Amazon MX Player In India Unveils 2025 Slate, Including Reality Show ‘Rise and Fall’ Starring Ashneer Grover & ‘Bhay’ Series
The first edition of Amazon MX Player’s StreamNext event in India unveiled a slate of over 100 new shows set to launch this year.
Amogh Dusad, Head of Content at the platform, unveiled a lineup which included 40 new Hindi originals, as well as returning seasons of popular local shows like Aashram, Hunter, Jamnapaar, Half CA, Hip Hop India, Sixer, Who’s your Gynac and Playground.
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The platform will launch reality show Rise and Fall from Banijay Asia, featuring Ashneer Grover and produced by Deepak Dhar. Billed as an “international show format”, Rise and Fall will follow a group of contestants representing diverse sections of society, who all gather in an iconic skyscraper. They are split into two groups: Rulers and Workers, with a cash prize that starts at zero and only builds if work shift tasks, overseen by the Rulers, are successfully completed by the Workers.
A UK version of the show on Channel 4, produced by The Traitors maker Studio Lambert, ran for one season before being cancelled 12 months ago.
Another new title is Bhay – The Gaurav Tiwari Story, which centers around an Indian paranormal investigator. The show will feature Karan Tacker, Kalki Koechlin, Danish Sood and Saloni Batra.
The platform will also release The Titan Story, which follows the journey of the Indian brand, Titan.
First Copy is set in the 1990s and follows Arif, an ambitious boy from Byculla. He wants to earn money and respect from his young wife and family and often resorts to petty crimes to make ends meet. He begins working at a film company owned by Mahesh, an arrogant but successful producer. Chance events at the office leads Arif to discover video piracy, which he participates in for some extra income. The series stars Munawar Faruqui, Saqib Ayub, Gulshan Grover, Krystle Dzousa, Ashi Singh and Meiyang Chang.
Another new title is Petty Cash, which is set in present-day Purulia and follows siblings Latika and Palash as they attempt a seemingly harmless petty cash robbery at a local bank — only to be thrust into a dangerous web of crime and corruption. The show stars Tanya Maniktala, Sahil Mehta and Gyanendra Tripathi.
Bobby Deol (Aashram 3), Suniel Shetty & Jackie Shroff (Hunter 2), Remo D’Souza & Malaika Arora (Hip Hop India 2) and Ashneer Grover (Rise and Fall) appeared at the event.
Karan Bedi, Head of Amazon MX Player, said that the MX Player app received over 1.4 billion downloads on the Google Play store and that the platform has a reach of over 250 million unique monthly users across mobile and Connected TVs. MX Player features local originals and reality shows, alongside MX Vdesi content which includes Korean dramas, Mandarin titles and Turkish shows.
“Over 450 million users consume video content across devices in India today, a number that is growing very rapidly and is expected to touch over 600 million next year,” said Bedi. “The key thing about this growth is that it is not just restricted to a single demographic but is happening across the board — across ages, genders, and income groups. The main driver of this shift is that audiences are moving from TV to digital as India’s premier mass consumption medium. But more than just reach, streaming also provides a higher quality of engagement. In many countries, especially India, a higher proportion of users engage with ads while streaming when compared to TV.
“Going beyond engagement, to actual ROI in terms of recall or consideration, streaming wins over every other medium. While it scores well on immediate impact, the difference is even more pronounced from a long-term impact perspective, where the gap widens. This is because video streaming is an active consumption medium, and TV is passive,” added Bedi.
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