes the returning seasons of fan-favorit shows

that used to air on alt like Kehneko Hamzaferhae Season 4 and Huxe Season 2. Both shows are returning after 6 to 8 years and their older seasons are available on GeoHawstar to stream on a free subscription. And there's a few reasons why YouTube is right now the preferred platform. One is the consolidation, which helps for discoverability. See, if you tune into Kapoor, channel for one show, you end up learning about the four other new ones as well. And that increases the chances of you actually watching them. Then there's the details of the partnership announcement, which shows that right now, Balaji gets to keep the IP for all the shows that is

producing for Netflix while YouTube paste the studio through ads and brand deals. That gives Balaji three other things. One, of course, like I said, is the IP. And here's why that makes such a big difference. You see, having the IP allows Balaji to do pretty much anything it wants with the show even after the initial YouTube run. That could be more seasons, remakes in different languages, or context, or it could even decide to license a show to other broadcasters or platforms for more reach. Two, Kapoor gets YouTube's obviously vast audience through both the app and the TV screen. Sony claimed in the report that YouTube reached more than 75 million adults on connected TV in India in April 2025.

Plus, a YouTube audience is global. And importantly, its content is not locked based on geography in the same way that streaming platforms usually are. Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, said last year at a summit that content made in India drew 45 billion hours of watchtime from viewers abroad. Three, of course, is the money. YouTube is paying for this partnership through ads and brand deals.

And if their country and global numbers are anything to go by, it could be a pretty lucrative deal for Balaji, given that it cracks viewership. In the same summit last year, Mohan said that YouTube paid more than 21,000 crore rupees to Indian creators, artists and media companies over just three years. And of course, like I mentioned earlier, it's likely that this is not just going to be Indians watching this content. On top of the ad revenue, YouTube is also going to be making sponsorship and product placement deals for the shows, though the details of how exactly those will break down have not been disclosed yet.

Gunjan Soney, the India Managing Director for YouTube, acknowledged in a variety report that this could also become a template for similar deals. She explained her creators on YouTube anyway retain their IP and so there's no reason why the same model shouldn't apply to creators of serialized long-form content like Kapoor. The catch here though is that creators also carry the cost of production or almost entirely. Now, this part of the deal's terms have not been disclosed yet, but in YouTube's standard terms,

creators get 55% of net ad revenue on long-form videos. So, while Netflix keeps the affluent paying subscribers, YouTube gets the mass daily audience that doesn't want to pay every month. This gap is actually already showing with Indian audiences. Even after more than a decade here, Netflix has just over 16 million subscribers and about 4,000 crore rupees in revenue. GeoHodstar is twice its size in revenue

and YouTube about four times. Even the way content investment works has followed this trend. A recent media partner's Asia report showed that for the first time ever last year, online video led content investment in India. It took about 46% while TV took 42. So while Netflix is betting on reality television

and appointment viewing, Kapoor is. is betting on series that don't need appointment viewing. And like I mentioned before, the evidence for Kapoor's belief can actually be seen in the popularity of Pakistani dramas on YouTube. More on this in the next segment. Netflix took the cable TV schedule and set it with lockup. We covered this in an earlier episode of Daybreak where we spoke about how Netflix's lack

of hits and a falling audience for its second seasons were pushing it towards a reality show format that is both cheaper to produce and guarantees a returning viewership. For instance, with Lockup, which is also a Balaji show, by the way, a new episode was aired at 8pm on most days of the week. The platform has also worked with Kapoor on Made for Netflix films like Kathal and Janjaan. And yet, she does not want to take her latest slate to Netflix or even hot star. And here's where Pakistani shows come back into the picture. Shows like Hamsafar and Zendagi Gulzar Haar made actors like Fawad Khan and Myra Khan household names in India. They have the same emotional, family and romance-driven stories of Indian soaps,

but they also had much shorter and finite runs of about 20 to 30 episodes. Not like the original runs of Kapu's shows like Kiyu Kyi Saz Bih and Bada Chih Lacti, which ran for about 600 to 1800 episodes. And even when Indian TV dropped the Pakistani drama, in 2016, the audience followed them to YouTube. That was the kind of loyalty these shows garnered. And Pakistani TV channels have built huge YouTube following since then. I went on YouTube to check,

and just a year-old re-upload of the first episode of Zendaggi Gulzarha has more than 3 million views. The 2024 Pakistani hit called Khabi Man, Kabhibh Tum, also drew more than 200 million views across 34 episodes. In fact, Indians kept watching these shows even after the government blocked some of these official channels on YouTube in April 2025 after the Behqam attack. That's the kind of scale and popularity that is a possibility for Kapoor.

Balaji has actually already tested this with success. Its show, Piyar Kirahe, was uploaded on YouTube mid last year after it was aired on TV. Back then, it was at 70 episodes, across which the show gained over 200 million views on the platform. In a business standard report last year, Nitin Berman, the chief revenue officer of Balaji Telefilms, even admitted that the company had tried to take advantage of the gap left by Pakistani dramas by putting up its shows on YouTube. This newslete, meanwhile, is being released on YouTube exclusively on a channel called

The Indian K-Dramas at about 40 episodes each on average. The channel name, of course, is a nod to how popular Kapoor's K-named shows have been. Like obviously, because Sassi Kavih Kassati's Zendigke or Khaani Ghar Khar Khar Khar Kāya-Khaadki. Now, Balachi Telefilm's existing channel has a little less than 2 million subscribers. This is where it uploads its shows after they've already aired on TV and or streaming. Compare that to ARY Digital, the Pakistani network that made Khabi Makh Bih Tum, which has 70 million subscribers. So, a brand new channel with new shows on it is... quite a bold move for Kabul.

But whether the money will actually be worth the shift is still a question. Take Hum TV, for instance. The network that produced Humsefer and Zendigulzarhaarh. Its most recent numbers showed that it makes nearly half its revenue from digital platforms, mainly YouTube. Still though, its total revenue over the year fell by a quarter because TV ad revenue fell by 40%. And YouTube money, at least at that point, was not enough

to cover the gap. Even AR by Digital is changing tracks. As of this month, it's removing its shows off YouTube for viewers in Pakistan and putting them on its free app. You see, YouTube pays per 1,000 views based on ad revenue. And like I mentioned before, creators get about 55% for long-form content. Now, some creator industry sites say that 1,000 views can pay anywhere between 40 to 200 based on the kind of advertisers you get.

So, if we take a show like Piar Kina'i for a rough calculation, its 200 million views would have made 80 lakh rupees at the least and 4 crores at the most. Which means viewership would have to be massive to make up cost through ads alone and why brand deals being a part of this partnership is a big deal. Because YouTube getting Kapoor sponsorships and product placements is likely what's going to pay more than viewership. Now, the first few premieres for Kapoor's shows will roll out over the rest of this year. If these shows manage to hit the same chords with audiences as the popular Pakistani Ramas or even the legacy shows that made Kapoor a household name,

it could mean that she has found her way back to ruling the biggest screen in a home. And this time, no subscription required. Daybreak is produced from the Newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription unlocks daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcasts. Head to the can.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by me, Rachel Verkes, and edited by Arna Prakash.