The ratings war among entertainment channels may take on a whole new dimension if viewership on online platforms like YouTube is considered. With a 110% growth in viewership year-on-year for content from Indian film and television companies, YouTube is emerging as the hottest new platform for video entertainment.

A trend that started in the US, popularity of the new media is catching up in India as well. Consider this: today, the new traffic for YouTube in India, the leading video streaming website in the world, is driven by official and partner channels of film and television companies. A channel is a microsite within YouTube which offers video streaming of the content uploaded by the content producers.

The top channels based on viewership include those of movie production companies like Rajshri, Eros Entertainment, T-Series, Shemaroo Entertainment, UTV Motion Pictures, Yash Raj Films, music channel Sony Music India and television channels like Zoom, SET India, ZeeTV, TV9, etc, all making it to the top 20 channels of YouTube in the country. From songs of new movies, news and even full length feature films, viewers are increasingly turning to YouTube for content.

“We have 100 partners in India. They have set up 1,000 channels in the country and the variety of content over the past few years has gone up dramatically in the form of film companies, television channels and music labels etc,” says Anand.

For Zoom Dekho, which mostly has Hindi film-based programmes, the number of subscribers for the channel has grown from 25,000 to 1.12 lakh in two years. “Considering that we achieved 60% growth in traffic from a base of 70 crore viewership, we have huge potential for growth,” says Avinash Kaul of Times Television.

TeluguOne, a channel for Telugu short films, is adding 12,000 subscribers per month on a base of around 2 lakh subscribers. Ravishankar K, the founder and managing director of TeluguOne channel, says the revenue growth from ad sales is more than 25% year-on-year. “Though the income is still not self sustaining to support content just from YouTube, it is growing rapidly,” says Ravishankar.