Friday

17


January , 2020
OTT platforms – revolutionising entertainment industry globally
19:55 pm

Ankit Singh


At the end of 2019, four eminent directors of the Indian film industry were seen hogging the limelight to promote their anthology horror film, ‘Ghost Storiesʼ. Interestingly, the buzz created around their next offering in the Hindi language anthology sought to promote not only the series but also the online platform Netflix.

Netflix is aiming to create an impression of a platform ready to provide spaces to quirky and non-conventional storytelling in different formats and languages. Over the top (OTT) platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime have significantly dented their presence in the entertainment industry in the last decade. OTT media services, offering direct streaming services to viewers, have been gaining popularity worldwide.

Vishnu Mohta, Co-Founder, Hoichoi TV, told BE, “OTT competes more with television than with movies because it offers similar at-home experience. The key difference is that OTT is made more for the urban audience. It is catering more to the higher end of the customer segment whereas the television market is becoming more and more rural and female-centric.” In India, the popularity of OTT platforms is slowly rising with the increase of local platforms like ALTBalaji, Zee5 and SonyLIV, which are giving direct competition to foreign platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.

The trend of OTT platforms gaining momentum started with Netflix that streamed its first original web series called ‘House of Cardsʼ in 2013. Since then, it has released an estimated 126 original series and films, more than any other network or cable channel in the global market. As of April 2019, Netflix had over 148 million paid subscriptions worldwide, including 60 million in the United States and over 154 million subscriptions in total including free trials. However, the scenario is quite different when it comes to the Indian OTT industry.

‘Sacred Gamesʼ, an original web series of Netflix India, may be one of the most popular dramas among the millennials in the country but fresh contents like ‘AIB on Air’ and ‘Mirzapurʼ streaming on Hotstar and Amazon Prime respectively have also managed to sway the audiences. According to a report, released by Counterpoint Research in April 2018, the Indian streaming platform Hotstar was the most popular OTT platform in India. Hotstar was then closely followed by Amazon’s Prime Video and Voot. Interestingly, regional OTT platforms like Hoichoi TV, Ullu and Adda Times have also been successful in raking up their subscriptions in recent years.

According to a recent study by Comscore, when it comes to content, the young Indian audience is increasingly drawn to these platforms and has shown more affinity towards regional shows or items. Riddhi Barua, Creative Head, Adda Times told BE, “People are sick and tired of watching banal television serials, particularly in Bengali, with nothing interesting. When we launched our portal there was good feedback in Kolkata and from Bengalis all over the world. The market is still growing and in next couple of years we are looking forward to engage more people.” Several OTT platforms have managed to mark their presence simultaneously within the highly competitive digital space. The reason for their equal growth can be attributed to the wide user base of the digital medium.

Aniruddha Dasgupta, Creative Producer, Zee5, informed BE, “Each OTT platform follow their S&Ps to develop and produce contents within those regulations. In terms of positioning, it becomes a very important factor as to whom you are catering to. Such as in case of Netflix, it caters to a very niche urban crowd, Amazon overlaps its target audience of urban viewers with a mass appeal but Zee5 and ALT Balaji mainly cater to the Tier II and Tier III cities and towns like Siliguri and Durgapur. So every OTT’s positioning is different and the individual content is produced based on a particular paradigm. So when Netflix produces Sacred Games for the semi-urban niche, ALT Balaji goes for a series like Gandi Baat which is popular across the heartland.”

The prime reason behind so many new OTT platforms coming to the market is the increasing profits generated by such plat-forms in India and globally. The video OTT revenue in India was ` 2,019 crore in 2017. It is expected to reach `5,955 crore by 2022. The platforms are investing in originals produced by the platform itself in order to attract audiences. Antara Mitra, Creative Head, Adda Times, told BE, “The audience is very diverse because the platforms are accessible worldwide. So it has become very important that we give them good original content. The platforms have also managed to blur the lines between epics and art-house films by putting their weight behind experimental and ambitious storytelling.”

 

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