ITV

Category: Over The Top Services

  • Viewing of Korean dramas in India up by 3.7x in 2020 over 2019: Netflix

    Viewing of Korean dramas in India up by 3.7x in 2020 over 2019: Netflix

    Mumbai: The recent success of the Korean hit show ‘The Squid Game’ on Netflix has once again put the spotlight on the K-wave –or ‘Hallyu’ which has swept over the online audiences globally, including India. Not only was the Netflix original viewed by 142-million-member households globally in the first four weeks, according to CNBC, 89 per cent of people who started watching ‘Squid Game’ saw at least one entire episode. That is about 126 million hours of consumption.

    In India, the show not only holds the top position among Netflix top ten shows in India, but it is also accompanied by other K-dramas including ‘The King: Eternal Monarch’, ‘Kingdom’, ‘It’s Okay to Not Be Okay’, ‘Sweet Home’, ‘Crash Landing on You’, and ‘Space Sweepers’ in the category.

    According to the streaming platform, the viewing for Korean dramas on Netflix in India has gone up by 3.7X in 2020 over 2019, while it went up by four times in Asia overall in the pandemic year. Dubbing and subtitling have gone a long way in making these shows accessible to a wider audience. Currently, Netflix subs and dubs are in over 30 languages.

    “A story that is well told has the ability to make us laugh, or get excited or feel angry the same way, whether it is told in Korean or in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu,” said a Netflix India spokesperson. “The emotions that these stories evoke transcend the boundaries of geography and language. Dubbing and subtitles play a major role in making these stories accessible to a much wider audience, in the language they are truly able to enjoy them.”

    In South Korea, the streaming platform’s local content push brought over 3.8 million subscribers.

    Netflix began working with South Korean filmmakers and talent in 2016 and has since launched over 80 Korean shows and films. It’s planning to invest another $500 million in Korean content in 2021 alone.

    In India and other countries like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Mexico, Thailand, and the Philippines, audiences are discovering K-content perhaps for the first time on Netflix. A typical K-drama may have 10-16 episodes where each episode maybe 50-60 minutes in duration. Outside of their local market (South Korea), these shows should account for long-tail consumption on the OTT platform but are actually emerging as driver content in some countries.

    For instance, in India, Netflix is one of the few OTT platforms where audiences can access high-quality K-dramas from leading producers in Korea including CJ ENM/Studio Dragon and JTBC.

    Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos admitted that it was their Korea team that saw the potential in the show. “(Squid Game) was picked up a couple of years ago from the Korea team who did recognise it to be one of what they thought would be their biggest title this year. But I can’t tell you that we had the same eyeball on it to tell you that it was going to be the biggest title in our history around the world,” he said in the Q3 earnings call. “The growth – the viewing outside of Korea has been phenomenal everywhere we operate. If you look at the numbers – the internal viewing looks like a local language show in any country.”

    He further pointed out that Netflix shows like ‘La Casa de Papel’ from Spain, ‘Lupin’ from France, the film ‘Blood Red Sky’ from Germany, and ‘Sex Education’ from the UK show that great stories can come from anywhere in the world. “Non-English content viewing has gone up by three times since we started in 2008 making content,” he observed.

    Netflix also partnered with Deloitte to study the impact it had on the Korean creative ecosystem since its launch in 2016. According to the report, the platform’s investment in content production in Korea has contributed almost KRW 5.6 trillion won (~$4.7 billion) to the country’s GDP and helped create more than 16,000 jobs. The report studied the impact the company had on production and distribution as well as related fields including publishing, webtoons, music, consumer goods, and tourism. It highlighted that since the investment of OTT services, the average revenue of Korean VFX studios has increased almost fourfold from KRW four billion in 2010 to KRW 16 billion in 2020. It also observed that K-content has found success with audiences in over 80 countries.

    South Korean culture has left an indelible mark on people across the world and India is no exception. The successful globalisation of South Korean content by Netflix has incentivised other OTT platforms to bring Korean content to wider audiences. While Netflix has benefitted by riding the K-wave popularly known as ‘Hallyu’, it is now a key driver of the cultural zeitgeist that has gripped audiences globally.

