iWorld
Amazon strikes the balance between bingeing and episodic with ‘Breathe’
MUMBAI: Edgy and fresh, web content has made its mark in India, breaking free from staid television formats and rules. No time frames, no censorship issues, and women don’t turn into snakes. The west has been bingeing on shows on the internet for long, whereas India has just woken up to the concept recently, thanks to better connectivity and high-resolution video streaming. But, has launching all the episodes, together, caught on as a trend? The answer is both yes and no.
One of the most talked about series under binge watching section is Amazon Prime Video’s first India original Inside Edge. The Bollywood-cricket web series garnered a tremendous buzz before and after its launch. The most amusing thing is the staggering figure of Rs 40 crore spent by Amazon on the show, speculated as half of it for marketing and the rest for production.
Amazon Prime Video India director content Vijay Subramaniam said, “When we launched a little over a year ago, we realised there is a clear expectation and desire from our customers to have access to gripping storytelling, high-quality and compelling content. With the customer being at the center of everything we do, we are committed to bringing the best of content for our audiences, supported by immensely talented content creators matched by the most innovative ways to bring them to our audiences.”
However, Amazon Prime, while releasing its second India original, Breathe, experimented with a new strategy where half the series can be binge-watched and for the rest, you have to wait a week for every new release. The first four episodes of the series were out on 26 January and the remaining four will release every Friday until 23 February. Being a thriller, the strategy is to leave viewers in suspense at a certain point.
The marketing budget to promote Breathe is around Rs 20 crore. Amazon rolled out a robust, 360-degree campaign across India including highly engaging TVCs, print, digital, cinema, mobile, outdoor campaigns and activations for Breathe. Subramaniam called it a ‘path-breaking digital content in India’. Amazon is tight-lipped about the marketing plan for the last episode.
Interestingly, India beats the rest of the world in binge watching a series. 71 per cent Indians in 2017 watched more entertainment in a public place than year 2016, according to the study released by Netflix. It was one of the first platforms to start the concept of releasing all episodes at one time for binge watching and others like ALTBalaji, VB on the Web, Voot, SonyLiv etc, followed suit.
Binge watching has found popularity because Indians are alien to the idea of waiting a whole week for the next episode. They are ready to gulp their favourite series back to back, a trend that rose from the daily saas-bahu serials on TV too. Some OTT players allow paid subscribers to binge watch and unpaid ones have to wait a week. Viu released Spotlight 2 for binge watching, whereas all other series are released on weekly basis.
SurveyMonkey found that 52 per cent Indians binge watch most at cafes and restaurants, and 37 per cent in waiting in line. Indians binge watch in parks, on the way to work, while shopping and at the gym. The study says that Indians took three days to devour an entire TV series on average, while the global average is four days.
But the weekly episodic trend is also catching up. Since 2011, YouTube has worked with regional studios to help them get a wider distribution. In 2014, content creators from Mumbai including The Viral Fever (TVF) and AIB were making waves on YouTube and gaining traction while releasing episodes on weekly basis. TVF is said to be the pioneer of Indian web series and still release episodes on a weekly basis on their app TVF Play.
Despite the fact that binge watching or releasing all episodes at one go attracts more audiences, Amazon took a risk with Breathe. Although, releasing shows in parts have the chances and risk to lose the viewership but weekly releases enable the audiences to keep guessing. Which side will platforms sway in the near future will be an interesting scene to look out for.
Also Read :
Amazon Prime Video announces a new original series, Skulls and Roses
Regional OTT content more than just catch-up TV
2017: The year OTTs went regional in India
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
