Kapil Sharma on The Great Indian Kapil Show. (Photo: Instagram/Kapil Sharma)
When Kapil Sharma left television for streaming, along with the rest of his team, it was suggested that this would increase his audience. Kapil and his team had been regulars on television for over a decade as they moved from one channel to another, but their show stayed the same. The rise of streaming content in India first had Kapil performing a stand-up special for Netflix, something which he had not done in years, and just a couple of years after that, he moved to the OTT platform with his entire team. Netflix even brought him back together with Sunil Grover, despite the two having a fallout in 2017. The Great Indian Kapil Show, the current version of Kapil’s show, is currently in its fourth season and after four episodes, it is starting to look like the worst performing season for the comedian.
The show started in March 2024 with a lot of promise as Kapil now had more liberty with his sketches. The first episode opened with Ranbir Kapoor, along with his mother Neetu and sister Riddhima, and brought in a lot of viewers. As per Netflix’s data, the show had 2.5 million views, with 2.4 million hours viewed. The number of views has nothing to do with the number of viewers. As per Netflix, the views are calculated by “total hours viewed divided by runtime.” During this season, the show stayed in the global top 10 non-English shows for five weeks. During the second week, the show had 2.5 million views with 4.6 million hours viewed. In the third week, the show had 1.7 million views with 4.1 million hours viewed. In the fourth week, the show had 1.2 million views with 3.9 million hours viewed. It last appeared on this list in the sixth week with 1 million views and 5.4 million hours viewed. This season had 13 episodes. The ‘hours viewed’ kept increasing as more episodes dropped as Netflix calculates this as cumulative hours spent on the show, and not specifically on one episode.
The second season had a weaker opening with Alia Bhatt and the team of Jigra appearing in the premiere episode. The episode had 1.2 million views with 1.4 million hours viewed. Throughout this season, the show stayed in the global top 10 non-English shows for four weeks. In the second week, the show had 1.8 million views and 4.1 million hours viewed. In the third week, the views dropped to 1.3 million and the hours viewed were 4.4 million. And in the fourth week, the show had 900k views with 4.2 million hours viewed. This season had 13 episodes.
The third season performed even worse as the show stayed in the global top 10 non-English shows for just three weeks. The opening episode featuring Salman Khan amassed 1.6 million views with 1.9 million hours viewed. The second week got 2 million views with 4.5 million hours viewed and the third week saw 1.2 million views with 3.7 million hours viewed. This season had 14 episodes.
The fourth season has had 4 episodes so far and has appeared in the global top 10 non-English shows list just once. After the second episode of the show, which featured the Indian women’s cricket team, the show ranked at the 8th position globally with 1.7 million views and 3.9 million hours viewed. Before this season, the first 3-4 episodes of each season featured on the global list but this time, the show’s numbers have dropped severely and it remains to be seen in Kapil’s show can resuscitate itself through the rest of the season and get back on the most watched Netflix shows across the world.
Curated by Aisha Patel
