Even as his debut standup special No Country For Moderation was on the edit room floor, Punit Pania was thinking of how to get it to his fans. Pitching it to a streaming service was the obvious play, but Pania got the impression that they were only interested in talent that came with a massive social media following attached. He thought of cutting it up into short clips he could release in bits, drip-feeding the content-hungry social media algorithms. But he didn’t want to butcher his artistic vision. Eventually, he realised there was only one serious choice: just put it up on YouTube.

“I thought about putting it behind a paywall too,” says the Mumbai comedian, whose special came out last weekend. “But in this age of shorts and reels, if I put two hours of footage behind a paywall, people will come and beat me up at my home. So I decided on YouTube, and to let people pay what they want.”

Pania is only the latest Indian comic to bet on the benefits of independently releasing your special on the world’s largest video-sharing platform. Prashasti Singh, for example, is in the process of releasing her debut special Door Khadi Sharmaaye in four parts on YouTube. Daniel Fernandes released Shadows on YouTube (along the pay-as-you-like model) in 2019, and followed it up with this year’s Alive and Vaccinated. Kunal Kamra and Azeem Banatwalla both dropped specials on their channels last year. And, of course, globally there’s the likes of Andrew Schulz, Matt Rife, Sam Morril and Mark Normand, who have all built arena-selling audiences on the back of live shows and YouTube specials. 

Part of the reason is that the late 2010s feeding frenzy—when streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video were throwing money at the Indian comedy scene—has abated in the years since COVID-19, and there just aren’t that many deals on the table. 

“First of all, nobody [at a streaming platform] is going to even listen to your pitch if you don’t have big numbers,” says Aakash Mehta, whose special No Smoking—released on YouTube in February—has over 855,000 views. “And my logic was simple, the whole point of doing comedy is that you’re not like other artists who are compulsorily dictated to by gatekeepers. I’ve never waited for people to give me a slot or an opportunity, I’ve tried to create my own space. So this made sense.”

Fernandes and Pania also point to the fact that you can retain creative control over your content. For Pania, the increasing censorship on streaming networks—as elsewhere in the Indian media landscape—also made it futile to try and snag a streaming deal. “No matter how much they offer to pay you, the kind of stuff I do is never going to work because the censor’s bar is so low,” he says.

Pania has another special he plans to release this year. He jokes that his sense of urgency also has to do with the 2024 elections, and the bleak prospects of free speech in the future. Others just want to get their old material out into the world so they can crack on to newer jokes and newer shows. That’s certainly true for Mehta, who’s working on another YouTube special called Nasty with a third also scheduled for release this year (and five more in the bank). It’s also true for Kunal Kamra, who says that after about 18 months of working on a show till it’s all planned out and he’s performed it over and over again, he just has to put it out.

“You do the same joke to the same crowds over and over again and you get bored,” he says. “And there are no offers for a comedian like me in this market. So that leaves YouTube.”

Some comedians are even turning down network deals to release their specials on their own channels.

It’s not just a lack of options that is driving the push to YouTube though, but also a sense that there’s a real long-term pay-off to releasing stuff on the platform. Some comedians are even turning down network deals to release their specials on their own channels. Like Abhishek Upmanyu, who allegedly turned down an incredible amount of money for his special Jealous of Sabziwaala, instead putting it up on YouTube for paying subscribers. He also released over 40 minutes of it in the form of two free-to-watch YouTube videos. 

“Abhishek was offered—to my knowledge—the biggest one-special deal offered to any comedian in the Indian scene at the time,” says Warren Viegas, Upmanyu’s manager and CEO of LVC Comedy. “We had noticed a trend of comedians like Andrew Schulz, for example, selling out 20,000-seater arenas in 10 minutes, and that’s not coming from eyeballs on an OTT platform. The logic at the time was that while the amount of money was monstrously big, we wanted those jokes to be seen by as many people as possible.”

The two clips from the special that Upmanyu released have been viewed over 50 million times, a number much bigger than the entire subscriber base of Netflix and Amazon Prime combined. The more people that watch your videos, the more tickets you’re likely to sell. Upmanyu, and Viegas, are betting that the live comedy revenue eventually wins out over a large up-front payment, and in the meantime, the comedian gets to play to bigger crowds than he otherwise would have. 

“It is a calculated risk though and it depends on the artist,” warns Viegas, who’s in the middle of negotiating OTT deals for three of his other clients. “Abhishek has an established track record of his videos going insanely viral. I think we were in a uniquely privileged position in terms of being able to turn down that money. At the same time, if you’re an act without a massive social media following or a big body of work, then turning down a paycheck from a studio might be a tougher decision.”

There are other risks to this approach too. Unlike with a streaming deal, where recording costs are covered (or reimbursed via the advance), YouTube offers you no guarantees. Ad revenue is meaningful, but not massive. It also depends on your special cutting through the overwhelming clutter of YouTube content, without the marketing budget of a big streaming network. If your stuff doesn’t go viral, you may find yourselves out of pocket after months of hard work. 

“I started from the worst case scenario,” adds Pania. “If I spend this much and get zero returns, then is it still worth it? And I decided I could spend Rs 3 lakh on what is the pinnacle of my artistic endeavour. Even if it goes down the drain, I can live with it.” 

And that’s not counting the toll those YouTube comments may take on your self-esteem. “A free platform like YouTube can be brutal, because there is no hiding from anyone including yourself,” says Prashasti Singh. “The YouTube audience makes it super obvious when they love you and equally obvious when they don’t. I feel that developing an internal sense of security in your work goes a long way in surviving and thriving on this platform.”

As it turns out, Pania didn’t have to live with his worst case scenario. He says he’s already pleasantly surprised by how much people have donated within days of his special going up. Mehta’s special has already paid for itself from ad revenues and donations, and he’s also noticed a significant bump in ticket sales. Daniel Fernandes—whose specials both turned a profit within five days of release—believes that while it can take a lot of time, effort, frustration and shameless self-promotion to make YouTube work for you, the bigger risk comes from just sitting around and waiting for someone to open the door for you. 

“As an artist, I know all the time and work and money it takes to come up with that material,” says Fernandes. “So why don’t you give your fans the option to watch it and pay for it?”