Madhur Bhandarkar made his Bollywood debut as a director with 1999 release Trishakti. He has been in the industry for the past two decades and has made some really good films. In 2016, he was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour, by the Government of India.
Well, his past few releases might have failed to strike a chord with the audiences, but we cannot ignore that he is one of the few filmmakers in the Hindi film industry who tries to showcase the reality of the society on the big screen.
Today, as Madhur Bhandarkar celebrates his 52nd birthday, let’s look at the list of top five films directed by him.
Chandni Bar
In 2001, Madhur Bhandarkar directed a film titled Chandni Bar starring Tabu in the lead role. The film showcased the journey of a girl from a village who comes to Mumbai and becomes a bar dancer. The film was appreciated by critics and won National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues.
Satta
After Chandni Bar, Madhur Bhandarkar made one more woman-centric film titled Satta. The movie showcased the reality of politics and how things change when a woman decides to take the charge. Raveena Tandon’s performance was the highlight of the movie and it is still considered to be one of the best performances of the actress.
Page 3
While in early 2000, not many filmmakers were keen on making women-centric films, Madhur Bhandarkar was surely the director who was giving Bollywood some strong female characters. His movie Page 3 showcased the life of a Page 3 journalist. It went on to win National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
Traffic Signal
Well, we never expected that a filmmaker would make a movie revolving around the people who work and beg at traffic signals in Mumbai. But, in 2007, Madhur Bhandarkar directed a film titled Traffic Signal that showcased us the reality of that side of the society as well.
Fashion
After showcasing us the life of a bar girl, a female politician, and a page 3 journalist, Madhur Bhandarkar decided to take us in the world of glamour with his film Fashion. The movie was about a girl’s journey as a model and how the fashion industry works. Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut, both the actresses won a National Award for their performance in the movie.
AI can make thousands of podcast episodes every week with very few people.
Making an AI podcast episode costs almost nothing and can make money fast.
Small podcasters cannot get noticed. It is hard for them to earn.
Advertisements go to AI shows. Human shows get ignored.
Listeners do not mind AI. Some like it.
A company can now publish thousands of podcasts a week with almost no people. That fact alone should wake up anyone who makes money from talking into a mic.
The company now turns out roughly 3,000 episodes a week with a team of eight. Each episode costs about £0.75 (₹88.64) to make. With as few as 20 listens, an episode can cover its cost. That single line explains why the rest of this story is happening.
When AI takes over podcasts human creators are struggling to keep up iStock
The math that changes the game
Podcasting used to be slow and hands-on. Hosts booked guests, edited interviews, and hunted sponsors. Now, the fixed costs, including writing, voice, and editing, can be automated. Once that system is running, adding another episode barely costs anything; it is just another file pushed through the same machine.
To see how that changes the landscape, look at the scale we are talking about. By September 2025, there were already well over 4.52 million podcasts worldwide. In just three months, close to half a million new shows joined the pile. It has become a crowded marketplace worth roughly £32 billion (₹3.74 trillion), most of it fuelled by advertising money.
That combination of a huge market plus near-zero marginal costs creates a simple incentive: flood the directories with niche shows. Even tiny audiences become profitable.
What mass production looks like
These AI shows are not replacements for every human program. They are different products. Producers use generative models to write scripts, synthesise voice tracks, add music, and publish automatically. Topics are hyper-niche: pollen counts in a mid-sized city, daily stock micro-summaries, or a five-minute briefing on a single plant species. The episodes are short, frequent, and tailored to narrow advertiser categories.
That model works because advertisers can target tiny audiences. If an antihistamine maker can reach fifty people looking up pollen data in one town, that can still be worth paying for. Multiply that by thousands of micro-topics, and the revenue math stacks up.
How mass-produced AI podcasts are drowning out real human voicesiStock
Where human creators lose
Podcasting has always been fragile for independent creators. Most shows never break even. Discoverability is hard. Promotion costs money. Now, add AI fleets pushing volume, and the problem worsens.
Platforms surface content through algorithms. If those algorithms reward frequency, freshness, or sheer inventory, AI producers gain an advantage. Human shows that take weeks to produce with high-quality narrative, interviews, or even investigative pieces get buried.
Advertisers chasing cheap reach will be tempted by mass AI networks. That will push down the effective CPMs (cost per thousand listens) for many categories. Small hosts who relied on a few branded reads or listener donations will see the pool shrink.
What listeners get and what they lose
Not every listener cares if a host is synthetic. Some care only about the utility: a quick sports update, a commute briefing, or a how-to snippet. For those use cases, AI can be fine, or even better, because it is faster, cheaper, and always on.
But the thing is, a lot of podcast value comes from human quirks. The long-form interview, the offbeat joke, the voice that makes you feel known—those are hard to fake. Studies and industry voices already show 52% of consumers feel less engaged with content. The result is a split audience: one side tolerates or prefers automated, functional audio; the other side pays to keep human voices alive.
When cheap AI shows flood the market small creators lose their edgeiStock
Legal and ethical damage control
Mass AI podcasting raises immediate legal and ethical questions.
Copyright — Models trained on protected audio and text can reproduce or riff on copyrighted works.
Impersonation — Synthetic voices can mirror public figures, which risks deception.
Misinformation — Automated scripts without fact-checking can spread errors at scale.
Transparency — Few platforms force disclosure that an episode is AI-generated.
If regulators force tighter rules, the tiny profit margin on each episode could disappear. That would make the mass-production model unprofitable overnight. Alternatively, platforms could impose labelling and remove low-quality feeds. Either outcome would reshape the calculus.
How the industry can respond through practical moves
The ecosystem will not collapse overnight.
Label AI episodes clearly.
Use discovery algorithms that reward engagement, not volume.
Create paywalls, memberships, or time-listened metrics.
Use AI tools to help humans, not replace them.
Industry standards on IP and voice consent are needed to reduce legal exposure. Platforms and advertisers hold most of the cards here. They can choose to favour volume or to protect quality. Their choice will decide many creators’ fates.
Three short scenarios, then the point
Flooded and cheap — Platforms favour volume. Ads chase cheap reach. Many independent shows vanish, and audio becomes a sea of similar, useful, but forgettable feeds.
Regulated and curated — Disclosure rules and smarter discovery reward listener engagement. Human shows survive, and AI fills utility roles.
Hybrid balance — Creators use AI tools to speed up workflows while keeping control over voice and facts. New business models emerge that pay for depth.
All three are plausible. The industry will move towards the one that matches where platforms and advertisers put their money.
Can human podcasters survive the flood of robot-made showsiStock
New rules, old craft
Machines can mass-produce audio faster and cheaper than people. That does not make them better storytellers. It makes them efficient at delivering information. If you are a creator, your defence is simple: make content machines cannot copy easily. Tell stories that require curiosity, risk, restraint, and relationships. Build listeners who will pay for that difference.
If you are a platform or advertiser, your choice is also simple: do you reward noise or signal? Reward signal, and you keep what made podcasting special. Reward noise, and you get scale and a thinner, cheaper industry in return. Either way, the next few years will decide whether podcasting stays a human medium with tools or becomes a tool-driven medium with a few human highlights. The soundscape is changing. If human creators want to survive, they need to focus on the one thing machines do not buy: trust.
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