  • Prabh Simran Singh moves on from Disney+ Hotstar

    Prabh Simran Singh moves on from Disney+ Hotstar

    Mumbai: Disney+ Hotstar EVP and head of subscriptions Prabh Simran Singh has moved on from the video streaming service after a five-year stint. He had joined the OTT platform in October 2015.

    “I announced my departure from Hotstar yesterday, where I learnt how to back big dreams with audacious thinking and high quality execution. The last 5 years have been transformational, from creating World record concurrency on the back of immense user love to making Hotstar into the largest subscription service in India with an explosive 30x growth in just 2 years. Today, Hotstar contributes to a third of Disney+ global subscribers!” Singh said in a LinkedIn post, announcing his departure.

    He will be with Disney+ Hotstar till December.

    “In this exhilarating 0 to 100 journey, it’s been an absolute privilege to work with whip smart people. I’m incredibly grateful to my insanely talented teams for believing in my vision and coming on-board as co-conspirators in building Hotstar. I’ll be at Hotstar till the end of the year,” Singh added.

    In his current role at Disney+ Hotstar, Singh leads the charter to grow the subscription category and build the largest D2C subscription platform in India with an ambition of 50 million subs by 2023. His mandate included brand, revenue, content, product, pricing, customer experience, payments, and partnerships (telcos, fintech, OEMs).

    Earlier, he was EVP & head of consumer and revenue at Disney+ Hotstar, where he led the Consumer & Revenue organisation with the mandate to accelerate user scale for ad-supported business and growing monetisation. In this role, he accelerated the streaming platform on the back of cricket as an acquisition lever and retention through Star network shows and films.

    While his next move is yet unknown, Singh, in the same LinkedIn post, said that he is excited about the increasing role of technology in solving large & complex problems, particularly in health.

  • HT Labs is a hub for all product, tech, and thought leadership: Avinash Mudaliar

    HT Labs is a hub for all product, tech, and thought leadership: Avinash Mudaliar

    Mumbai: Launched in April 2020, HT Media’s innovation hub for digital-first products – HT Labs has built a diverse portfolio of products spanning edtech (HT School), fintech (MintGenie), OTT (OTTplay), food (Slurrp), and digital publishing (Upublish) in the B2B and B2C domains in just 18 months.

    While OTTplay is a content discovery and recommendation platform that aggregates information from over 50 OTT platforms in Indian and Asia, HT Schools, with its focus on holistic learning and development, has nearly 40-45 courses in collaboration with well-known names such as Shaan and Sabrina Merchant among others.

    Digital Publishing platform Upublish, though catering to independent writers and journalists as well, is largely a B2B product targeting small and medium publishers. MintGenie is a fintech app intended as a ‘learn, earn, and grow ecosystem’ for those with little or no knowledge of investing.

     

    HT Labs is led by publishing industry veteran Avinash Mudaliar who is the company’s co-founder and CEO. He likes to describe it as “a start-up hub where all product, tech, and thought leadership happens.” His team comprises over 150 professionals across technology, product, design, content, and editorial. Earlier this month HT Labs launched its fifth brand Slurrp in the food space under Mudaliar’s leadership.

    How Slurrp was founded

    Slurrp, with its over three lakh recipes, was born out of the problem that there are a lot of recipes out there but it becomes very difficult to narrow down on that which fits one’s choice of cuisine, health consideration, regional choices, ingredient preferences, and allergy considerations, all at the same time.

    “During last year’s lockdowns the number of searches on things as elementary as “how to cook rice in a microwave or how to store vegetables” skyrocketed as people staying home became wary of ordering food online. The struggle to figure out these basics was compounded by the fact that there was no one place to find all related information. That’s when HT Labs decided to solve this problem using AI and launched India’s first recommendation engine for recipes – Slurrp,” shares Mudaliar.

    Slurrp’s TG includes all those who ‘live to eat’ and ‘eat to live,’ and therefore, it effectively serves the needs of all interested users across levels of proficiency in cooking. The app is currently being monetised through affiliate shopping models, sponsorships and ads.

