. “We want people in Surat, Ranchi, Raipur to watch us. We want people in rural India to watch us.”
Alt currently has 41 originals on tap, with 60 more Hindi-language shows in the works being co-created in a recently announced partnership with Zee5, whose 76 million monthly active users will get access to Alt content. Alt’s aim is to reach a critical mass of 100 shows. Inevitably, some of the content for the male market tends to be racy, like Alt’s wildly popular “Gandii Baat,” now in its third season. But Pantvaidya said that raciness was not the show’s point. “If you take ‘Gandii Baat,’ for example, it is stories about rural India,” he said. “Five people sitting in the city will not find it to their taste because it doesn’t appeal to them, but it reflects the real lives of a lot of people.
Alt’s annual production budget ranges between $14 million to $21 million. The group should be in the black this year, and Alt’s aim of breaking even within 36 to 48 months of launch is on track. For further growth, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, which owns a 24.9% stake in Balaji Telefilms, could prove a powerful ally.