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Balaji Telefilms goes big on movies and OTT, trims TV bets

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MUMBAI:  Balaji Telefilms is flipping its script. In a year marked by a strategic overhaul, the Ekta Kapoor-backed entertainment house has declared a decisive pivot from television towards high-growth verticals: movies, digital streaming, and branded content.

Addressing analysts on its FY25 earnings call, group chief executive and CFO Sanjay Dwivedi outlined a transformation roadmap: “Movies will be our growth engine, digital will scale next, and television—once our mainstay—will become the third line of business.”

The studio reported consolidated revenue of Rs 453 crore in FY25, down from Rs 625 crore the previous year. Yet net profit surged to Rs 84.6 crore from Rs 19.4 crore, largely due to a rights-heavy strategy in film and digital. The PAT margin stood at 18.7 per cent, and the company ended the year with Rs 172 crore in cash and mutual funds.

Balaji’s OTT platform ALT Balaji saw a turnaround. Once burning Rs 120–145 crore a year, its cash burn has now dropped to just Rs 35 lakh a month. The platform added 3.29 lakh subscriptions in Q4 FY25, with total active subscribers crossing the 2 million mark.

The company is also phasing out its pure SVOD model in favour of a hybrid SVOD–AVOD play, supported by a short-form vertical content app called Kutting. YouTube strategy and advertiser-funded content (AFP) are set to bolster revenue.

Crucially, Balaji sealed a long-term content partnership with Netflix, spanning original films, binge series, telenovelas, and reality formats over 3 to 7 years. “This is not a one-off deal—it’s a foundational alliance for the future,” said Dwivedi.

Balaji is betting on movies to power future growth. It has de-risked the vertical by recouping up to 90 per cent of production costs via pre-sales and co-production deals. In FY25, films contributed 30 per cent to revenue.
Its upcoming slate includes Vrushabha (starring Mohanlal), the Priyadarshan-directed Bhoot Bangla with Akshay Kumar, and Vvan, a collaboration with TVF featuring Sidharth Malhotra.

The studio targets 6 theatrical releases per year and is building on a franchise playbook with sequels like Dream Girl, LSD, and Shootout.
TV content production touched 133 hours in Q4, with four shows on air. However, broadcaster yields remain 25 per cent below pre-Covid levels, and Balaji is cautious about further TV expansion.

“TV is a volume game now. Rates aren’t recovering. We’ll stick to 6–8 shows a year, with a cap around Rs 350 crore,” said Dwivedi.

New shows include Bade Achhe Lagte Hain – Phir Se and a reboot of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
The company is also experimenting with AI-led production, launching a series titled Kalnagri on its platform. Regional expansion is on the cards, starting with Tamil and Telugu.

On YouTube, Balaji hit 1 million subscribers in a month, banking on a mix of new shows and IP-retained repurposed content—especially as Indian viewers seek alternatives to banned Pakistani serials.

Balaji has a Rs 300 crore B2B order book from leading OTT platforms. It expects digital to contribute 20–25 per cent of revenue in two years. The company is not planning a spin-off of the digital business for now, but hints at unlocking value once scale justifies it.

“We are storytellers, not just platform owners,” Dwivedi said. “Our job is to find the next big content wave—whatever the screen.”

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Netflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film

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MUMBAI: Netflix is celebrating ten years in India with a slick anniversary film voiced by Shah Rukh Khan, a nostalgic sprint through a decade that rewired how the country watches stories. The campaign doubles as both tribute and reminder: streaming did not just enter Indian homes, it quietly rearranged them.

Roll back to 2016 and television still dictated schedules. Viewers waited weeks, sometimes months, for favourite films to appear on prime time. Family-friendly filters narrowed options further, and piracy often filled the gaps. Then Netflix arrived, softly but decisively, carrying a catalogue of international titles rarely seen in Indian theatres and placing them a click away. Old blockbusters and new releases suddenly coexisted on the same digital shelf.

The platform’s real inflection point came in 2018 with Sacred Games, a breakout series that refused to dilute India’s grit for global comfort. Audiences embraced its unvarnished tone, signalling readiness for stories that did not need box-office validation or censorship compromises. What followed was a steady procession of relatable narratives. Competitive-exam anxiety fuelled Kota Factory. College relationships unfolded in Mismatched. Everyday pressures, not grand spectacle, proved bankable.

Language barriers thinned as foreign series arrived with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbing, expanding viewership beyond urban English-speaking pockets. Marketing mirrored the shift. For global releases such as Squid Game, Netflix leaned on regional creators and influencers to localise buzz and make international content feel native.

The library widened beyond fiction. Documentaries stepped out of festival circuits into living rooms. Stand-up comedians found scale. Established filmmakers, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Heeramandi, embraced the platform’s long-form canvas. Subscriber numbers swelled to 12.37 million in India, according to Demandsage, and behaviour followed suit. Late-night binges became routine. Friday release rituals loosened. Watch parties turned solitary screens into social events.

Economics demanded adjustment. Early subscription pricing carried a premium aura that deterred many households. Over time, Netflix recalibrated plans to align with Indian spending sensibilities, conceding that accessibility is as critical as content. To extend momentum around marquee titles, the platform also experimented with split-season releases, stretching anticipation and watch time.

