Delhi/Mumbai: Sony LIV, the video streaming platform owned by Sony Pictures Networks India, is slowing down production of original web shows as the parent company bets on linear television content and expansion in regional languages to help drive digital growth along with strengthening the TV business, three people familiar with the development told Mint.
Going forward, only select web franchises such as Scam and Maharani will see new seasons as the company backs star-studded TV content, especially non-fiction, such as Kaun Banega Crorepati and MasterChef, besides programming in regional languages such as Marathi and Tamil, to scale further.
Sony LIV is known for local Indian originals such as Rocket Boys, Scam 1992-The Harshad Mehta Story, Maharani, Avrodh, Chutzpah, Undekhi and Gullak, among others. Its popularity had surged particularly during the pandemic with the release of Scam 1992-The Harshad Mehta Story.
“It has been many months that Sony LIV has been waiting on greenlighting shows for the slate for next year and after,” one of the people in the know said, requesting anonymity. “Until last month, Sony India was in talks with their head office to sanction more money for a slate of originals. But now, the platform won’t be greenlighting any web shows at all. There are no budgets, except for major hits that are already under production like Scam and Maharani. Rest, they are focusing on cricket, KBC, and non-fiction.”
Earlier this month, Sony Pictures’ managing director and chief executive officer Gaurav Banerjee presented a brand new entertainment slate for the company’s TV channels and streaming service, focused on cricket, including this year’s Asian Games, a fresh season of the legendary quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati starring Amitabh Bachchan, along with a Marathi version hosted by Madhuri Dixit.
Sony is also launching a new season of the true crime docu-series Crime Patrol hosted by Ajay Devgn, and an unnamed new game show hosted by cricketer Rohit Sharma, the first mainstream athlete to pick up that role. A new season of Hansal Mehta’s hit series Scam was also part of the slate; the show was under a legal threat from Sahara founder Subrata Roy, on whose life the new season is based.
In a briefing on 10 August, Banerjee told reporters that the company is focused on offering big ticket entertainment to its audience.
“There’s a range of new content that we are trying to create,” he said. “We have been talking a lot about a new identity for our company; we see ourselves as more of a content creating ecosystem. How do we take our signature IP and make it multilingual in India? Those are some of the key priorities that we have been talking about over the last several months.” Banerjee added that the company was focused on ensuring “a lot of [content is] continuing from TV to digital.”
For an industry perspective, while broadcaster-led OTTs such as JioHotstar and ZEE5 are increasingly seeing linear TV shows do well on digital, both are continuing to commission more original web series, in Hindi as well as in southern languages. JioHotstar has seen success with titles such as Chiraiya and Pritam and Pedro this year, while ZEE5 is rapidly expanding its Malayalam, Tamil and Marathi slates.
In an email response, a spokesperson for Sony LIV said the platform is committed to backing stories with "an identity of their own" rather than developing titles based on "existing reference points". “Sony LIV has always focused on building a distinctive slate rather than pursuing volume for its own sake," the spokesperson said.
Each project is evaluated on its creative merit, originality and relevance to the audience, the spokesperson said, adding that: “Development slates naturally evolve, and individual projects may be reworked, rescheduled or may not proceed; that should not be interpreted as a scaling back of our originals strategy.”
Budget cuts
The second person cited above said with limited capital, the company is trying to see where to put cash and is betting on TV content to work online for them as well. “Also, they’ve seen rivals like JioStar win big with the success of linear TV channels performing well on connected TV, which is anyway penetrating deeper into the country,” the person added.
Unlike Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, broadcaster-led OTTs such as Sony LIV can afford to not create original digital content, the person added and is thus cashing in on the same. “Hence, sports and celebrities shall do the talking for them.”
In March this year, some top executives exited, including Danish Khan, the executive vice-president and business head of Sony LIV and its content production arm StudioNXT and Saugata Mukherjee, who was executive vice-president and head of content for SonyLIV. A month earlier, Sony had expanded the role of Suvonkar Banerjee, creative director of StudioNXT to also lead the development of Hindi originals for Sony LIV.
As of last year, Sony LIV was spending roughly ₹15-20 crore each on commissioning and/or acquiring most of its streaming originals, and upwards of ₹50 crore each on bigger titles such as Rocket Boys and Freedom At Midnight, which ran for two seasons, according to one senior industry executive aware of Sony’s budgets. So far, neither big budget show has been renewed for another season officially. However, Scam and Maharani are under production.
Last year's slate, announced in September, included a number of streaming including the latest seasons of Hindi shows Gullak and Undekhi, Malayalam originals Eyes and Unfair, Tamil original Theevinai Pottru and Bengali original Jazz City.
Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI), earlier known as Culver Max Entertainment, reported a 15.6% rise in consolidated net profit to ₹556.1 crore in 2025-26, while revenue from operations was up 9% to ₹6,830.04 crore.
To be sure, Sony's move comes at a time that the streaming industry in India is already seeing much caution in greenlighting and a dip in budgets.
After an initial rush of bullish spending, when they looked to consolidate their presence in India, video-streaming platforms are slowing investments in the country. By 2022, spending had dipped by 50%, as the parent companies of foreign platforms reeled from the global downturn, with subscriber additions in India remaining tepid. Streaming platforms are also cutting back on the number of original shows made in Indian languages, after the surge seen during the pandemic. Following an 18% decline in 2024, the number of originals fell by another 13% in 2025, according to media consulting firm Ormax.
“A strong slate of exclusive originals helps build viewer loyalty and differentiate platforms in an increasingly competitive market. However, producing premium originals and extending successful franchises requires significant investment, as audiences now expect cinematic production values and high-quality storytelling,” Chandrashekhar Mantha, partner and media & entertainment sector leader at Deloitte India had said in a recent interview to Mint.
Sports rights, he had added, continue to be a strategic priority because of their ability to deliver large, highly engaged audiences and predictable viewership at scale. As a result, every platform is adopting a distinct content strategy, balancing original productions, licensed content, regional programming and live sports based on its target audience and business objectives.