Feb 07, 2026 7:26pm IST
Indian Filmmakers Still Prefer Streaming Platforms Over YouTube
At 400 million users, India is home to the largest chunk of viewers on YouTube. In fact, globally, the platforms and Google’s parent company Alphabet, revealed that YouTube's revenue crossed $60 billion in 2025 compared to Netflix’s $42.5 billion in the same timeframe.
Neither Netflix or Amazon reveal country-specific numbers. But industry estimates place Netflix in India at about 20 million subscribers, while Amazon has a little over 50 million. Which pale in comparison to YouTube’s reach and penetration in India.
But that doesn’t impress the country’s filmmakers enough to have their movies or their shows play or even be unveiled on the Google-owned online entity. Emerging filmmakers aspire for streaming platforms, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, to license or acquire and premiere their content, according to Variety India’s recent conversations with half a dozen makers.
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In August 2025, Bollywood’s icon Aamir Khan went against the industry trend of chasing streaming deals to choose YouTube for digitally releasing “Sitaare Zameen Par”, a comedy-drama, after its theatrical run was over. Khan also starred and produced the movie under his eponymous studio, which has released more short and long-form content over their channel Aamir Khan Talkies. Released on pay-per-view model, charging ₹100 in India and localized pricing in 38 other countries, on a platform with millions of users would’ve meant a decent monetisation and direct viewer engagement opportunity.
But the experiment did not yield a sizeable digital income for the sports film. Some would also say Khan lost out on lucrative deals from streaming platforms, also known as OTT (over-the-top) platforms in India.
Khan noted in an interview with Variety India, “We realised later that people have to log into YouTube to pay and watch our film. Many people don’t automatically stay logged in on their home TVs. People also tend to forget their passwords. Even though there were clicks on the movie, it did not translate into numbers.
India’s top actor turned to the digital platform for a wider audience in the wake of post-pandemic movie industry realities. With streaming platforms reducing acquisition budgets, single-screen and hyper-local film distribution networks shutting down, meant movies only landed up in multiplexes. Also, India consists of less than 10,000 screens, with the majority still operating as single screens in an unorganised manner and multiplexes struggling to increase screen count due to real estate challenges.
In such a situation, YouTube seemed to be the obvious choice to reach a wider chunk of audience. But the video platform is not catering to the needs of India’s ever burgeoning filmmaking industry due to its creator-centric model. Unlike a streaming platform, which acquires or commissions content directly from studios and production houses and then creates a content library, YouTube has always been a creator-centric platform monetising through ads on their videos.
“An upcoming filmmaker would either want to see their movie running in theatres or being digitally premiered on a streaming platform. YouTube comes in as a last resort,” said Udai Singh Pawar, who made “Upstarts,” which was
Another major challenge when unveiling content on YouTube is getting traction. “Unless and until the channel already has a good number of subscribers the filmmaker has to spend on marketing of the content as well, which is a huge cost,” said Abhishek Dhandharia, founder, About Films, and creator of shows including “13th” streaming on Sony LIV.
When shows get unveiled on streaming platforms, marketing and buzz around the content is also created by the platform. But YouTube understands the platform's growing consumption in living rooms on Smart TVs, and plans on launching over 10 specialised YouTube TV plans, “spanning sports, entertainment and news, all designed to give subscribers more control,” the Google-owned firm said in a note.
Netflix India remained unavailable to comment at the time of publishing this story.
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