Farzi was the most-watched web series in 2023, becoming the only web series to cross the 30 million threshold, reveals Ormax report. It became the most-watched SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) series. The top five most watched series consisted of Aditya Roy Kapoor-starrer The Night Manager, Bhuvan Bam-starrer Taaza Khabar, Arshad Warsi-starrer Asur season 2, and Sushmita Sen-starrer Taali.
Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar had three shows each in the top 15 list. Two advertising video-on-demand shows from JioCinema, namely, Asur and Taali also featured in the top five list.
Bigg Boss OTT Season 2 topped the most-watched Indian unscripted shows with Koffee with Karan Season 8, Temptation Island India, Dance+ Pro, and MasterChef India made up the top five. As per the report, the top 10 list has a healthy mix of sub-genres (TV show extensions, documentaries, and task-based reality competitions, among others), indicating that the non-fiction category has more width on OTT than a year or two ago.
Citadel, starring Priyanka Chopra, was the most-watched international show of 2023. The show was ahead of the rest of 14 shows by more than a 50% margin, garnering approximately 17 million in viewership. The rest of the 24 shows were either brand extensions or franchise-based shows.
Additionally, Amazon Prime Video’s Bawaal is the most-watched direct-to-OTT Hindi film of 2023, with a viewership of approximately 21.2 million viewers, followed by Bloody Daddy with 17 million viewers. Netflix featured strongly with five films in the top 15 namely, Jaane Jaan, The Archies, Lust Stories 2, Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan, Khufiya, crossing the approximately nine million viewership mark.
Moreover, Extraction 2 and Heart of Stone, two of Netflix’s movies, are the only two International films to cross the eight million mark. Furthermore, two documentary films feature in the top 10 most-watched International films of 2023, both based on the Korean band BTS.