Vikram Malhotra REACTS to Aamir Khan and Pankaj Tripathi’s YouTube Pay-Per-View move; says, “We should understand the inherent strength of every medium"

The discussion about Pay-Per-View content on YouTube has become a major topic in the Indian entertainment industry in the last year. What started as an experimental idea has now attracted a lot of attention, especially after big names like Aamir Khan and Pankaj Tripathi chose this model for their projects.

In late 2025, Aamir Khan surprised everyone by releasing his film Sitaare Zameen Par on YouTube Pay-Per-View, breaking away from the usual theatrical and OTT release plans.
Soon after, Pankaj Tripathi joined the trend by launching Perfect Family, which became India’s first long-format web series under a YouTube pay model. The first three episodes were free, but viewers had to pay a small fee to watch the rest.

As the conversation around this new digital business model grows, Vikram Malhotra, founder and CEO of Abundantia Entertainment, talked about it in an exclusive interview.


When asked about exploring Pay-Per-View on YouTube, Vikram said that his company hasn’t found a project that naturally matches this model.
He explained, “We haven’t had any specific film or series that made us think about using a pay-per-view model on YouTube.”

But he also acknowledged YouTube as one of the biggest platforms in today’s entertainment world.
He called it a “King Kong” platform, saying it’s a huge force in content distribution and consumption.

Vikram added that the success of any project on YouTube depends on knowing how audiences behave and matching content to the right platform.
“I’d love to work with YouTube, but the content and the reason we put something on YouTube has to make sense,” he said.

He also pointed out the importance of understanding each medium’s strengths before choosing a paid or ad-supported model.
“We should know the strengths of each medium and decide what kind of content fits there. Will it be paid? Ad-supported? And what kind of life will it have?” he explained.

He also noticed that watching YouTube content on connected TVs and living room screens has become more common.
According to him, this trend could open up new opportunities for films and long-form stories on the platform.

At the same time, he raised a question about whether Indian audiences are ready to pay for high-quality YouTube content in large numbers.
“Are you asking YouTube subscribers to pay for content when their usual habit is to watch ad-supported stuff for free? These are the things we need to think about before choosing a platform like YouTube,” he concluded.

As the Indian entertainment industry keeps trying out new ways to distribute content, the next few years might show if YouTube Pay-Per-View can become a lasting alternative to traditional OTT platforms and movie theaters.