Category: Over The Top Services

Mumbai: Earlier, the patterns of content consumption were not very diverse due to a restricted range of content. With the advent of social media and digital platforms, audiences are now able to engage with both regional & universal content. From watching funny reels on Instagram to binge watching your favourite shows on OTT, content providing mediums have diversified.

As over a billion people will already be having a smartphone by next decade, popular brands all over the world are using visual storytelling as a way of communication. Therefore, it is safe to say that in today’s era of easy internet accessibility and content availability, short-format content shall continue to thrive in 2023.

Rise of video centric storytelling

India has one of the largest audiences for video consumption in the world. Considering it’s important for audiences to get a real life picture of a product and messaging, video is perhaps the most effective tool. Today, over 50 per cent brands have been actively engaging in communication involving the use of visual storytelling as no other medium can subtly engage human senses the same way a video does. Therefore, it is safe to believe that video as a marketing tool won’t leave the digital domain any time soon.

Within the video ecosystem, the audience has parallely consumed content, both shorter and longer in duration. The idea that content shorter in duration is more convenient and comforting seemed correct with the advent of short-form video features, such as Instagram reels.

Evolution of short format content

Due to the launch of digital platforms and content providing applications in the past few years, the content available was huge in amount. This indeed decreased the attention span of the audience, thereby influencing them to engage with short format content for comfort and convenience. With over 50 million users already engaging with short format content, it is for content makers to weave new trends with the use of existing formats preferred by the audience. Considering the dynamic nature of our audiences, it won’t be a surprise if the audience demands the merge of both formats, i.e. long and short format content in 2023, perhaps a series of mobile content.

From a long term perspective, building an intellectual property rather than a standalone short content seems beneficial for both the entities, the content maker as well as the audience. With seven out of yen smartphones having some short video app, it is clear that mobile content is one of the most upcoming trends to look forward to.

The author of this article is Natak Pictures founder Rahul Bhatnagar.

Mumbai: The BCCI has raked in Rs 4,669.99 crore from franchise bidders for the Women’s Premier League. Adani Sportsline forked out the most amount at Rs 1,289 crore. Three of the winning bidders also own IPL franchises – Royal Challengers Sports (owners of Royal Challengers Bangalore), JSW GMR Cricket (owners of Delhi Capitals) and Indiawin Sports (owned by the Reliance Group, which also owns the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians).

This adds to the Rs 951 crore that the BCCI will get from Viacom 18, which had earlier gotten the broadcast rights for the league.

Elara Capital’s Karan Taurani said that this is a good initiative to target a larger audience pool by leveraging the strength of an existing franchise. “However, the potential of WPL to garner a scalable viewership is an uphill task, in our view, as it also may come around the prime time slot wherein women’s audiences are sticky about fiction-based shows and may move toward WPL, only if women cricketers become bigger stars in terms of name and fame.

“We valued men’s IPL teams at an average of Rs 85 billion based on 13-14x one-year forward sales. If we were to assign a 30 per cent lower valuation multiple for WPL, the fair value would be in the range of Rs 2.5-3 billion, which would move up in the long term, bolstered by its success and acceptance. WPL may be the next big thing for advertisers and team owners to target the female audience; however, its success and acceptance are in for the long haul.”

Taurani noted that United Spirits and other IPL men’s franchise teams have bought the Women’s Premier League (WPL) team for Rs 9.3 billion. “Valuation seems to be at a premium (30x forward EV/sales), given the below-par monetisation opportunity presented by the lower acceptance and popularity of women’s cricket in India. We believe this investment can pay rich dividends only in the long term, provided women’s cricket attracts a mass following in India.”

He noted that, on average, each team was sold for Rs 9.3 billion. This value is higher than the eight men’s IPL teams in CY08 when each team was sold for an average of Rs 5 billion. However, men’s cricket has always had a high recall and attracted a large audience compared to women’s, which is relatively new (the average reach of women’s cricket in India is a mere 20 million versus men’s IPL at 500 million). In terms of recent additions, two new teams (men’s IPL) were added at an average acquisition price of Rs 63.6 billion last year, which means WPL teams’ valuation is currently at 15 per cent of men’s IPL teams.

“In terms of media rights, WPL were sold for five years at Rs 9.5 billion, which is a mere 5% (based on Rs 200 billion – assuming fewer matches) of men’s at Rs 500 billion, if we were to compare it on a like-to-like basis, as WPL is slated to have less than half the number of matches of men’s IPL. In terms of per match cost, men’s IPL media rights were sold for Rs 1.25 billion, whereas WPL was at Rs 47 million (four per cent of men’s), assuming there will be 35-40 matches per season, given fewer number of teams. We believe the valuation of WPL teams is at a slight premium, as it stands at 15 per cent of men’s teams whereas media rights are a mere five per cent of men’s teams. Lower media rights revenue would limit the team’s revenue potential as the former accounts for 80 per cent of a men’s IPL team’s revenue.”

