Streaming the alter-ego: ALTBalaji, between saas-bahu sagas and fast-fashion erotic by Akshaya Kumar and Mahima Singh, p. 1

Streaming the alter-ego:
ALTBalaji, between saas-bahu sagas and fast-fashion erotica

The Internet, that increasingly pre-eminent distributive force for popular culture material, poses the challenge of appropriating competing media platforms. In the case of news, print, television, and web-exclusive news material become indistinguishable in inter-penetrating multimedia forms spread across the web.

Illustrating Jenkins' concept of convergence culture, this image showcases how digital news platforms blend print, television, and web-exclusive material into seamless multimedia forms, accessible across devices. It highlights the Internet's dual role as a contested commercial space and a free repository of information, reflecting the tension between content monetization and accessibility.

Many of these tendencies follow from what Jenkins (2006) calls convergence culture with respect to both devices and web-based platforms. And yet there is an unrelenting effort to secure and monetize content via paywalls. On one hand, this amalgam of convergence and competition makes the Internet a fiercely contested media space—both in terms of original content production and the distribution of content borrowed from competing media. On the other hand, as a “free” and comprehensive repository of information, the Internet remains in fundamental tension with the commerce of media production.

Content produced for traditional television and Internet media have certain continuities but also significant differences. This paper discusses the case of Balaji Telefilms, a prominent Indian television production company celebrated for its role in popularizing “soap operas,” here characterized by family dramas overburdened with histrionics. However, as the company ventured into the digital realm, they reversed their offerings entirely through an OTT platform, ALTBalaji or Alt(ernate) Balaji, which began exploring “bold” originals across genres, including romance, thriller, horror, and comedy. Furthermore, on that platform erotica gained significant traction, as in the web series Gandii Baat (2018), Ragini MMS Returns (2017), and XXX (2018). In fact, these series forward the legacy of films earlier produced by Balaji Motion Pictures, the film production subsidiary of Balaji Telefilms.[1] [open endnotes in new window]

The case of Balaji Telefilms, therefore, helps us navigate the complex traffic of genres, ideologies and economics of media production across television, film, and OTT platforms. Grappling with Balaji Telefilms' transition to ALTBalaji helps assess the extent to which the medium shapes the encoding of the message in the contemporary Indian media industry (McLuhan 1964), which has an ongoing tug-of-war across segments of that industry. But also, this case study helps us understand the implications of “freedom” on the Internet vis-à-vis its varyingly regulated ancestor platforms. To do so, we need to traverse problems of ideological containment and media censorship in film and television, but also to address, at least briefly, the question of crowd-sourced censorship and the adequate monetization required for streaming platform’ survival when faced with cash-rich behemoths.

At the heart of this paper is the idea that media producers navigate commercial possibilities emergent on the web while being mortally wary of their “unreliable” publics. While web-based content, unlike other media, can be accessed at any point of time from anywhere, it also breeds unauthorized access (peer-to-peer communications), mis-identification and significantly shorter attention spans. Instead of simply being derived from ancestral media forms, web-based content allows encroachment, duplication and cross-dressing across the older media forms’ time-honored boundaries of windowed media distribution. In other words, emergent digital platforms for storytelling have disrupted relatively disjointed film and television economies, roughly since 2013. Unsurprisingly, it is television—already a hotbed of cross-promotional intersections with the film industry (Kumar 2018)—which has come under a compounded attack over the last decade. Indian television in general has stubbornly stood its ground over the last two decades as an incommensurate force that refuses to match step with dominant patterns of television productions worldwide. Here lies the substance of the discord—films as well as web-based series adopt a contrary tactic of “correcting course” in order to be commensurate with their Western counterparts, while television remains defiant.

Between film and television

Let us briefly reckon with two contrasting ventures which pioneered the key tensions under discussion. In 2013, Colors TV aired an official Hindi adaptation of the U.S. thriller, 24 (2001-2014) aired over nine seasons; the adapted action thriller lasted two seasons between 2013-2016. The series offered a fundamental challenge to the narrative design of Indian soap operas, which progressed as if they were suspended in time, defying the slightest sense of real time progression. 24 was a series designed to narrate the story in real time, partly in order to shock the Indian audience out of the slumber that sustained their habituation to never-ending television soaps.


