India’s post-theatrical film rights market is becoming more competitive after nearly three years of dominance by Netflix and Prime Video, offering producers more options and potentially greater bargaining power.
But while the number of buyers has increased, the benefits are largely flowing to big-budget, star-led films, leaving mid-sized projects facing the same challenges as before.
Between 2022 and early 2025, Netflix and Prime Video together controlled more than 75% of major Hindi, Telugu and Tamil theatrical film acquisitions, according to media consulting firm Ormax. Since last year, however, the landscape has broadened, with at least four major platforms actively competing for streaming rights, particularly for South Indian films.
Netflix remains the market leader with a 36% share of acquisitions, followed by JioHotstar (21%), Prime Video (18%) and ZEE5 (13%), while SonyLIV (6%) has also begun expanding its presence in the segment.
For film studios and producers, the emergence of additional buyers has improved deal-making dynamics. Yet content executives caution that OTT platforms remain selective and continue to reserve the bulk of their spending for marquee titles.
Selective spending
“A few years ago, most platforms were aggressively acquiring content because they were still building their libraries and trying to expand their subscriber base rapidly. Today, the approach is much more cautious and data-driven. Streamers have become highly selective about what they acquire. So yes, there are certainly more doors open today, but getting past them has also become far tougher,” film producer Anand Pandit said.
Producers with strong or strategically positioned content now enjoy better leverage during negotiations, but projects that lack clear market potential may struggle to secure favourable deals, Pandit added.
Narendra Hirawat, chairman, NH Studioz, which specializes in content acquisition and distribution, agreed that the OTT acquisition market has shrunk overall, affecting production houses across the board.
“All the OTT platforms have picked their own space and are only looking to acquire content within that. So their budgets and spends keep shifting priorities,” he added.
Audience silos
To be sure, while the choice of platforms is far more diverse than it was a few years ago, industry experts say streamers have simultaneously become more differentiated in their content strategies.
For example, many platforms now hold rights to major sporting properties and are not focused entirely on films or web series. Some are aggressively pursuing exclusive movie content, while others view cinema as only one component of a broader entertainment offering. Some seek mass-market entertainers, others focus on niche storytelling, while several are investing heavily in regional-language cinema.
“It's clear that the market is way more competitive than it was two years ago, when it was largely a two-platform conversation. Today, there are more players who are actively acquiring films, and there are more entry points for producers, which helps in discovery and structuring of deals but I wouldn’t call it fully balanced yet,” said Vimal Doshi, chief operating officer, Balaji Motion Pictures.
“Premium contracts are primarily awarded to large films which have star power or strong theatrical success because these movies help increase subscriber numbers. The platforms now require stricter evaluation standards because they use their growing data capabilities to make more selective content decisions,” Doshi added.
Hindi paradox
The growing diversity of buyers has also exposed a surprising imbalance.
While Hindi cinema might be expected to enjoy the strongest negotiating leverage, it is increasingly dependent on a single buyer. According to Ormax data, Netflix accounted for approximately 57% of streaming rights acquisitions for original Hindi theatrical films in 2025.
Such concentration effectively reduces producers’ bargaining power and increases dependence on the content appetite and pricing decisions of a single platform.
“Regional language content—Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada operates in a meaningfully more competitive environment. Multiple platforms including JioHotstar, ZEE5, Prime Video and Netflix are all active in this space, which gives regional producers more options and stronger negotiating positions than their Hindi counterparts in many cases,” said Apurv Abhay Modi, managing director and co-founder, Abhāy Group, a diversified conglomerate with presence across digital content, consumer services, financial services, and emerging technologies.
Missing middle
Despite broader platform participation, industry executives say one structural problem remains unresolved: the lack of viable OTT economics for mid-budget films.
“The challenge that remains most acute is the mid-scale content gap. Large franchise films and marquee productions have no difficulty attracting platform interest, they drive subscriber acquisition and platforms understand their value clearly. Independent films and niche content have found their own audiences through targeted platform strategies,” Modi said.
The real difficulty lies in the middle—films with budgets between ₹15 crore and ₹60 crore that are neither tentpole spectacles nor low-cost niche productions.
These projects often struggle to command meaningful OTT valuations because they do not fit neatly into either the blockbuster acquisition model or the cost-efficient originals strategy.
“This is a structural gap that the industry and platforms need to solve together, potentially through more collaborative acquisition models, flexible windowing strategies, or revenue participation structures that reduce upfront platform risk,” Modi added.