Triggers: UNSP already owns RCB, a men’s IPL team franchise, and it has paid Rs 9.05 billion to acquire a WPL team. Given media rights account for a lion’s share of IPL teams’ revenue, the UNSP WPL team may not have the potential to generate more than Rs 0.25-0.3 billion per year (media rights will account for 90% of revenue, as endorsements and ticket revenue may be significantly low for WPL initially), assuming the sharing ratio (largely 50:50) with BCCI is same as men’s IPL. This is well below the men’s IPL team, which was sold for Rs 5.1 billion in CY08 and able to post a revenue of Rs 1 billion in the first year itself.

“Hence, we believe UNSP has paid a premium price for acquiring a team in WPL, which has no recall as on now; however, the factors that work in the company’s favor are: 1) wider target audience to market its brands to women, and 2) an existing recall for RCB as a franchise, which augurs well for the overall branding for the women’s team. Given less revenue potential in the next five years, WNSP WPL team may only generate an ROCE of 13 per cent (annual investment of Rs 0.9 billion and PBT margin assumption of 40 per cent); however, ROCE would improve significantly in the medium to long term only if women’s IPL is accepted in a big way and if media rights revenue has a multiplier impact at the next round of auctions in CY28.”

Mumbai: Natak Pictures explores the emotional conflicts faced by today’s modern generation that constantly juggles between personal and professional life, with the release of its web show UNSORTED. The leading film studio premiered the web show on Disney+Hotstar on 27 January 2023 and is receiving continued applause for the realistic portrayal of human emotions.

Written and directed by Natak Pictures founder & CCO Rahul Bhatnagar, UNSORTED is a story of two ‘not-so-perfect’ lovers who are trying to fill in the gaps for each other. The show conveys how our desire for ‘perfection’ is indeed the cause of human troubles. The plot of the show involves Tara (fashion designer), being sceptical about managing a long-distance relationship with her long time boyfriend Naman (an IT professional) who has decided to shift his base for a new job. Matters worsen when Tara finds Naman getting closer to his beautiful colleague, Seher. Everytime Naman attempts to save his relationship with Tara, he ends up complicating it even more.

Speaking on the release of the web show, Bhatnagar says, “The so-called celebrated love stories witnessed on the silver screen have influenced us to believe that romantic relationships in real life too are meant to be ‘all fair and gaudy’. This is exactly the notion we wanted to break with the web-show, UNSORTED.”

He adds, “We, at Natak Pictures, have always strived to give our audience the best of stories based on relatable experiences, and this web show has been yet another opportunity for us to reach and connect with a larger audience through our creativity. As we begin the year with UNSORTED–our sincere effort to celebrate imperfections in today’s romance– we plan to dedicate the entire 2023 to many more such releases.”

The engaging web show in the romantic-drama genre stars Pinki Ki Shaadi fame Mugdha Agarwal as Tara, Vikram Bhui as Naman and Tanya Singh Bhatnagar as Seher, respectively.

Speaking about their characters, Agarwal says, “As an actor, it is important for me to attach myself with characters that are relatable yet inspiring, and Tara fits the bill perfectly. She is someone who exhibits confidence and hardwork yet feels insecure about her relationships”.

Vikram Bhui too expresses that he likes to play characters that seem realistic when it comes to conveying human emotions while Tanya Singh Bhatnagar says, “My character is a reflection of how one cannot judge a book by its cover. While Seher externally seems intelligent and mature, deep down her past experiences still influence her ability to trust people.”

The three-episodic show has been meticulously shot by Mumbai-based cinematographer Aayush Gupta. Further, the music of the show has been beautifully composed by Tusshar Mallek.

Mumbai: One Take Media Co’s OTT platform Playflix is on a roll, bringing blockbuster Korean shows back-to-back. OTMC’s Playflix app is now taking it a step further with regionalising its K-dramas. Playflix will now extend Korean dramas dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

Playflix app now has a commendable bank of 8,000+ Premium Korean episodes including top-rated K-dramas like Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo, She Was Pretty, W Two Worlds Apart, I’m Not A Robot to name a few. It also boasts of award-winning shows like Goblin, Flower of Evil, Missing 9 and many more. Playflix is the go-to app for a wide variety of content assuring high quality HD content along with fresh episodes every week.

One Take Media Co director Dimpy Khera says, ‘’The consumption pattern of the viewers has changed drastically. They are wanting to view more diversified content other than consuming the local content also. Korean dramas have caught eyeballs from every region per se every language. The aspirational value of watching international content in your own language is what Playflix is aiming to achieve. Playflix brings a ‘Mega K-Drama Launch’ every month alongside big titles of kids animated series and international shows.’’

Apart from regionalised K-dramas, Playflix app also offers a plethora of shows in various categories like kids animated shows and movies with more than 11,000+ episodes available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi and English.

The audience is also loving their blockbuster Hollywood movies in nine regional languages like-Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bhojpuri. It is one of the most-sought after OTT apps in India because of its hand-picked International dramas like Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Bulgarian and Chinese Drama shows that are available with English subtitles in languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

Priced at only Rs 199 per year on subscription, Playflix is available for download on Google Playstore for Android users and Apple store for iOS users. For those who wish to enjoy a full screen experience, Playflix is also available on Amazon Fire TV.