Posters of the original American series 24 (2001-2014) and its Indian adaptation (2013-2016). The American version became a cultural phenomenon with its real-time narrative structure, while the Indian adaptation brought the same intense storytelling style to local audiences, marking a significant shift from traditional Indian soap operas.

In another instance, in 2014, a YouTube channel popular for mockumentary videos, The Viral Fever (TVF), launched its first web-series, Permanent Roommates. For a YouTube channel of viral videos, it was an audacious move, even though the idea fit the TVF logo that makes a declaration of smashing television itself. The series cleverly adapts the cathartic template of Indian television while also reinforcing the familial order, albeit with qualifications. In the series’ remarkable narrative maneuvers, the lead couple come to learn that they have more in common with the previous generation than they imagine. While showing the resilience of the traditional order, which must never be underestimated, the series offers an allegorical reading about relations between web-based and television series: “The cathartic tendencies of television need not be seen as fundamentally antagonistic—they could be just as resilient as the parental control in the series” (Kumar 2019: 200).

This conciliatory approach stands in relative contrast with the standard TVF stance against television, best reflected in its “The Making of...” (2014) series that spoofs the behind-the-scenes production environment of competing media. In an episode titled “A Decade Long Daily Soap”, it pans the signature style of Ekta Kapoor’s soap operas, produced by Balaji Telefilms. These have scripts marked by a characteristic reluctance against narrative progression, and visually rely on dramatic exaggerations conveyed in extreme close-ups. However, just as 24 did not alter the course of Indian television, let alone revolutionize it, TVF’s admittedly rhetorical promise of smashing television also hasn’t yielded any damage to television. Yet, these rhetorical gestures indicate how emergent media platforms target the sensibilities of niche demographic clusters to announce themselves.

The question of location for streaming platforms within the media space, especially with respect to television and the Internet, has increasingly interested media scholars (Edgerton 2013; Lobato 2019; Lotz 2017). W argue that instead of being engaged in a pitched battle with television as producers assert, web-based platforms offer variations of programming that borrow their entire edifice from the film industry. In other words, streaming platforms have brought television within the commensurate fold, setting aside its obduracy, moving it towards a conciliatory in-between media space. It is impossible to understand this emergent segment of the media market without bringing both film and television industries into the analytical frame. As Punathambekar and Mohan argue, examining digital platforms requires an approach that considers their complex layers of media structures, necessitating an intermedial perspective (2019). While the interpenetration of film and television programming exists on all major platforms including Amazon Prime, Netflix, ZEE5 and Disney+ Hotstar,[2] we explore the key intersections and points of inflection in this journey via the emergence of one exemplary channel, ALTBalaji.

Bolter & Grusin (2000) argue that every act of mediation is always already an act of remediation. The way to understand new media, such as OTT platforms, is therefore not to take on face value their assertions of newness, but to investigate how they re-mediate their media ancestry. The key question to follow may be whether and how OTT platforms re-mediate television or cinema. Operating at the intersection of long-form storytelling and the new vistas of “free” exchange offered by the Internet, streaming cultures appear to give more control to their users even as they are robust manifestations of the infrastructures of control. Algorithms play a curatorial role to organize recommendations for individual preferences, in a way as to nudge the users instead of forcing their hands. In the following essay, We argue the following. First, in stylistic and generic terms, streaming cultures borrow more from cinema than television, primarily because of ideological commensuration with the former, in which censorship plays a vital role, especially in an Indian context which is the purview of this article. Second, cinema took the lead in confronting the challenge of digital capture, and digital production has produced an alternative visuality beyond the editorial stranglehold of mainstream media. Streaming cultures’ relatively playful grappling with the digital thus has its origins in cinema instead of television.

