Eight weeks after its launch in theatres in June, Aamir Khan Productions’ new function movie Sitaare Zameen Par might be out there for pay-per-view on YouTube, in response to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie will skip its debut on conventional OTT streaming companies (Netflix, JioHotstar or Prime Video) after its launch in cinemas — a route Bollywood has been taking up to now.
Aamir Khan has usually red-flagged Bollywood’s damaged enterprise mannequin and the shrinking window between theatrical and streaming debut of recent movies that retains audiences away from theatres.
Apart from, OTT platforms are not paying dearly for getting new movies on account of price cuts and monetary self-discipline. They’re additionally shy of sharing viewership knowledge which makes an excellent larger case for Bollywood to present YouTube a shot, stated media and content material strategists.
India has the biggest variety of YouTube customers on this planet at 491 million, in response to Statista, a web based portal offering statistics and enterprise intelligence knowledge throughout industries. “It enjoys unparalleled attain amongst all video streaming platforms. On every other OTT service, a movie would attain 20 to 50 million customers. On YouTube that quantity may very well be 400 million,” stated Siddharth Jhawar, nation supervisor at international adtech firm Moloco.
A March 2025 Ficci-EY report on media and leisure stated that in 2024 YouTube dominated the panorama, capturing 92% of all on-line video consumption, whereas premium platforms—comprising ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD), freemium, and subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) companies—accounted for the remaining 8%. Nevertheless, 89% of time spent on YouTube was on cellular units, whereas 9% was on linked TV (CTV).
However which will change as CTV penetration will increase. YouTube consumption on CTVs grew 132% between August 2022 and August 2024, the report added.
YouTube’s power lies in its simplicity, discoverability, and omnipresence, stated Vikram Malhotra, founder & CEO, Abundantia Leisure. “Media reviews counsel, in FY 2024-25, it accounted for roughly Rs14,300 crore in income, capturing 37.7% of the entire digital media income within the nation,” Malhotra stated. Jhawar added that YouTube’s monetization fashions are far superior to different streaming companies. It’s evolving from a user-generated content material hub to a platform for premium storytelling with robust stickiness and engagement, Malhotra stated, highlighting its unmatched attain, data-backed insights and monetization fashions.
So, will others use YouTube for movie releases too? “If it will possibly supply attain, relevance and income for a specific title, we’d undoubtedly consider it,” Abundantia’s Malhotra stated. Nevertheless, he added that the OTT ecosystem stays related each for serialized, binge-worthy content material and as a vacation spot for films. However the pay-per-view mannequin permits for extra flexibility and immediate audience-led validation, he stated. Jhawar stated OTT platforms should add the TVOD (transaction video-on-demand) or pay-per-view layer to their AVOD and SVOD fashions which is presently being supplied solely by Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.
Harikrishnan Pillai, CEO and co-founder of digital company TheSmallBigIdea, spelled out some great benefits of YouTube debut of movies. First is the management a producer has over his movie as it’s reintroduced to the audiences after its run within the theatres. “OTT companies purchase movies however don’t all the time prioritize them. On YouTube, you’re in-charge of the discharge,” he stated. Secondly, you possibly can value it in a way that’s viable to you, Pillai stated. Nevertheless, he cautioned that premium subscriptions on YouTube is a skinny sliver as Indians eat free content material. The share of paying subscribers for OTT, too, is lower than 15% of the entire viewers base.
Malhotra stated any new distribution mannequin comes with its personal set of challenges—foremost amongst them being client behaviour. In India, audiences are nonetheless transitioning from free and subscription-based viewing to paying for particular person titles. “The important thing might be in how the worth is communicated—what makes a movie value that single transaction—and the way seamless the person expertise is,” he stated.
The Ficci-EY report stated the TVOD alternative has expanded with Amazon Prime Video enabling TVOD for its enormous library and catalogue. Prime Video claimed that 60% of its 8,500 titles obtained rented every month. “Smaller ticket sizes for pay-per-view content material could also be a mannequin ready to blow up,” Pillai stated.
As for Aamir Khan’s experiment on YouTube, “the risk-reward sample will emerge in the end however for now it’s a disruptive however viable medium to attempt,” Malhotra stated.
