iWorld
Amazon Prime Music launches innovative voice controls powered by Alexa to further enhance Prime members’ music listening experience
MUMBAI: Amazon Music today announced the launch of more innovative voice features on Alexa- available only on Amazon Prime Music – both in its mobile app as well as on Echo family devices. Amazon Prime Music listeners can now simply use voice to ask Alexa to play their favorite songs that they haven’t heard in a while. Also launching today is the ability to easily create new playlist(s) or add to the existing playlists just by asking, no searching or browsing required.
Amazon Prime Music now makes it easier to go back and listen to music from an earlier point in time by asking Alexa, eliminating the need to remember specific track titles or look back through listening history. Listeners can easily ask for their recently played songs or even those they haven’t heard in a while by artist, genre or time to make the listening experience even easier, including “Alexa, play music that I was listening to last week” or “Alexa, play me the Arijit Singh song I was listening to three weeks ago”. Also launching today is the ability to ask, “Alexa create a new playlist from this song” or add a song from their play queue to an existing personal playlist, making it easier to track and explore music while significantly enhancing the day-to-day listening experience.
Sahas Malhotra, Director, Amazon Prime Music India, said, “At Amazon, we constantly listen to our customers’ feedback and innovate to serve their needs in the best possible ways. With the launch of these new ways to discover music, we have made it easier than ever to make the music listening using your voice simpler and easier with Alexa being more like your best friend who understands you well and knows what you want to listen to – all just by asking! With the ad-free music streaming now coupled with the power and simplicity of Alexa Voice controls, Amazon Prime Music will continue to offer simpler, easier and more fun ways to listen to your favourite music.”
Now, simply ask for recently played music by artist, genre, or time to make the listening experience even easier. For example, say:
• “Alexa, play me songs which I recently played”
• “Alexa, play me the Arijit Singh song I listened to last month”
• “Alexa, play me hip hop music I was listening to three weeks ago”
• Or even try, “Alexa, play music that I was listening to earlier today”
Rediscover your favourite songs you haven’t played in a while, and enjoy without the need to manually scan the search bar or listening history, just try:
• “Alexa, play songs I haven’t heard in a while”
• “Alexa, play Rihanna songs I haven’t heard in a while”
• “Alexa, play rock songs I haven’t heard recently”
• Don’t know what to ask? Just say, “Alexa, play something I haven’t heard in a while” and let her take you down the memory lane.
While listening to Amazon Prime Music on Echo family devices, add a new song to a playlist, or create a new one by asking:
• “Alexa, create a new playlist”
• “Alexa, create a workout playlist”
• “Alexa, create the playlist ‘My favorite hits’”
• “Alexa, add this song to my playlist”
Learn more at https://www.amazon.in/newwithalexa
Amazon Prime Music is an ad-free service launched as a Prime benefit at no additional cost to the annual membership of INR 999/- and monthly membership of INR 129/-. Amazon Prime Music includes tens of millions of songs across major International and Indian music labels in over 10 languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu and more. Amazon Prime Music is available on Android and iOS mobile phone apps, Desktop app and Web player, Amazon Fire TV sticks and Amazon Echo devices.
iWorld
Arafta Season 2 greenlit as YouTube hit crosses 850 million views
GoQuest, Rains double down on global Turkish drama success story
MUMBAI: GoQuest Media and Rains Pictures have greenlit Season 2 of Arafta, riding on the runaway success of its debut season that has clocked over 850 million views on YouTube and secured licensing deals across 19 territories.
The upcoming season, already in production, will span 100 episodes and continue with a YouTube-first release strategy, a model that has proved to be a quiet disruptor in global content distribution. Season 1, which premiered in November 2025, built a strong digital following before translating that traction into international deals.
The series is currently licensed to platforms including Amazon MX Player in India, Kanal 7 in Turkey, and Vidio, along with several markets across Europe such as Romania, Hungary and Latvia. Across five language channels, the show has amassed more than 2.5 million subscribers, signalling growing global appetite for Turkish storytelling.
Notably, many of these licensing deals were struck after the show had already aired on YouTube, flipping the traditional distribution model on its head. Instead of competing with broadcasters, the digital-first strategy appears to be doing the heavy lifting in building awareness and audience demand.
GoQuest Media managing director Vivek Lath said, “Arafta is proving out what we believed about the make-to-sell model. A YouTube-first release does not compete with licensing. It builds the asset that licensees are buying.”
Season 1 wrapped on April 17 with a globally streamed finale that drew over 102,000 concurrent viewers, setting the stage for the next chapter. Lead actors İlsu Demirci and Emin Günenç will return, with the narrative continuing to explore themes of love, vengeance, sacrifice and fate.
Rains Pictures executive Sevda Kaygısız said the decision to move quickly into Season 2 was driven not just by success, but by the depth of the story still to be told. “Arafta is not just a successful project for us; it reflects our belief in powerful storytelling and building a genuine emotional connection with audiences,” she noted.
As Turkish dramas continue to travel beyond borders, Arafta’s success underscores a larger shift in how global hits are made and sold. In this case, the small screen found its big moment online first, and the world followed.