Third, and most important the re-mediation of an admittedly struggling film industry, known for more capital intensive and celebrity-centric storytelling, into streaming platforms struggling for paid subscriptions effectively compels us to acknowledge questions of commercial viability. Since most of the OTT platforms derive from their parent production outfits in the television industry, we get distracted by mainly observing stylistic contrasts with television. Instead we might better frame OTT platforms as indicating a struggling film business trying to best avail itself of the worldwide web. Indeed, films work as singular cultural documents, albeit placed within generic matrices. OTT platforms have built varying affordances and curatorial slants via which they offer an experience spread across their productions. For example, Farzi (2023) and XXX: Uncensored (2018-2020) both began their life as films which were later recalibrated as web-series.

Promotional posters of Farzi (2023) and XXX: Uncensored (2018-2020), both of which began as film projects before being recalibrated as web series. Farzi, starring Shahid Kapoor, Vijay Sethupathi, Kay Kay Menon, and Amol Palekar, is a gripping crime thriller reflecting cinematic storytelling on streaming platforms. In contrast, the XXX: Uncensoredposter, featuring only a partial face of an unidentifiable woman, embodies ALTBalaji's suggestive and experimental content style.

The former, a big-budget crime thriller loaded with a star cast landed on Amazon Prime, while the erotic anthology was taken up and adjusted by the budget-conscious ALTBalaji. As we go down a hierarchy of budget preferences, the platform’s curatorial kernel begins to take precedence. As we will show, Balaji Telefilm’s journey from what appears to be conservatism towards sexual liberation on the narrative front also simultaneously represents a journey from professional logistical discipline to amateur cash-burning on the production front. Unsurprisingly, then, profits from television cannot endlessly support experiments on the web. The latter must settle into a curatorial habitus, as it does, which results in the channel’s cheaply produced titillation in the name of servicing a provincial demographic.

Balaji Telefilms and the paradigmatic television soap

India’s broadcast television dates back to 1959 when it was initially established with a strong emphasis on community development and formal education. As a result, early television programming in India revolved predominantly around these objectives, illustrated by programs such as Krishi Darshan (1967), which sought to educate farmers about various aspects of agriculture, including herbs and cultivation practices. However, the television landscape underwent a transformation with the advent of commercials in 1976 and the subsequent separation of the state TV network Doordarshan from All Indian Radio (AIR).[3] This shift contributed to a modest growth in television programming during the 1980s. Punathambekar and Sundar (2017) characterize this period as the “time of television” due to the emergence of progressive melodramas that explored themes such as family planning, education, progress, and modernization. Notable examples from this era include Hum Log (1984) and Buniyad (1986), which introduced developmental modernity as a part of the Indian state’s moralizing drive, in this instance to counterbalance a “vulgar” cinematic public with a modern televisual one (Roy 2008).

Posters of Hum Log (1984) and Buniyaad (1986), two groundbreaking Indian television series that set the stage for socially relevant storytelling on TV. Hum Log, India’s first soap opera, explored the lives of a middle-class family while addressing issues such as family dynamics, societal change, and personal struggles. Buniyaad, on the other hand, dealt with the emotional and social consequences of the 1947 Partition, depicting the resilience of displaced families during that turbulent time in Indian history.

Television’s early growth also had much to do with the decline of what Dadawala (2023) calls the “literature-cinema nexus of the Indian New Wave,” referring to the two-decade period ending in 1989, in which New Wave films had “functioned as a unique contact zone between the cinema hall, printing press, and coffee house intellectuals” (2023: 46-47). However, this literary orientation of storytelling derived from Hindi literature was set aside by a raging phase of commercialization. During that time, economic deregulation allowed foreign and domestic companies to launch their own television channels, and Doordarshan’s monopoly loosened up through the 1990s. Viewers gained increasing access to a wider range of television channels, particularly in urban areas. At least in the early years of the transition, this growth was mostly confined to what are termed General Entertainment Channels (GEC).

Junoon (1993-1998) and Tara (1993-1997), two iconic television serials that marked a shift in Indian TV storytelling during the 1990s. Junoon, aired on DD National, explored complex human emotions and relationships, breaking away from traditional melodramatic formats. Tara, broadcast on ZEE TV, was a contemporary soap that delved into the lives of women facing personal and social challenges, bringing to light themes of empowerment and social change, particularly in the context of post-liberalization India.

