iWorld
Viu’s What The Duck- Season 3
MUMBAI: With cricket fever gripping the nation this season, premium video-on-demand service Viu is back with its marquee cricket-gone-crazy property ‘What the Duck’. For the past 2 seasons, the property has received rave reviews and gained a large following amongst both men and women. Today the platform announces the launch of its hatrick season, promising to bring back the madness and fun for all cricket enthusiasts.
This third season will see Vikram Sathaye host 20 legendary cricketers on the show spanning 10 episodes. On each 15-minute episode, two cricketers will be seen together, engaging in a playful banter with Vikram Sathaye. The cricket duos on the show are Shikhar Dhawan & Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Michael Clarke & Brad Hogg, Mohammad Kaif & Harbhajan Singh, AB Devilliers & Jonty Rhodes, Ravichandran Ashwin & KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma & Ajinkya Rahane and many more, to share fun moments and interesting trivia on and off the field.
Viu will also release unique short form comedy content on cricket titled ‘What The Duck Googlies’. The show will revolve around four popular stand-up comedians – Vikram Sathaye, Anirban Dasgupta, Saurav Mehta, and Sidharth Dudeja giving their comic spin on all the current and trending topics in cricket. The 35-episode show will be live on both Viu and YouTube starting May.
Commenting on the launch of the What The Duck 3, Vishal Maheshwari, Country Head – Viu, India said, “Cricket and comedy are two things that connect most Indians together. Riding on the success of the first two seasons, we have decided to double the madness and triple the fun with season 3. We are also happy to partner with YouTube, who will help us increase the reach of our popular show to a larger audience”
The digital premium show can be streamed exclusively on www.viu.com, the Viu App and Viu’s YouTube channel. And for regular updates and show announcements, you can follow Viu on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
iWorld
Netflix ad revenue set to soar past $8bn by 2030, outpacing CTV rivals: Warc
From $1.5bn in 2025 to $8bn in 2030, Netflix is fast becoming a CTV ad powerhouse
MUMBAI: Netflix is turning heads in the advertising world, with forecasts showing its ad revenue set to surpass $8 billion by 2030, outpacing the wider connected TV (CTV) market, according to the latest Warc Media Platform Insights report.
The streaming giant’s advertising journey gained serious momentum in 2025, generating over $1.5 billion, a remarkable increase of more than 2.5 times compared with the previous year. Management aims to roughly double that figure again in 2026, targeting around $3 billion.
Rather than waiting for the market to grow, Netflix is going after a bigger slice of the existing CTV ad pie, and the strategy appears to be paying off. Analysis by Omdia, cited by Warc, predicts Netflix will account for 9.2 per cent of global CTV advertising spend by 2027. By then, the company’s ad growth is projected to hit 58 per cent year-on-year, while the overall CTV market grows at just 9.9 per cent.
CTV may be booming, but traditional TV continues to shrink, losing spend to digital channels and retail media, according to Warc’s latest Global Ad Trends report, Media’s new normal. Despite this, Netflix is focused on monetising its expanding ad inventory with better infrastructure and smarter tools, turning what is currently a small 3 per cent slice of its total revenue into a high-growth engine.
WPP forecasts that Netflix’s $3 billion ad target in 2026 would place it as the 27th-largest global ad seller, just behind French media group RTL. Yet the company sees its relatively modest ad business as an advantage, providing a buffer against market fluctuations while it ramps up operations.
Looking ahead, a potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery could give Netflix even more content to offer and bundle, helping to retain subscribers, attract new members, and sustain long-term revenue growth. For now, the platform is quietly staking its claim as a rising star in the CTV advertising arena.
