In the crowded OTT market, female-led shows are winning the game

Shows with a female protagonist are scarce, and this scarcity has become an advantage. 

Despite India’s OTT audience remaining male-skewed, with men accounting for 60% of viewers, female-led web originals are gradually gaining ground in the battle for buzz and viewership.

While the first wave of popular Hindi streaming franchises was largely male-centric, with shows such as Sacred Games, Mirzapur and Paatal Lok breaking out, data from media consulting firm Ormax shows that series headlined by female protagonists generated 47% higher peak buzz than those led by male protagonists over the past few months. Prominent series contributing to this higher peak buzz include Mrs. Deshpande, Chiraiya, Mandala Murders, Dabba Cartel, Daldal, Khauf and Search: The Naina Murder Case.

Supply gap

One major reason for this trend is the relative scarcity of female-led shows. They account for only 22% of the sample, compared with 52% for male-led shows. Scarcity becomes an advantage, particularly when the dominant narrative template starts feeling familiar, Ormax said.

Further, female-led stories often extend beyond the familiar genres of crime, action and thrillers to explore themes such as agency, identity, social expectations, safety, ambition and systemic barriers. As connected TV brings streaming into the shared living-room environment, these stories may also be benefiting from a shift that helps them attract interest beyond a single audience segment.

“Audiences ultimately connect with compelling storytelling, relatable characters, memorable performances, and authentic narratives, irrespective of who leads the story. That said, we've seen several female-led series in recent years resonate deeply because they've brought fresh perspectives and challenged conventional narratives,” a JioStar spokesperson said.

Shows such as HeartBeat, Mrs. Deshpande, Chiraiya and Search have gone beyond entertainment to spark conversations around identity, ambition, relationships, social norms and representation, extending their cultural impact well beyond the screen, the person added.

Raghavendra Hunsur, chief content officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, agreed that audiences are seeking greater representation of different perspectives and experiences, and stories centred on women have naturally become an important part of that evolution.

“Through our language-first approach and locally nuanced storytelling, we create narratives that resonate with diverse communities across urban and regional India. When stories reflect everyday realities with honesty and emotional depth, they naturally spark conversations and build lasting engagement,” Hunsur said.

To be sure, many also see this trend as part of the OTT universe’s broader expansion. According to Sandeep Bansal, director at Chaupal, a platform specializing in Punjabi, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri content, women play an important role in deciding what the family watches in most households today.

“This is also true for theatres, where women often take the call on which movie to watch. We have also seen that women take the decision to buy an OTT subscription much faster than men. All these factors contribute to increased buzz around stories and content that appeal strongly to women audiences,” Bansal said.

Fresh narratives

Industry experts point out that female-led OTT shows are generating 47% higher peak buzz than male-led shows despite accounting for just 22% of the supply. Calling this an efficiency signal, Saurabh Sankpal, an independent creative and strategic consultant, said these stories carry a dual-layer resonance: genre on the surface and cultural conversation underneath.

“Hindi OTT built its first decade on male-led franchises like Mirzapur, The Family Man, Paatal Lok and Panchayat. That grammar is now so familiar to the audiences that a new male-led show has to fight the audience’s own memory to get noticed. Female-led shows don’t carry that baggage,” Sankpal said.

Shows such as Chiraiya and Khauf trigger conversations that go beyond the plot. They get people talking about lived experience, power, vulnerability and dignity. That’s a different kind of attention, and it travels further, he added.

Saurabh Srivastava, chief operating officer, digital business, at Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd, agreed that these stories tend to generate stronger conversations because audiences see parts of their own experiences reflected on screen. Social media has amplified this further.

“One important factor is the growing diversity of voices behind the camera. There are more women writers, directors, and creators today, and they often bring perspectives that feel lived in and relatable. That has expanded the range of stories audiences get to watch,” he added.

That said, the trajectory of such shows will need to be tracked closely, since platforms determine investments based on franchise potential, genre and long-term subscriber impact.

“But there is growing confidence in commissioning these stories to build balanced content portfolios. This is why platforms are now providing stronger marketing support for projects with high engagement potential. Future budget allocations depend on these shows building a sustained commercial track record compared to established male-led action franchises,” said Brijen Desai, associate vice president at White Rivers Media, an independent digital marketing agency.

About the Author

Lata writes about the media and entertainment industry for Mint, focusing on everything from traditional film and TV to newer areas like video and audio streaming, including the business and regulatory aspects of both. A journalist for over a decade, she has extensively covered relatively underexplored aspects of what is seen as a glamorous business—from the death of single-screen cinemas in small towns to unreasonable star fees and demands eating into film production budgets and eventually inflating ticket rates. She was early to spot what are now established and ongoing trends such as the slowdown in the OTT business and the surge in the popularity of southern movies, which she continues to spotlight. A regular writer of in-depth, long-form features, her best-read work ranges from critical profiles of companies like Netflix, JioHotstar and Prime Video to takes on sexual harassment and mental health in the entertainment industry. She spends a lot of time watching content, particularly the old-school way in movie theatres, to make sure her writing is embedded in on-ground experience, since she believes the best stories often come from the travesties of directly engaging with and paying for the content that she writes on, and not from celebrity tweets, company releases or listings. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, she has also authored a book on the business of entertainment.