    The recipe – just the right mix of content and technology

    Mudaliar tells us that Slurrp was launched with an equal focus on content and tech wherein apart from collating new and age-old recipes at one place the intent was to build conversations and stories around food. The app takes users on culinary trails charting the history of the most familiar as well as the most exotic of their favourite food and beverages.

    There are plans to launch a community feature in the next couple of weeks to provide a platform for chefs, influencers, and enthusiasts to exchange ideas. “Because not all information is documented, and a lot of hacks and interesting trivia – the grandmothers’ secrets – come out only during conversations, this information can later be integrated into the mother app and recipes or conversations with the end-users with the help of AI,” he says.

    More features in the offing include an AI-based personal assistant to take people through their cooking journey, enhanced filters, language personalisation, and voice recipes. At present, the app has only textual and video recipes in English.

    Some of the uniquely interesting filters that Mudaliar’s team is exploring include those around food combinations and mood-based recipes. “Food and music consumption are very similar in the sense that mood plays a very important role in how a person eats. We are exploring ways to offer personalised recommendations to satisfy these not-easily-definable features,” he states.

    Mudaliar’s most important consideration while designing the app was to solve for the barrier of entry by keeping the interface simple. “We didn’t want to change user behaviour or break any paradigms, so we incorporated features such as ‘swipe left, swipe right’ that most people are used to, and further simplified on that. The idea is to make users comfortable, enhance their cooking experience and get them to spend more time on the app by offering easy access to content,” he remarks.

  • GUEST COLUMN: OTT serves the nation while the internet counsels it

    GUEST COLUMN: OTT serves the nation while the internet counsels it

    Mumbai: The Covid-19 pandemic has upturned all walks of life. People’s lives have switched to a virtual setup and personal choices have moved from interacting with people to purchasing products, availing services, and even spending leisure time to a click or a swipe! The significance of this transition, however, has established itself as a big opportunity for the Internet. While the exponential growth of the Internet is undeniable, three sectors, in particular, continue to witness mammoth amounts of data traffic – collaborative communication tools, gaming, and OTT.

    A weekend without binge-watching or watch-parties today is more like a restaurant that’s taken your favorite food off the menu! Hence OTT is far from experiencing a post-Covid slackening. In fact, with such a large user base and the confidence, the content creators found in releasing content on OTT ever-growing platforms, OTT & VOD traffic rose by 139 per cent from January to August.

    March 2021 culminated with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) marking 825.30 million internet users in the country. Amongst these, active ad-support and paid streaming users accounted for 325 million. A phenomenal breakthrough was observed in rural India, and numbers as high as 65 per cent of India’s total OTT consumption were reported by the Broadband India Forum. At an all-time high, the OTT industry is only set to boom, and as reports by RBSA Advisors suggest, the OTT market is set to grow to $ four billion by 2025 and $12.5 billion by 2030. From 20 minutes to 50 minutes and one-hour average time spent on OTT platforms, from two OTT platforms to 40+ platforms, the OTT revolution in India has come a long way.

    One facet of this revolution that took the center stage included OTT platforms launching themselves into the hyper-competitive environment by catering to local tastes and preferences that enabled them to reach a wider audience in less than no time. As part of their content variety offerings and in an endeavor to bridge the gap beyond the urban setups, OTT platforms across the diverse geography of India, launched regional content in India. This led to one impressive surge in regional content viewership, and industry analysts suggest that 40 per cent of the total viewership in India now comprises regional content consumers. Additionally, this regional content also witnessed a surge overseas particularly in countries like the USA, UK, Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

    Observing this stark rise and the massive demand from the Indian market, international players like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon got into an arms race by launching regional and India-centric content in addition to international content. This availability of content in both original and dubbed languages further boosted the momentum of OTT making it one of the hottest segments across the Indian subcontinent.

    However, while the demand is only set to grow, matching the growth of the sector at the same pace requires a stable, reliable, secured digital infrastructure making it more critical than it was ever expected to be thereby giving interconnection center stage.

