Balaji Telefilms goes digital with launch of mobile platform, ALTBalaji

Balaji Telefilms’ OTT platform ALTBalaji will be commercially available from April 16, 2017 with a few original shows. The ad free, subscription based platform will offer 250+ hours of original, exclusive content to its subscribers. ALTBalaji has been launched with the vision to create original shows for India and Indians abroad, for consumption on their personal devices at location/ time/ show of their choice. 

The shows on the video on demand platform have created by critically acclaimed directors and actors, including Nagesh Kukunoor, Juhi Chawla, Nimrat Kaur, Rajkumar Rao, Hansal Mehta, Sakshi Tanwar, Ram Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Sameer Soni, Yudhishtar Urs, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, and many more. 

Commenting on the launch, Ekta Kapoor, Joint Managing Director of Balaji Telefilms Ltd, said, “Indian entertainment audience is evolving and so are we at Balaji, with ALTBalaji we are officially identifying our audience as individuals and not groups/ family. We are entering into their most personal space – mobile phones and this empowers them to really watch what they want, at the time and location of their choice and not what single TV family is habituated to. ALTBalaji’s shows will open new world of home grown differentiated entertainment to the viewers with the best stories and artists.” 

Sameer Nair, Group CEO, Balaji Telefilms Ltd, said, “We are proud to bring ALTBalaji to the Indian viewers, this is an alternate to their regular entertainment options – TV, Bollywood Films and foreign English content. We fit right between these options and with the plummeting digital divide across Indian cities we found a perfect space to showcase our content, digital platform. We tied up with multiple partners to ensure smooth navigation and subscription payment option, creating an unparalleled user experience on the app.” 

Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO of ALTBalaji, added here, “The most endearing feature of ALTBalaji is its content, we are launching with the promise to bring fresh and never heard of stories to our viewers. While we are starting with 5 shows, it will be followed by a new show every 15 days for the binge watch lovers. On the one hand, we offer story of India’s first female in combative role – ‘The Test Case’, and on the other hand, we have most loved TV stars in ‘Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat’. It is intriguing and fresh story-telling.” 

Features of ALTBalaji app 

• ALTBalaji is fully cloud based, to deliver incomparable performance and durability, ensuring high performance video delivery to all subscribers. ALTBalaji’s highlights include:
• A subscription based Video-on-Demand service with original and exclusive premium content at competitive prices to customers
• 5 episodes of every show free for viewing & less than Rs.1/day thereon
• Service across multiple connected devices with seamless cross device user experience
• Parental control allowing kids to watch kids content andgiving them no access to other content

Details of shows 

The Test Case - directed by national award winning director Nagesh Kukunoor, the show stars Nimrat Kaur as The Test Case prepping to be the Indian Army’s first woman test case in a combat role. It is an inspirational story about her passion and struggle to prove her worth as a combative soldier. The cast includes Juhi Chawla, Atul Kulkarni and Rahul Dev.

Boygiri - it is a fun, pure, unadulterated, slaphappy comic story of boys next door. Boygiri is an authentic take on “men will be boys” and the overarching awkwardness of being boys.

Romil and Jugal - this is ALTBalaji’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s famous tale of Romeo and Juliet but with a twist. An emotional love story of two boys – Romil and Jugal who hails from different family and cultural backgrounds.

Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat - Starring the famous duo Sakshi Tanwar and Ram Kapoor, this is a story of two opposite people who cross each other’s paths suddenly and how it has an everlasting impact on their lives.

Bewaffa Sii Wafaa - a matured, complicated love story of two married people, married to other people. This emotionally charged story opens multiple layers of a relation between married couples and explores what happens when one of them finds loves outside marriage.

Dev DD - Imagine Devdas with a bottle of vodka, now replace Devdas with Devika Dharmendra Dwivedi! This is a twisted tale of Devika (Dev DD), who is not a ‘so called good girl’ and loves everything that is complicated in life. 

Shows in regional language are also in the pipeline for the platform. Maya Thirrai, a Tamil thriller drama will soon be available to viewers.