Netflix India is developing local versions of Netflix-controlled global unscripted formats after a revived jail-themed reality show delivered 50 million viewing hours and 2.5 billion social interactions in its first three weeks, signaling the streamer’s conviction that Indian non-scripted content can travel globally.
The format strategy sharpens
Monika Shergill, Netflix India’s vice president of content, told Deadline the service is working on “a couple of very interesting, big global formats, which are Netflix formats, and they will be coming to India.” She declined to name them. The distinction matters: Netflix does not own the underlying rights to *Love is Blind* or *Too Hot to Handle*, those sit with Fremantle and Kinetic Content respectively, but it holds exclusive international production deals and has commissioned numerous local versions. Whatever Shergill has in the pipeline, the rights structure suggests Netflix is moving to control more of the format value chain itself.
Lock Upp proves the model
The catalyst is *Lock Upp*, a “captive reality” series produced by Balaji Telefilms that debuted June 27 and runs through August 5. Celebrity “inmates” live in a jail set, compete in tasks, and face elimination. The show spent two weeks on Netflix’s Global Top 10 Non-English Series list and, according to the company’s latest *What We Watched* data dump, ranks as the second-most-watched series globally by hours viewed. Audience demand pushed the weekly episode count from five to six. Shergill translated the 50 million hours into 5,700 years of viewing time, a metric that lands somewhere between impressive and unintentionally absurd.
A second life for a dead-platform original
The format originally launched in 2022 on ALTBalaji, Balaji’s now-defunct streamer, and MX Player, which has since been folded into Prime Video India. It went nowhere. Netflix revived it with Bollywood hosts Farah Khan and Riteish Deshmukh and a cast of television actors including Dheeraj Dhoopar and Shivangi Joshi. Creator Ekta Kapoor said she rejected two other offers to bring the show to Netflix, citing a “mutual sense of ownership” and a promise the platform would “run with me until the last mile.” That a show could fail on two Indian platforms and become a global top-ten hit after a host swap is either a testament to Netflix’s distribution muscle or an indictment of the local streaming ecosystem, possibly both.
What comes next
Shergill and Kapoor declined to confirm a second season or international adaptations, though Shergill acknowledged the format is “getting a lot of interest internally” and “has a long life.” The immediate tell will be which global formats Netflix announces for Indian adaptation, and whether it finally takes an Indian format global. For now, the strategy is clear: use local hits to justify local versions of global IP, and use global IP to keep local subscribers watching. The jail set, it turns out, was a pretty good metaphor for the content flywheel.