Why are production houses skipping OTTs for YouTube originals?

Amid plateauing OTT growth and tightening content budgets, a new wave of content innovation is taking shape. Production houses are bypassing traditional streamers to create YouTube originals on their own and distributing them directly via their own digital platforms. 

YouTube’s massive reach in India—surpassing 500 million users—combined with viewership-based monetisation and unmatched creative freedom, has made it a game-changer for storytellers and studios alike. 

Brands, sensing both value and visibility, have enthusiastically thrown their weight behind this shift—fueling a fresh era of creator-led, platform-owned storytelling. 

Ekta Kapoor’s listed production house–Balaji Telefilms–for instance, has come up with two full-fledged YouTube originals with 30-60 episodes. The first series, with Bigg Boss winner Avinash Mishra as the lead actor, will start streaming from August 6 onwards thrice a week.

ACC Cement and Fortune Oil have joined the show as sponsors. This is perhaps for the first time a production house has come up with a full-fledged 60-episode web-series for YouTube. 

“It's neither a branded content, nor funded by YouTube,” Nitin Burman, Group Chief Revenue Officer of Balaji Telefilms, clarifies. He tells e4m, “We pitched it to brands and got them onboard for in-show integrations and brand placements. Each episode is 18-20 minutes long. We have planned to produce five shows for YouTube in the current fiscal. If things go right, we’ll build a long-term strategy.”

Ashish Chanchlani’s ACV Studios, is also producing a YouTube original "Ekaki", a supernatural thriller web series. Known for his comedic sketches and high-energy presence that has earned him over 30 million YouTube subscribers, Chanchlani is now donning multiple hats — director, writer, actor, and producer — as he launches his most ambitious project to date.

Balaji and ACV are not alone. Leading producers like TVF (The Viral Fever), Pocket Aces and RVCJ have been producing weekly shows on YouTube for quite some time. TVF’s weekly web series ‘Very Parivarik’ has its second season running now. 

“Several regional shows and films are also premiering directly on YouTube to maximise reach, a trend that first gained momentum during the pandemic,” says Pep Figueiredo, COO - PTPL India and former SonyLIV executive. 

Karikku, a Malayalam YouTube channel with several comedy series, boasts 9.8 million followers now. "Nancy Rani" is a Malayalam drama film produced by Kailash Films, directed by the late Joseph Manu James, was released directly on YouTube in June, 2025, Figueiredo noted.

“YouTube allows production houses to ‘skip the queue’ offering direct access to massive, global audiences without the gatekeeping of traditional broadcasters, platforms and IP holders. With rising mobile viewership and monetisation tools like ads and memberships, creators now gain reach, revenue, discoverability, and long-term brand equity—making it a win-win for all,” says Figueiredo, who has been creating content for YouTube since 2006 and owns an IP bank of digital content. 

Scaling up own platform 

By creating YouTube originals, production houses are not only scaling up their content and reaching a global audience, but also positioning themselves as full-fledged streamers. 

Moreover, this model allows them to control distribution, retain audience ownership, and enjoy far greater creative freedom—unencumbered by the constraints often imposed by OTT platforms.

More importantly, they’ve started tasting real success. Earlier this year, Balaji re-released Pyaar Kii Raahein on YouTube and crossed 200M views in 90 days. “Our subscribers jumped from 200K to 900K—that proved there’s clear demand for TV-like, habit-forming content,” said Burman.

The channel now has 1.1 million subscribers. This performance validated their decision to pursue YouTube as a core content destination—one that not only offers reach, but also builds IP. 

“We realised this is a space we belong to,” said Burman. “Our first new original show is already on floors, and we plan to launch three more this year to provide daily entertainment on YouTube.” Burman eyes 5 million subscribers by next year. 

This marks a shift from being just content suppliers to becoming platforms in their own right, industry experts point out. 

Global phenomenon 

YouTube original content has struck a chord with audiences across the globe. Dhar Mann Studios in Los Angeles, for instance, is known for creating short, motivational, and moral-based videos that resonate with global YouTube audiences. With billions of views, Dhar Mann’s content focuses on life lessons, social issues, and emotional storytelling, appealing to a wide family-friendly demographic. 

Other LA-based creators producing original YouTube content include Jubilee Media, Cut, and The Try Guys, who explore human connections, identity, and humor-driven storytelling. These creators represent a new wave of socially conscious, community-driven content that thrives outside traditional media structures, Figueiredo points out. 

“Unlike traditional OTTs, YouTube’s algorithm actively recommends original content, fueling organic growth. Its real-time feedback through comments and engagement lets creators adapt faster to audience tastes. Sponsorships further enhance revenue potential without relying solely on subscriptions”, says Figueiredo. 

New revenue stream

Over-the-top (OTT) platforms have sharply scaled down their content budgets—nearly halving them from over ₹5,500 crore in 2021 to around ₹2,500 crore in 2024, as several production houses and studio heads have told e4m in earlier reports. 

Once commissioning an impressive 100–120 originals annually, most major platforms have pared back production to just 50–60 titles per year—and that too at significantly reduced production costs, producers revealed. Even film acquisitions have slowed considerably, with platforms now opting for only a handful of proven box-office hits, often at heavily negotiated prices.

Unsurprisingly, ad-supported YouTube has emerged as the first-choice alternative for many content creators, offering reach, flexibility, and monetisation without the steep costs or gatekeeping.

Adding to the shift, India’s OTT market itself has shown signs of saturation, shrinking from 466 million unique visitors in 2023 to 460 million in 2024, according to Comscore’s latest report, The State of Streaming OTT Landscape: India. Though ad-supported models are experiencing growth. 

While OTT penetration now stands at 87.8% of the digital universe, the report cautions that reach does not always translate to engagement—further underscoring why creators are exploring new, more direct routes to their audiences.

As the streaming landscape undergoes a course correction, content creators are reclaiming control—pivoting from platform-dependence to self-distribution.