The two most iconic serials of this period of transition were Junoon (1993-1998) and Tara (1993-1997)—aired on two of the most prominent channels, the public DD National and the private ZEE TV, respectively. Apart from Ramayan (1987) and Mahabharat (1988-1990), Chanakya (1991-1992) and The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1990-1991), serials[4] on the Hindu epics and historical figures, most Doordarshan serials were commissioned for 13 or 26 episodes.



Ramayan (1987), Mahabharat (1988-1990), Chanakya (1991-1992), and The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1990-1991): Landmark Indian television series that revolutionized historical and mythological storytelling on TV. Ramayan and Mahabharat explored ancient epics, while Chanakya and The Sword of Tipu Sultan highlighted significant historical figures, leaving a lasting cultural impact on Indian television.

Both Tara and Junoon were, however, designed as long-running soap operas with one main narrative trajectory branching occasionally into myriad small ones as the story progressed. They also featured contemporary stories that showcased various elements of the upper/middle class urban lifestyle—highlighting feuds, disputes and conflicts—often in terms of the split between licit and illicit or between gender roles in post-liberalization India (i.e. approximately post-1990).


Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) and Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) presented love stories that transcended conventional narratives, using romance as a means to challenge patriarchal boundaries.

These serials bore a faint resemblance to their cinematic counterparts, such as Qayamat se Qayamat Tak (1988) and Maine Pyar Kiya (1989). Their cultural imaginary was ensconced within the legacy of Hindi melodramas known as “feudal family romance” (Prasad 1998), in which revolting against the normative boundaries of the patriarchal setup became a narrative device to suggest a defiant rupture. The two serials provided a novelistic narration of their dramatic elements by taking an episodic route to resolutions and transformations. The key difference between cinema and these soaps—and those which followed in their wake, particularly Swabhimaan (1995-1998)—lay in how they handled spectacle, mainly in terms of pacing. They were not, however, designed to address an identifiable target demographic; instead, this was still the realm of television as urban mass culture, repurposing the imaginary mass audience of popular cinema. That is why, the generic composition of television soaps was not yet designed to feed off and amplify cultural distinctions. Balaji Telefilms’ soap operas, however, introduced Indian television to a “demographic intelligence,” which birthed a new era, at least for Hindi television of the twenty-first century.

To give an example of using demography, Balaji Telefilms rose to prominence with Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (2000) and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii (2000), both aired on Star Plus.[5] These “saas-bahu”[literally, “mother-in-law daughter-in-law”] sagas soon became a massive cultural phenomenon, mostly by their focusing on the key target demographic: housewives. By scripting melodramatic valences of domestic disputes, especially kitchen politics of joint families,[6] the soap operas stretched their narrative across generations. Instead of addressing a mass audience as did the genre’s long-running predecessors, the new soaps’ targeted script design was born in a climate of the widening palette of satellite television. The series were developed with the awareness that it was no longer possible, or even necessary, to address the widest cross-section of audiences in a television economy now characterized by an increasing expansion and generic segmentation.

A decade after economic liberalization, the discourse and appeal of consumerism was powerful enough to overwrite the distinctly austere middle-class domesticity of the early 1990s teleserials. A much more fashion-savvy and opulent display of wealth and status was now presented and widely available on television, especially in shows focusing on the joint families of merchant communities, including Gujaratis, Agrawal baniyas and Punjabi khatris.[7] There are at least two reasons why this deliberate cultural identification, offered narratively via sartorial and culinary choices, language, stereotypes and selected cultural artefacts and mannerisms, gained significant relevance in the trajectory of Hindi television. First comes the data harvesting of audience engagement via third-party agencies, beginning with the monopoly of TAM India and since 2015, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). Through television rating points (TRPs), advertising was integrated within the television ecosystem, and went on to determine its future ever since the early 2000s. Second, Hindi television sees an increasing regionalization beginning with Kyunki…, this more local focus became the key navigational tool for both production companies and the audience.