Cinema and Streaming

Arena 5.6 · weight 2 · reading 56.3 · contested

24.1Scope

The political framing of what people watch.¹

The arena is measured by box office of politically framed films 2024-26 and since 2014, streaming originals by viewership, and the National Film Awards.

Principal evidence: 349 top-grossing films 2014-26 in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam (M6): of films with a political frame, 35% carry the Hindutva frame by count and 54% by box-office gross (2024-26: 70% by gross, driven by Hindi); southern industries are almost wholly the other way. Streaming (151 most-watched Indian originals, research H): of the politically framed titles, 4 carry the Hindutva frame and 8 the other (33% by count, 29% by viewership; thin evidence: framed titles are ~9% of viewing, and the Aashram franchise alone carries much of the other side’s weight). Streaming counts 60%, cinema 40%. .

24.2Significance

Long-run values, memory of history, the image of communities and the State.

24.3Indicators and weights

Table 24.1 lists the 3 indicators of the arena, the weight of each within the arena, and each indicator’s reading (the Hindutva-aligned share, from 0 to 100).

Table 24.1. Indicators of arena 5.6

24.4Reading

The arena reads 56.3, 6.3 points above parity, and is classified as contested (a reading from 45 to below 60). With a weight of 2 of a total 107.7, it contributes 1.05 points to the composite reading of 45.7.

The indicators diverge: the highest reading is for cinema 2024-26 (gross and title share) (66.6), the lowest for cinema 2014-26 (49.3).

24.5Measures and exhibits

The exhibits below are the Atlas’s own views of the data behind each measure: shares by side, the largest units, breakdowns by source, recipient and country, money-flow diagrams and time series. Full row-level ledgers are in the data file (Appendix D).

Measure 1. Cinema 2024-26 (gross and title share)

Reading 66.6%

gross 70.1, titles 63.0 (17 H vs 10 R titles, 101 films); from the cleaned film_units rows (owner, round 2 D17)

Measure 2. Cinema 2014-26

Reading 49.3%

gross 54.3, titles 44.3 (35 H vs 44 R titles, 386 films); from the cleaned rows (owner, round 2 D17)

Measure 3. Streaming (originals and films streamed; count and Ormax viewership)

Reading 55.6%

211 titles: count 56.7, Ormax viewership 54.5 (Dhurandhar and Main Atal Hoon coded as in cinema, D57-004; IC 814 coded once, Hindutva by its M6 framing, owner round 2 D16). Blend set by audience (owner, 1 Nov 2026): half reach, half annual viewing hours. Reach: streaming 66.5 crore people (Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026) vs cinema 15.7 crore (Ormax Sizing the Cinema, 2023) = 80.9% streaming. Hours: cinema 83.2 crore tickets (Ormax Box Office 2025) x 2.5 h = 2.1 bn; streaming films and series taken as 10% of the 517 bn hours of online video (Ormax 2026; conservative) = 51.7 bn, 96.1% streaming. Streaming 88.5%, cinema 11.5% (recent and 2014-26 at 3:1)

Measure 4. National Film Awards, principal categories

Reading 75.0%

6 H vs 2 R (71st and 72nd NFA principal categories); 0% of the blend (owner, 1 Nov 2026): reference only

24.6Evidence base

The arena rests on 633 coded units and 66 time-series points. Of the units and flows, 62 are coded Hindutva-aligned, 64 opposed and 507 neutral, mixed or transactional. By source grade: 170 grade B, 423 grade C.

The full set of rows for this arena, each with its source, is in the Atlas data file (Appendix D).