Farzi, Night Manager top 2023 streaming charts in India: Ormax report

The big surprise in Ormax's annual report is the rise and rise of non-fiction on OTT

Raj and DK’s Farzi (Amazon Prime Video) was the most watched Hindi web series on streaming platforms in 2023, according to an Ormax report.

The black comedy edged out Sandeep Modi and Priyanka Ghose’s The Night Manager and Himank Gaur’s Taaza Khabar (both on Disney+ Hotstar) at second and third spots respectively. Nitesh Tiwari’s Bawaal (Amazon Prime Video) 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 such as Bigg Boss and Koffee with Karan or documentaries/docu-series such as The Romantics took off on streaming.

The rankings are based on Ormax Media’s annual research, 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 on three parameters: viewership, marketing buzz and content strength.

This piece is based on viewership data. Viewership is estimated using primary research conducted among audiences across India at a weekly level, projected to the over-the-top (OTT) universe. This adds up to about 40,000 people in a year, says Shailesh Kapoor, chief executive officer, Ormax Media. Since the sample size for other languages isn’t as robust as Hindi, the data for these hasn’t been released. “From 2024, we will start sharing data for Tamil and Telugu,” says Kapoor.

The big insight for the year is the rise and rise of non-fiction shows such as Big Boss OTT 2, Temptation Island India (both JioCinema) and Koffee with Karan Season 8 (Disney+ Hotstar). They are fetching numbers that are 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 fall in the popularity of the Marvel universe in tandem with dipping numbers for the franchise theatrically as well.

The lists change somewhat when shows are measured by buzz or ranked based on an Ormax Power Rating that measures likeability. But the essential trends remain the same.