There’s a swagger to unscripted TV producers in India right now. The rise in streaming coupled with a desire to push boundaries has seen the nation shift from a more passive importer of formats to one that is setting its agenda on a global stage.
“The confidence is coming from the economics,” says Vivek Couto, founder, CEO and executive director at Singapore-based analyst Media Partners Asia. “Every major platform in India is building for scale and, sooner or later, advertising. Netflix is already laying the groundwork for a potential ad rollout in India over the next 24-36 months, and that pulls programming towards proven, repeatable, mass-audience formats.”
This has manifested in three ways: a swathe of original formats from India’s production community; local remakes of international hits that have been given major refreshes; and streaming executives willing to take a risk on them.
JioHotstar has broken through with celebrity reality series Bhojpuri Bawaal, in a similar vein to The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, and it has also given Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, a major refresh with six different language versions (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bangla) that all launched simultaneously in September this year.
Netflix has driven the cultural conversation with “captive reality” series Lock Upp and Desi Bling. Prime Video has found success with Alliance, the first international remake of Talpa Studios’ competition format.
“It’s competitive in India, but it’s also a very prolific time for all the creators,” says Monika Shergill, vp of content for Netflix India.
It’s all being driven by a desire to push Indian creativity to levels that can cater to the country’s 1.4 billion people, who speak numerous languages and are all part of vastly differing cultures. That desire has done away with cheap, one-size-fits-all rehashes of global formats. There are more training programs, money is going towards new creative voices, and successful veterans are seeing their biggest and boldest ideas backed with the capital to make noise.
“As a market we took to premium storytelling a little late,” admits Shergill. “What I’ve seen in the last few years is how many more young voices are coming in. What excites me is the expanding talent pool, the kind of work that is happening and the kind of bets we are able to make at Netflix. Everybody is taking bets in their own space.”
Locking it Upp
For Netflix, Lock Upp has been the breakout hit of the summer. The show pits celebrities against each other in a jail-themed setting, where they compete in tasks and attempt to avoid elimination. Produced by Balaji Telefilms, the show hit 50 million hours of viewing within three weeks of launch, “the equivalent to 5,700 years,” according to Shergill.
“Conceptually, we knew that this would resonate,” she says. “India loves captive reality — it has for years. We were looking at something which would be truly unique, that wouldn’t be just people thrown together for no reason at all and called it a social experiment. It has become the most defining social conversation in India this year.”
Lock Upp started in 2022 on MX Player, prior to Amazon’s acquisition of the service, and on Balaji’s own streamer, ALTBalaji. It performed to little fanfare, but after a competitive situation last year, Netflix acquired the rights and the format was retooled with loftier ambitions. “For a creator, there is nothing bigger than support,” says Ekta Kapoor, the Balaji Telefilms founder who created Lock Upp.
Kapoor is effusive in her praise of Netflix’s approach in India. “They have catered to the whole spectrum of India, when actually India was catering for a one-size-fits-all kind of content,” she says. “Now, finally, we have different content and different conversations.”
For Netflix and Balaji, Lock Upp represents a chance for an Indian format to become an international entertainment property, akin to what the streamer has done with franchised hits like Too Hot to Handle and Love is Blind. Shergill isn’t confirming anything at this stage but does say that “the format is getting a lot of interest internally.”
Elsewhere on the Netflix slate are projects such as The Great Indian Kapil Show, a talk series that was in essence ported from linear TV, and India’s Got Latent, a reality talent format from comedian Samay Raina with a twist that simulcasts on YouTube.
Over at Prime Video, the Amazon streamer has become the first international buyer of Alliance. This represents a shift from years gone by, when it was unlikely an Indian buyer would acquire a format untested outside of its home territory. The deal points to a growing confidence in the country’s ability to make its own hits and be a testbed for others.
According to Nikhil Madhok, head of Indian Originals at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios India, global platforms have changed the game. “The streaming market in India is huge, vibrant and full of innovation,” he says. “It has created a moment where, increasingly, this is the place where new formats are being introduced.”
This hasn’t been limited to unscripted formats, he adds, pointing to how Indian streamers were the first to begin launching feature films before their theatrical releases. “Another example is One Mic Stand, which was a format that was created at Prime Video India and later adapted in Germany,” says Madhok.
As for the effort behind Alliance — a competition reality show in which four teams must work together to win challenges while each character secretly looks out for themselves — Madhok points to a desire to create noisy IP in the same vein as scripted originals like Paatal Lok, Mirzapur and The Family Man.
“We wanted to do the same in the unscripted space, which was in need of urgent reinvention,” says Madhok. “That moment happened in 2025 with our show The Traitors, which became an overnight sensation. It focused on gameplay, strategy, and manipulation to create drama versus seemingly scripted conflicts that audiences were tiring of. Alliance was born of that same grain.”
The Indian version of The Traitors sees entertainment mega-star Karan Johar taking on the Alan Cumming presenter role at the center of the action. Buoyed by the response to the company’s unscripted series, Madok explains how the franchise is being expanded further with a Telugu adaptation hosted by actor Teja Sajja. In the U.K., the BBC has even acquired the show for its iPlayer platform.
Madhok expects the current burst of Indian creativity to remain with the SVoDs at the forefront. “Long-form streaming is opening new avenues for unscripted creators to experiment with formats, episode structures, and storytelling styles that traditional mediums simply do not allow,” he says.
“That creative freedom is what’s driving the reinvention of unscripted and will continue to do so in the coming years.”
Shergill has a similar view. “For Netflix, it’s most crucial to keep innovating because we are a pure-play entertainment service,” she says. “It’s in our DNA. We thrive by building fandoms and betting on new ideas and new spaces.”
For MPA’s Couto, a bigger picture of the unscripted boom driven by both local and global content is still being painted.
“What’s changed over the past 12 months is how the risk is managed,” he says. “Instead of originating expensive formats from zero, streamers are buying proven audiences: Kapil Sharma came to Netflix after years on Sony, Lock Upp arrived via MX Player, and Desi Bling works from a template that had already succeeded for Netflix globally.
“India is no longer just adapting formats. It is becoming a market they are built in and exported from.”