Netflix India eyes MTV Roadies in reported JioStar deal

MUMBAI: Netflix is going back to the future, and this time the road leads straight to television. The streaming giant is reportedly set to bring MTV Roadies to NetflixIndia in a deal reportedly worth around Rs 18 crore with JioStar, according to The Ken, as the platform steps up its push into familiar television franchises and mass-market entertainment.

The reported deal has not been officially announced by Netflix or JioStar. If completed, however, it would mark another notable shift in Netflix India’s content strategy, coming shortly after its reported Rs 13 crore deal for MTV Hustle Season 5.

The move suggests Netflix is increasingly looking beyond the premium, urban-first audience that shaped its early India identity and towards formats that already come with years of audience recall.

Netflix’s early India catalogue leaned heavily on premium originals such as Sacred Games and Delhi Crime, helping establish the platform as a home for ambitious, differentiated storytelling.

But India’s streaming landscape has since become considerably more crowded, with JioHotstar, Prime Video and YouTube competing for viewers across metros, smaller towns and a wider range of age groups.

That makes an established television franchise particularly attractive. Rather than spending heavily to introduce an unfamiliar format, Netflix can tap into an audience that already knows the name, the format and, in the case of Roadies, the drama that comes with it.

MTV Roadies has been around for more than 20 years, evolving from an adventure-focused youth reality show into a larger pop-culture franchise driven by auditions, contestants, gang leaders, rivalries and controversy.

Over the years, personalities including Rannvijay Singha, Neha Dhupia, Prince Narula, Rhea Chakraborty and Elvish Yadav have been associated with the show.

That built-in recognition is valuable for a streamer attempting to reach beyond its traditional base. For Netflix, Roadies is not a brand that needs an introduction — it is a franchise that arrives with one.

The reported Roadies deal follows Netflix’s Rs 13 crore agreement for MTV Hustle Season 5, another JioStar property.

Hustle 5 – Apna Homeground features Badshah, Raftaar, EPR Iyer, Dino James, Dee MC and King, with Krissann Barretto as host. The season premiered on Netflixin August alongside its MTV India run and JioHotstar streaming.

The strategy is therefore less about replacing television and more about borrowing its strongest assets — established franchises, personalities and audiences — and bringing them into the streaming ecosystem.

Netflix has already tested the power of television familiarity with The Great Indian Kapil Show.

The show brought Kapil Sharma, Sunil Grover, Archana Puran Singh, Krushna Abhishek and Kiku Sharda to the platform after Kapil’s long television run. Netflix said in 2024 that its first season ranked among its top two shows in India and became the first Indian series to spend five weeks on its Global Top 10 Non-English TV list.

The format has since become a recurring part of Netflix India’s entertainment slate.

Netflix has also expanded into creator-led entertainment. In June 2026, it announced India’s Got Latent Season 2 with comedian Samay Raina, launching the show simultaneously on Netflix and YouTube, with episodes arriving every two weeks.

Unlike Roadies, that is an internet-native property rather than a television franchise. But the underlying calculation is similar: start with an audience rather than start from zero.

The reported Roadies deal points to a broader evolution in what Netflix considers a fit for its India catalogue.

Television personalities, reality formats, comedy, creator-led properties and established franchises are increasingly sitting alongside premium scripted originals. For a market as large and diverse as India, that offers Netflix a route into audiences that may not have been part of its original urban-focused proposition.

Roadies brings youth culture and nostalgia, Hustle brings music and hip-hop, Kapil brings family-oriented celebrity entertainment, while India’s Got Latent connects Netflix with the creator economy.

The reported Rs 18 crore deal, therefore, is about more than putting one familiar reality show on a streaming platform. It signals Netflix India’s growing willingness to blur the old line between television entertainment and OTT while facing the bigger challenge of expanding its audience without losing the distinctive identity that built its brand in the first place.