Amid the tensions between India and Pakistan, several Pakistani contents have been banned on the Indian OTT platforms. It seems like Turkish dramas are also likely to be pulled down as Turkey showed support for Pakistan after Operation Sindoor. According to a report by Mid-Day, Zee5 has already removed Turkish shows and Amazon MX Player has also paused new acquisitions from Turkish production houses.
An insider was quoted as saying by Mid-Day, “We’ve been monitoring the sentiment for weeks. While there is no government directive, we made a business decision to avoid a potential backlash. These titles, a part of the Zindagi bouquet, were doing well in Tier-1 and -2 cities, but the risk of reputational damage outweighed the benefits.”
Another insider close told Amazon MX Player, “We haven’t received any formal instructions or advisory from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. As of now, no content has been removed, but we have paused new acquisitions from Turkish production houses.”
Earlier, Earlier, Indian government banned social media pages of Pakistani celebrities and also banned some popular Pakistani YouTube channels. Later, an advisory was issued by Indian government in which all all OTT platforms and digital streaming services were instructed to remove any web series, films, music, podcasts, or other content that originates from Pakistan.
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The statement read, “In the interest of national security, all OTT platforms, media streaming platforms and intermediaries operating in India are advised to discontinue the web-series, films, songs, podcasts and other streaming media content, whether made available on a subscription based model or otherwise, having its origins in Pakistan with immediate effect.”
Both Pakistani and Turkish shows have huge popularity in India.
