iWorld
Ditto TV aims to double revenues this fiscal; plans more original shows
MUMBAI: It’s gotten late off the blocks but it sure is looking to sprint ahead and fast. We are talking about the Zee network’s digital over the top (OTT) offering Ditto TV.
Zee Digital Convergence (ZDC) Chief Executive Officer Debashish Ghosh told PTI over the weekend that his goal is to double his company’s revenue from around Rs 30 crore to Rs 60 crore this year, with almost 95 per cent of it coming courtesy subscription.
With 1.8 million subscribers on a monthly basis and almost 60 percent of them being repeat viewers, Ditto TV is present in 167 countries. Most of its consumption is however happening in India. With the exception of Star and Sun group channels, Ditto TV offers 156 channels across 13 languages. Ghosh further told PTI that almost 30 per cent of Ditto TV subscribers consume live TV.
ZDC has invested around $5 million in Ditto TV over the past three to four years, Ghosh disclosed. That is slated to go up in the coming months as it starts pumping in money into original content. The first of these is a music based show called Life is Music; other programmes are being planned in-house as well as with outside producers.
Clearly, the OTT original content space is seeing a lot of action.
Netflix is slated to launch in India by mid next year and invest top dollar in cutting edge content. Star India’s Hotstar already has an average of 20 million users every month. It has paid a fat commissioning fee to stand up comedy group All India Bakchod to produce shows running over 20 episodes. Then it has been premiering some of its big-ticket Bollywood movies and TV shows on Hotstar.
Entertainment major Eros International recently announced that the registered user base of its OTT service Eros Now has grown to 30 million as of 30 September. It has ordered six new original shows which are slated to debut soon and feature big name stars.
MSM Media’s Sony Liv, on the other hand, notches up an average of 5-7 million monthly users, and is also getting into OTT content. It is experimenting with a fiction show titled Love Bytes. Then the Viacom18 group is also pacing on the sidelines, gearing up to launch its own OTT service under the leadership of Gaurav Gandhi.
Ghosh, while speaking at IDOS (organized by Indiantelevision.com and MPA in September) said that the hyper activity is good for the OTT sector as a whole.
He further told PTI, that India is expected to have 500 million Internet users by 2017, out of which 382 million would be smartphone users, 70 per cent whom would be 3G/4G customers. And that is what is exciting the Zee TV network to further invest in Ditto TV. Add to that the prediction that almost 60 per cent of India’s population is going to below 40 by 2020, and that both wired and wireless broadband infrastructure will be in place. That’s the positive side.
“But the fact is that the OTT players will find the going challenging,” says a media observer. “At least until the numbers really scale up and bandwidth constraints and costs fall. Indian consumers are chary of paying for content, apart from cricket. Hence, Hotstar has taken the AVOD route (advertising video on demand). But advertisers and agencies have been reluctant to buy into the medium; at least at prices Star has envisaged. Eros Now has announced a multiple revenue stream offering which includes advertising, transactional (TVOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD), with differential pricing for Indian and international consumers. Ditto TV is primarily SVOD and its growth has been limited so far. Each of them has to find a robust and sustainable revenue model.”
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
