With so many established as well as new players providing a plethora of options in niche and quality content to viewers, Divya Dixit anticipates that India is also poised to keep this momentum going. It has become one of the fastest-growing media and entertainment markets globally
The year has seen a revolution in the digital streaming industry with multiple shows being launched and many platforms experimenting with new technologies and business models. By the looks of it, there will be multiple disruptions in 2020 out of which quite a few will be technology-led. For example, AR/VR promotional package that was used for the first time by a homegrown OTT platform will become common place. Over and above that, slowly, an increasing number of platforms will also enable multiple shows with immersive experiences while surround content around the shows will also become more common. The coming year will see the rise of gamification of content along two paths — one will see content engineered to engage the audience for fiction shows and the other will be gamification for the non-fiction shows. The latter has been tried as a successful experiment with at least two other platforms where the shows are broadcast simultaneously on television. The crux lies in independent apps adopting this to engage the audience with their original content as a scalable model.
Internet, smartphone penetration and smart TV sales
Fast-growing access to smartphones and the rapid proliferation of affordable high-speed internet has led to an increase in the consumption of video content as a whole among the masses. Even in remote areas of the country’s hinterlands, people across age groups and socio-economic demographics are increasingly consuming their favourite content straight from the web, rather than the more traditional broadcast avenues. With so many established as well as new players providing a plethora of options of both niche and quality content to the viewers, India has not only become one of the fastest-growing media and entertainment markets globally but is also well poised to keep this momentum ablaze. As per market research agency, Kantar IMRB, India’s internet users were expected to register double digit growth upto 627 million in 2019 due to rapid internet growth in rural areas.
Given the quick change in preference of how the audience want to consume content, the question being asked is, ‘will mobile surpass TV as the primary content consumption channel. Or rather, will content globally become digital and devices like laptops, TV sets, films just become boxes of dissemination? Even though mobile data costs have been raised by 40 per cent by the three largest telco players in India, it is still the cheapest here compared to anywhere else globally. However, we are yet to observe whether this will affect the digital consumption of online content. Right from TV shows, sports, films, original exclusive series to music and news, everything has gone digital. Is content now completely digital? Not yet, but increasingly this will only get deeper with segmented audience preferences for genres and languages.
Smart TV sales in India today comprise almost 55 per cent of the total units being sold. What does this mean? It means that the television will be linked with apps as the average consumer now wants to see digital content on bigger screens. This will give rise to a phenomenon called “Inclusive Viewing” as opposed to “Individual Viewing”, leading to certain content pipeline being made to suit the tastes of a family, while the individual content viewing runs parallel.
Diversified content
As internet penetration increases in the country, fibre speeds along and India adds close to 10 million daily active internet users every month. Interestingly, nine out of every 10 new internet users are exploring the online content only in their native language. This base wants stories in their mother tongue, not English, not even dubbed. And they want them made in their flavour and lifestyle. Along with pure content offerings, innovative ways of storytelling are also being explored to build stronger and deeper connections with the audience. Whether we speak about interactive episodes or series where the viewers can write in, debate and decide on the ending of the season may also gain popularity.
In this changing scenario, it is imminent that the platform has to function with a strategy of capitalising on the demographics in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, that demand the ease of viewing via content made in their language. The beauty of OTT platforms is that it allows one to serve segmented audience with their choice of genre and language. OTT platforms in 2020 will continue to invest in languages and genres as Internet market becomes almost 680 million strong in India, thirsting for the content of their choice.
Consolidation and collaboration
The coming years will witness intense competition that will lead to consolidation among the increasingly crowded OTT landscape. Mergers, takeovers, collaborations and content production deals will abound. The focus of the industry will be sustainable business and unique content monetisation as well as revenue models. In order to stand out from the rest in the clutter what plays an important role is innovation. OTT players have already started experimenting with personalisation for a seamless and enhanced user experience. With DTH platforms becoming content aggregators, they will stand to become the future content disseminators.
The next year is all set to explain and experiment with quite a few concepts. However, the biggest fact is “unique narrative and interesting content rules the roost”, while the laptops, TVs, mobiles, connected devices are just modes of consumption.
(The author is the senior VP, marketing, ALTBalaji.)