iWorld
‘State of Siege’ becomes top watched franchise on ZEE5 globally
Mumbai: ZEE5’s original film “State of Siege: Temple Attack” has emerged as the top watched title on the video streaming platform globally, according to ZEE5.
The film which marked the OTT debut of actor Akshaye Khanna who played the role of Major Hanut Singh, was premiered in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu simultaneously on 9 July.
In addition to being the most-watched film globally in July, it was also the highest subscription driver in the launch month. With the launch of “State of Siege: Temple Attack”, another film “State of Siege: 26/11” too attracted attention and brought in new viewers, growing viewership by nearly 3.5x.
Based on Sandeep Unnithan’s book ‘Black Tornado: The Three Sieges of Mumbai 26/11’, “State of Siege: 26/11” was the first film in the series that premiered during the lockdown in March 2020.
The film with an IMDB rating of 8.1, recorded viewership in 190+ countries globally with the highest watch time coming from India, the USA, UAE, Australia, and Bangladesh. “State of Siege: Temple Attack” also featured on Ormax Media’s ‘Most-Liked Indian Direct to OTT Films’ of all time.
Speaking on the success of the franchise, ZEE5 head – Hindi originals, Nimisha Pandey said, “At ZEE5, our focus is on exceptional storytelling that resonates deeply with our audiences and cuts across languages to create a lasting impact. We have always aimed at driving partnerships that help us deliver content and characters worthy of grabbing our viewers’ imaginations and, with the State of Siege franchise, we set out to tap into varied emotions, narrating the stories of our brave NSG heroes.”
“We have all put in great efforts and are overwhelmed by the response. I am glad that this genre is finding favour with audiences and our film with its storytelling and performances is driving the genre lovers to stream in, globally,” added the director of the film, Ken Ghosh.
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
