Binge watching your favorite show on a video-streaming service can kill your social life and cause concerned acquaintances in your WhatsApp groups to send "R U OKAY???" texts. But the rise of on-demand, marathon viewing has given life to many over-the-top (OTT) players in the country and, indeed, the world.In India, content is increasingly being consumed on handheld devices (read mobile phones) on OTT platforms as the current generation doesn't have the patience to wait for a show or movie to air on a linear platform like television. This viewer wants her content just like Maggi noodles - masaledaar, instant and on-demand.
Between Hotstar, Voot, Sony Liv, Ozee, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, an Indian consumer has more choice for content than consumers anywhere in the world. Brand Equity takes a deep dive in the world of these OTT players and find out how they stack up.
2015: The Watershed Year
Before 2015, many content companies tried their hands at the play, but nobody could make a dent with the right mix of technology and content. However, the turning point was when Star India launched Hotstar in 2015, which got the mix right.
Though Sony Pictures Networks India's Sony Liv was already in the market, the big bang launch of Hotstar, supported by multi-million dollar marketing and promotion blitzkrieg, ensured a top-of-the-mind recall of the product. The international and national players followed soon with Netflix switching on its service in India in January last year, followed by Voot from Viacom18 and Amazon's Prime Video finally launching in December last year.
Ajit Mohan, CEO, Hotstar, says, "We believed that the market was stunted because no single company had chosen to thoughtfully invest in creating a great consumer service with depth in content and leveraging world class technology." He tells us that they were also convinced that, given a choice, consumers will gravitate towards high quality, curated long form content.
While Hotstar was the first catalyst in the evolutionary process, the chain reaction was set in motion with the launch of Reliance Jio in October 2016, which got into the mainstream over 70 million mobile internet users with free hi-speed 4G internet. That opened the floodgates for OTT players, and helped the companies add new subscribers and increase time spent on the platforms.
And while there is bandwidth available now, the key factors remain compelling content and seamless user experience, which is what these players are now focussing on.
Whose content is king?
For most players, catch-up TV is the mainstay. According to Uday Sodhi, executive VP and head - digital business at Sony Pictures Networks India, "Largest contributor for us is catch-up TV, followed by sports. However, when it comes to films, on digital there is a slightly higher skew towards more artistic films, which may not be big commercial hits, or classics and others which are hard to get."
For Hotstar too, TV shows and movies drive consumption. "Bringing together current TV shows, new movies and live sports on a single platform is fairly unique for a streaming platform even by global standards. And, the power of what we have managed to build is that no one thing powers Hotstar. Of course, sports is getting big eyeballs but, sports is less than 15% of our overall watch time," Mohan of Hotstar adds.
The trend is similar at OZEE, where apart from the popular Hindi GEC shows across Zee channels, Archana Anand, head of digital - India, Z5 Business, Zee Digital, says the company is seeing strong traction for regional shows as well, especially in Marathi, Telugu and Tamil.
However, for Voot, it's not just fiction and realty shows from TV, but also digital series tailor made for the platform, which are working. Says Gaurav Gandhi, COO at Viacom18 Digital Ventures, "Big reality shows (like BIGG BOSS, Roadies etc - and not just the TV episodes but a significant amount of exclusive content just created for VOOT from these shows); VOOT Originals; Big drama series like Naagin; VOOT Kids and regional language content from Kannada and Marathi are big for us."
Interestingly, in absence of local TV content library, foreign players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are investing heavily into acquiring TV shows, films and originals.
Nitesh Kriplani, director and country head, Amazon Prime Video India, says, "Amazon Prime Video has the largest selection of latest and exclusive movies and TV shows, ad-free across Indian and Hollywood movies, US TV shows, popular Indian and international kids' shows, award winning Amazon Original shows, and coming soon… Indian Originals shows with top talent and filmmakers."
While Amazon doesn't share the investment figures, according to media reports, the ecommerce giant has earmarked over $300 million to be invested into India for original content, an amount which is higher than the annual programming budgets of the top three Hindi GECs put together.
"The players with deep pockets will try to get most of the content and muscle out the competition. So you will see a lot of investments, some of which will be at unrealistic prices. The game is to become the biggest player in future," explains Shantanu Sirohi, COO at Interactive Solutions.
Sony's Sodhi echoes the sentiment. He feels that the entry cost for new players will be quite high now in terms of content. "While technology will become cheaper, they will be in a state of land grab. The existing players have a pipeline and library content, but new players will have to spend money on acquisitions. And as this is a content game, compulsive content will keep getting expensive," he says.
Local wins over global
While for Hotstar, Voot, OZEE and Sony Liv majority of the content is local, mostly from their TV broadcasting business, these players have tried to carve their niche too. Hotstar, for instance, allows users to watch local as well as international TV shows, films as well as sports, all under one platform.
Apart from catch up TV and Indian cricket, it also has premium content from HBO, Disney and Fox. Voot, meanwhile, has created a destination for kids and while majority of content is local and exclusive, it also offers some international content from Viacom's global library. OZEE has no original content so far and offers only catch-up TV.
Amazon's Kriplani says, "Our content mix is significantly local and we have already premiered movies within a few weeks of their theatrical release in multiple languages while also showing Indian customers the latest US TV shows (day-after-broadcast in the US). And we are only getting started."
Are advertisers biting?
The Indian OTT space is rather different from matured western markets, where video services are mostly subscription driven. While Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are ad-free services, other platforms are dependent on advertising bucks.
According to Gopa Kumar, VP at Isobar India, in 2016, the advertiser demand grew "a lot" in the OTT space. Sony's Sodhi adds that most of the OTT players are seeing great traction from advertisers and many brands are putting in money given the high visibility and surety of ads being watched on the digital platform.
However, there is also a concern over measurement of viewership. "Globally, advertisers are asking for a standardised measurement matrix for digital. Once BARC starts digital measurement, the space should see more advertisers coming in," feels Sirohi.
But… The tyranny of data
According to Hotstar's Mohan, the only constraint to explosive growth in online video, especially video around real content, whether TV shows, movies, or sports, is the cost of data. "If the data meter is constantly running, then no surprise that consumers are hyper conscious of how much time they are spending. It is not even about free data. It is about giving certainty on data cost so that consumers can be unleashed from the tyranny of the tick-tock on the data meter," he said.
Sodhi also has a positive outlook. He says 2017 will be a crucial year with a lot of new players coming in, creating more buzz in this space. "Expanding footprint of 3G/4G and broadband will drive the consumption of content on digital platforms. We might also see some movement towards subscription ecosystem," he sums up.
Once the tyranny of data ends that is when users move away from snacking on content to spending time on high quality, curated content. In fact, with falling data prices and free service from Jio, between the months of June 2016 and January 2017, total time spent on social media witnessed a 40% jump, while on video apps it was up by 135%. Hotstar, meanwhile, saw a 400% jump in its time spent during the same period.
So, what it boils down to is that in the hotly contested battles in the OTT space, data is the great leveler.
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