The anniversary film, narrated by Shah Rukh Khan, captures the linguistic shift that mirrors the cultural one: from “Netflix pe kya dekha?” to “Netflix pe kya dekhein?” The question moved from recounting the past to planning the next binge. In ten years, Netflix morphed from foreign entrant to familiar fixture, exporting Indian stories abroad while importing global ones home. The remote no longer waits; it chooses, clicks and moves on. In the streaming age, patience is out, playlists are in, and the next episode is always one tap away.

 

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e-commerce

Tulasi Mohan Padavala elevated to Associate Director at Blinkit

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Gurugram: Blinkit has elevated Tulasi Mohan Padavala to associate director, capping a three-year climb inside the quick-commerce firm and signalling confidence in an executive steeped in ecommerce, category management and on-ground sales execution.

Padavala shared the update publicly, saying he was “happy to share” the promotion, a succinct announcement that nevertheless marks a notable step up within one of India’s fastest-moving delivery platforms. The new role follows nearly three years at Blinkit, where he most recently served as senior category manager from February 2023 to January 2026, focusing on strategic sourcing and assortment planning.

The promotion places Padavala in Blinkit’s mid-to-senior leadership tier at a time when the company continues to expand its rapid-delivery footprint and sharpen category economics. His brief tenure as associate director began in January 2026, with responsibilities expected to span category growth, supplier strategy and cross-functional execution.

Before Blinkit, Padavala spent a short but intensive stint as global ecommerce manager at Wholsum Foods, the parent of Slurrp Farm and Millé, between November 2022 and February 2023. There he worked on digital marketplace expansion and online retail operations, adding a direct-to-consumer and international ecommerce layer to his résumé.

A longer stretch at Amazon shaped much of his cross-border commerce experience. As business development manager for Amazon’s India Global Selling programme from February 2021 to October 2022, Padavala helped Indian D2C brands enter the North American market. His remit ranged from seller recruitment and category revenue management to coordination with industry bodies, regulators and logistics partners. Key outcomes included launching more than 50 D2C consumable brands in the United States, driving a cumulative gross merchandise sales figure of $1m in FY21-22, tripling sales for participating brands during Prime Day through marketing and visibility levers, growing the monthly recurring revenue of more than 10 newly launched sellers from zero to an average $20,000 each, and negotiating ecommerce partnerships that reduced initial launch costs by 20 per cent.

Padavala’s earlier career was forged in the field rather than the dashboard. At Coffee Day Group, he spent close to five years across multiple sales leadership roles. As sales manager in the Greater Delhi Area from July 2019 to January 2021, he led vending-machine and consumables sales for small and medium enterprises with a team of more than 15 assistant and territory sales managers, managed over 2,000 clients, drove upselling and cross-selling, maintained channel partnerships and ensured timely collections. Prior to that, he served as area sales manager in Delhi between May 2018 and June 2019, handling south and east Delhi markets, and earlier in Hyderabad from April 2016 to May 2018, where he led Andhra Pradesh sales for the vending division, supervised service and logistics functions and managed a base of more than 600 machines with a four-member team.

His professional arc began with internships that combined analytics and process improvement. At Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, Padavala analysed the impact of brand extension on the drug Pradaxa, identified key performance indicators through market research and assessed sales forecasts, recommendations that drew positive responses in pilot studies. Earlier, at Genpact in 2014, he automated manual sales-order backlog reporting using VBA and Excel, increasing efficiency by 800 per cent, and worked on benchmarking metrics within supply-chain planning processes.

From automating spreadsheets to scaling cross-border ecommerce and now steering quick-commerce categories, Padavala’s trajectory tracks the evolution of India’s retail economy itself. Blinkit’s bet is clear: blend data, discipline and delivery speed. The promotion formalises what his career already suggests. In the race for instant commerce, experience that moves from warehouse floors to global dashboards is no longer optional. It is the engine.

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e-commerce

Bharatpe plays a super over as Rohit Sharma fronts T20 push

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MUMBAI: When the stakes rise and seconds matter, even payments need a match-winning finish. That’s the cue for Bharatpe, which has rolled out Super Over, a nationwide campaign led by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma, timed neatly ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The campaign draws a straight line between the pulse of cricket and the pace of everyday digital payments. A new brand film taps into India’s emotional bond with the game, while positioning UPI as the quiet hero that keeps daily transactions ticking along at match speed.

As part of Super Over, users making payments via Bharatpe UPI can bag daily rewards ranging from match tickets and signed merchandise to a chance to watch a T20 World Cup fixture alongside Rohit Sharma himself. Both consumers and merchants are also assured Zillion Coins on every eligible transaction, adding a little extra sparkle to routine payments.

Behind the scenes, Bharatpe is also batting for safety. The platform is backed by Bharatpe Shield, a fraud-protection layer designed to offer enhanced security, comprehensive coverage and dedicated support aimed at helping users transact with greater confidence as digital payments scale up.

Announcing the campaign, Bharatpe head of marketing Shilpi Kapoor said Super Over mirrors the aspirations of everyday Indians, combining speed, security and instant rewards to make UPI transactions feel both reliable and rewarding.

The campaign will play out across digital platforms, social media and on-ground activations nationwide, staying live through the T20 World Cup season proof that in cricket, as in payments, timing is everything.

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