Farzi, Night Manager Most Watched Hindi Web Series in 2023: Ormax Report
According to an Ormax report, Raj and DK’s Farzi (Amazon Prime Video) was the most watched Hindi web series on streaming platforms in 2023.
The black comedy beat Sandeep Modi and Priyanka Ghose’s The Night Manager and Himank Gaur’s Taaza Khabar (both on Disney+ Hotstar) to the second and third places respectively. Nitesh Tiwari’s Bawaal (Disney+ Hotstar) was the most watched Hindi film, while Newton Thomas Sigel and Jessica Yu’s Citadel (Amazon Prime Video) was the most watched international show.
Netflix dominates the list of most-watched films, with six of the top 20 coming from its stable. 2023 was also the year when non-fiction in the form of unscripted shows like Bigg Boss and Koffee with Karan or documentaries/docu-series like The Romantics took off on streaming.
The rankings are based on Ormax Media’s annual study, Streaming Originals in India: The 2023 Story, released this week. The report looks at the top original Hindi and foreign language shows and films released in 2023 based on three parameters: viewership, marketing buzz and content strength.
This piece is based on viewing figures. Viewership is estimated based on primary research conducted weekly among viewers across India, projected onto the over-the-top (OTT) universe. This amounts to about 40,000 people per year, says Shailesh Kapoor, CEO of Ormax Media. Since the sample size for other languages is not as robust as that for Hindi, the data for this has not been released. “From 2024 onwards, we will be sharing data for Tamil and Telugu,” says Kapoor.
The big insight for the year is the rise and rise of non-fiction shows like Big Boss OTT 2, Temptation Island India (both JioCinema) and Koffee with Karan Season 8 (Disney+ Hotstar). They rake in numbers equal to or greater than those for major fiction shows. “Non-fiction has become bigger. The balance between scripted and non-scripted is changing,” says Kapoor. The other big trend is the decline in popularity of the Marvel Universe, combined with declining numbers for the franchise theatrically.
The lists change slightly when shows are measured by buzz or ranked by an Ormax Power Rating that measures likability. But the essential trends remain the same.
First print: January 16, 2024 | 7:29 PM IST