    Internet exchanges have established their importance in the OTT world primarily on three grounds. Firstly, internet exchange points reside within data centers that offer world-class facilities and the ability to shoulder critical and customised digital infrastructures. Secondly, interconnectivity creates an ecosystem with widespread points of presence all converging at a single place while also providing peering, DirectCloud, and other similar services. This enables the reduction of latency, the ability to bypass as high as 90 per cent of the internet traffic, the scaling down of costs associated with bandwidth and transmission. Additionally, in an environment placing an urgency on security, internet exchange points provide network services that enhance data security.

    If you considered key runners in an OTT-hiccup race, latency would bring home a medal. While the live video experiences can be killed by high latency, even constant buffering in recorded content can lead consumers far from service. In fact, studies suggest that a two-second delay while loading a website can result in a 100 per cent bounce rate.  This emphasises the importance of keeping content as close to the user as possible. To quantify it, live streaming in HD/4K should ideally be less than 1,200 km away from the user. While it is easier for broadcast networks to circumvent congestion and avoid latency, the challenge lies in finding long-term, reliable, and cost-effective solutions. An Internet Exchange Point allows networks of all segments to exchange traffic while keeping local traffic local. This enables OTT providers to reach the Internet’s ‘long tail’—ISPs who distribute content to regional users. Keeping traffic local reduces the distance data must travel which in turn reduces latency thereby improving content performance and user experience. Interconnection services can give OTT players the secure and resilient digital infrastructure they require while also giving them the ability to upgrade a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) port to a 100GE port.

    Digital entertainment is an ever-evolving medium and that the need for seamless and secure internet access will continue to soar high. It also brings in higher possibilities of network collisions and contentions. This can lead to a downstream or a slowdown of a platform’s functioning. That again finds answers in an Internet Exchange built to deal with peak internet traffic with also the ability to manage outages making it an indispensable solution even in the face of a major crises situation.

    India is the second-largest country in terms of internet users and is the fastest-growing OTT market globally and is predicted to become the sixth-largest by 2024. Reports by RBSA indicate that the industry has the potential to grow into a $15 bn industry over the next decade. This can also be accredited to OTT players partnering with telecom companies like Airtel, Jio, and VI, the entry of global players like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ Hotstar through customised content and major investments, and the growth of home-grown booming OTT platforms. This aggressive pace of growth has further fueled the demand of the data-hungry nation which has trends across the industry as proof.

    This emphasises the need for a secure, scalable, and compliant infrastructure to support this demand now more than ever. It is only in the presence of an innovative and unfailingly reliable internet infrastructure that the OTT industry in the country will be able to meet the needs of the nation it has held firm to until now.

    (Sudhir Kunder is the country director of DE-CIX India. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • Mumbai City FC announces EA Sports as official partner

    Mumbai City FC announces EA Sports as official partner

    Mumbai: Hero India Super League champions Mumbai City FC has announced its association with global gaming giant and creator of FIFA video game series EA Sports as the club’s official partner running through the end of the 2023-24 season.

    EA Sports brand marks will adorn the back of shorts of the Mumbai City first team and will feature on match days and at the team’s training facility in Nagoa village panchayat football ground.

    The partnership will also see the two entities join hands to entertain the fans of the club across India and the world with content and bring the fans closer to the club and its players.

    The announcement follows the news that EA Sports has secured the official license to incorporate the Indian Super League into FIFA 22.

    “We are delighted to welcome EA Sports to the Mumbai City family in this landmark moment for gaming in India,” said Mumbai City FC chief executive officer Kandarp Chandra. “Our focus is to bring the fans closer to the club and through our partnership with EA Sports, our supporters will have more opportunities to engage with Mumbai City through the power of gaming, especially in times when our fans are unable to watch their favourite club play from the stands.”

  • MPL partners with hyper-casual game developer Voodoo

    MPL partners with hyper-casual game developer Voodoo

    Mumbai: E-sports and skill gaming platform Mobile Premier League has announced the launch of two new games Helix Jump and Color Road in partnership with Voodoo.

    Headquartered in Paris, Voodoo is one of the largest hyper-casual developers and publishers globally, with five billion+ total downloads. Helix Jump and Color Road are amongst their biggest titles with over 500 million downloads till date.

