Humsafar gets a Spanish dub, and director Sarmad Khoosat says: 'If only there were royalties'

Fifteen years after Ashar and Khirad first won over Pakistan, Humsafar is heading for a new audience. HUM TV has announced on Instagram that the drama will be dubbed into Spanish.

The man who directed it had a short answer. Sarmad Khoosat shared the channel’s post on his Instagram story on Tuesday and wrote: “If only there were royalties,” followed by a blank-faced emoji.

Why five words got so much attention

Khoosat did not write a long complaint, and he did not name anyone. But the line touched a sore point in Pakistani TV.

Royalties are payments that go back to actors, writers, directors and crew every time a show is rerun, sold to another channel or released in a new market. As Dawn Images and The Express Tribune explain, Pakistani television had them until the 1990s. Leading actors of that era reportedly gave up royalties in exchange for a pay rise from PTV, and private channels later followed the same model.

The result: a drama like Humsafar can be repeated, uploaded and sold abroad for years, while the people who made it are paid once.

Not the first time this has come up

• In 2021, the late actor Naila Jaffery spoke about how royalties could have helped her pay for cancer treatment. Several veteran actors told Dawn that year they regretted the old deal with PTV.
• In March 2026, while promoting her film Aag Lagay Basti Main, Mahira Khan, Humsafar’s lead, said stars like herself and Fahad Mustafa could manage without royalties, but junior artists, technicians and set workers could not. That is how both Dawn Images and The Express Tribune summarise her comments.

Khoosat’s reaction connects the same argument to the show that arguably started the modern export run of Pakistani dramas.

What we know about the Spanish version

Very little so far. HUM TV’s post says the drama will be dubbed and released in Spanish. Dawn Images links it to Spain, but the channel has not named a streaming platform or a release date in anything we have seen. Some outlets wrote headlines saying it has already been released; we could not confirm that.

A quick refresher on Humsafar

Humsafar aired on HUM TV in 2011, written by Farhat Ishtiaq from her own novel and directed by Khoosat. Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan played Ashar and Khirad, and the show made both of them household names across Pakistan and India.

If HUM TV announces the platform, we will add it here. For now, watch Khoosat’s Instagram and HUM TV’s pages for the release date, and for whether anyone in the industry picks up the royalties question this time.