OTT Made Us Settle for Less. Aamir's YouTube Bet Could Change Some of That

Aamir Khan skipped an OTT release for his film Sitaare Zameen Par and has now decided that all films under Aamir Khan Productions will release on YouTube using the pay-per-view model.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

In a move that’s stirred up conversations across the film industry, Aamir Khan has skipped the usual OTT route for Sitaare Zameen Par. He has instead released it on YouTube’s pay-per-view model after its theatrical run—with all future Aamir Khan Productions films set to follow the same path.

It’s a bold experiment in an era when audiences have grown used to consuming unlimited content for a flat monthly fee. This experiment has rightly set off debates about whether this could reshape audience behaviour, bring quality back into the spotlight, and challenge the dominance of the subscription model that has defined the OTT era.

How OTT and YouTube Changed India’s Viewing Habits

As a film-loving nation, we have thrived on one core habit: buying tickets for a film we think we’ll like. This habit had been taken for granted for decades since cinema began. Over a century, actually. To this effect, producers spent big amounts on trailers to make people aware of the kind of film they were paying for.

Then came OTT and paying a monthly subscription began. And all hell broke loose in terms of a core change of habit. You didn’t pay for individual pieces of content and slowly, a complacency set in.

With monthly subscriptions, making viewers less choosy, they didn’t mind watching things that didn’t exactly wow them. Initially, a platform's every slot had to impress you—just like a cinema hall. But soon, they realised they could get away with it, as audiences became more accepting of mediocre or 'cringe' content in between occasional hits.

YouTube has been a big part of this dramatic change as well. The cringe content that people, especially young Indians, were used to watching for free on YouTube, has now evolved into well-made cringe with its high-production quality and high-budget being watched for a monthly subscription.

What began with quality shows aiming at the Emmy’s and films aiming at the Oscars, has finally ended up here. Why? Because China is off-limits, and public limited companies need to show its numbers to attract investments.

India is now seen purely as a numbers market, not a quality one. China won’t budge, so India has become the biggest numbers market for Amazon and Netflix. Which is why we’ve seen them chase numbers instead of quality necessarily over time. They tried balancing numbers with quality, but it clearly hasn't lasted.

Aamir Khan’s Push to Change Viewer Behaviour

Into this mix has come Aamir Khan, with a twist. He’s trying to change things back. To turn back the clock.

A valiant attempt to change that user habit of a 120 years back into gear. But is it too late? Would we accept this change after 5-7 years of a subscription habit? Only time will tell.

What it does for cinema and quality is to break the monopoly of subscription. If users start to pay for what they consume, it becomes better for quality. Because at the core, humans are more choosy about what they directly pay for.

On a monthly basis you can accept much lower standards if every once in a while you get something good. Making audiences more choosy is what Aamir seems to be doing. He’s the best man for this job. You need to have his kind of monumental goodwill to pull it off. 

If it works, smaller independent films that have always held quality up in any industry—be it Iran, America, Britain, France, or India, will get a new lease of life.

New actors—long introduced by independent cinema—will enter the spectrum, new filmmakers will enter the arena, and it will be as if cinema has been given a shot of adrenaline. There could even come a time when other OTT platforms are compelled to shift to pay-per-film model, a move that would most certainly force quality back into the picture.

Tom Cruise is known for championing theatres. Now, Aamir is using his weight to champion a behaviour change. 

What if it Fails?

What if it doesn’t work? If Aamir fails, it’s bad news for everyone else because no one will have the courage to attempt this again. It could effectively seal the door for smaller films to take this route in the future.

The sentiment will be: if he can’t do it, how can I even try? This buyer behaviour could push OTT platforms further into becoming hybrid GECs. (general entertainment channels Like Star TV or Sony TV). We’re already seeing the beginning of that with The Great Indian Kapil Show on Netflix, Traitors on Amazon Prime echoing the engagement style of Big Boss provides, and the new Netflix-Ekta Kapoor tie-up—all signalling the direction platforms seem to be taking now.

More importantly than anything else, this decision by Aamir has forced us to at least look at how badly buyer behaviour has changed since OTT platforms arrived—and how it is seemingly eroding quality in entertainment. It makes us acknowledge that quality appears to be tied to paying for what you watch, not a lump sum—something we probably hadn’t as an audience, introspected upon before.

Another thing deeply connected to paying for each piece of content, is the connection between this habit and new talent entering the industry. The box office—and pay-per-view on a platform that’s normally transparent about its numbers, means that no one can fake it till they make it.

The numbers for any new talent are clear for all to see. No platform can make claims about success that seem devoid of any truth - something that happens nowadays.

Every channel now calls its fairly average shows "super hits" and throws a success parties soon after the release of a show. As audiences, we have no clue about the truth anymore.

For a platform to lie about its numbers, everyone at that company has to accept the lie—a much easier feat than faking box office figures, where many independently funded individuals would have to propagate a lie for it to be believable.

Theatre owners, distributors, producers, trade analysts—all would need to be in cahoots for this lie to hold. This makes it clear that a theatrical, or a YouTube pay-per-view where view where counts are more transparent, is ultimately also healthier for us as viewers. 

Which is why, if quality is to be held onto, and we hope to push OTT channels back from morphing into semi-GECs, this move working out, would be a big win for long-form content in India.  

(The author is an Indian filmmaker and writer. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)