    This is the first time Voodoo has launched their game with a publisher in Asia. This collaboration has been made possible using the MPL developer SDK that offers a host of features. With this launch, the MPL users continue to experience the best of hyper-casual games with easy to play and engaging games.

    With the developer software development kit (SDK), any game developer can now publish and monetize their games as well as conduct e-sports events on the MPL app. The SDK also enables developers to enjoy a host of benefits like publishing games cross-continent with a single click, adding cash-rewards and also live stream gaming sessions for a larger audience. Multiple gaming formats like built-in tournament, battle and knockout are supported in the SDK to enable the users to engage in a format of their choice.

    “We are excited to partner with Voodoo and let our users enjoy some of their biggest gaming titles on the MPL app. With over 90 million users playing every day, we have built deep technology capabilities to enable seamless game-play at this scale,” said MPL vice president developer platform Vaibhav Viswanathan.  “We are thrilled to offer these capabilities to any game developers and help them deliver best in class games and enjoy optimised engagement and revenue.”  

    The SDK can be easily accessed by the game developers by logging on to the developer console from MPL. Developers can utilise the console to take advantage of the single build single integration of the SDK for seamless game publishing. Developers need to maintain only a single build across playstore/ Appstore and MPL app, reducing operational burden and providing for a consistent user experience across various platforms.

  • Dice Media forays into regional content with the launch of Telugu show

    Dice Media forays into regional content with the launch of Telugu show

    Mumbai: Pocket Aces’ long-form storytelling channel Dice Media is set to bring in the festivities a little early as it announces its foray into regional content with the launch of its first Telugu series “Alludu Garu.” The five-episodic series will be a weekly release starting 29 October on the Telugu streaming platform aha.

    “Alludu Garu” is a remake of Dice Media’s super hit family drama “What The Folks!” that has seen three successful seasons. It is a coming-of-age story that revolves around the struggles of a newly married son-in-law Ajay (Abhijeeth Poondla) who is forced to stay alone with his over-caring in-laws in a conservative household for a few weeks.

    “We are extremely excited to foray into regional content and expand our reach even deeper with the country. Telugu was a good first language to begin with since the audience is larger and there is a definite content and talent gap,” stated Pocket Aces co-founder and CEO Aditi Shrivastava. “Recreating one of the successful titles with regional talent not only demonstrates the extended value of our IP, but also the relevance of the content throughout India. You will soon see more Telugu as well as Tamil originals from Dice Media.”

    The series also stars veteran actor and director Y Kasi Vishwanath and popular Telugu film actress Dhanya Balakrishna. It is directed by Jayanth Gali, best known for his film “Love Life Pakodi” and co-produced by popular regional digital company Tamada Media. Well-known creators ChaiBisket have written the show.

    “What The Folks! is one of our most loved series franchises and we are happy to be able to recreate its magic for our Telugu audiences. The story’s universal appeal made for a very seamless adaptation and talented creators such as our co-producers Tamada Media, ChaiBisket have helped ensure we capture all the regional flavours and nuances in our storytelling,” said Pocket Aces showrunner Sarjita Jain.

  • Tarun Katial announces his venture- ‘Eve World’

    Tarun Katial announces his venture- ‘Eve World’

    Mumbai: Tarun Katial, a senior media-tech professional has unveiled details of the soon-to-be-launched platform under his new venture Eve World platform.

    ‘Eve’ is a women-only platform that proffers expression, creation, and community enablement said Katial. The platform seeks to build a positive and valuable digital experience for women worldwide. Resting on the pillars of empowerment and building sisterhood, young girls and women of all ages can create and consume content, share opinions and thoughts, engage and build connections in a responsible virtual environment.

    The company has raised initial investment from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures.

    Eve World CEO and founder Tarun Katial said, “The world around us has been traditionally built keeping in mind men as average users. My co-founders shared this vision and purpose for a while and we decided to come together – to innovate keeping women at the center of our universe. Eve World will enable, and empower women to achieve what they want in an environment that furthers their aspirations. We want to become a platform that gives women true freedom online, for them to create and consume content, have meaningful conversations, share opinions, thoughts, and build social connections that will help them grow and develop.”

    Aparna Acharekar has joined the platform as co-founder and will be responsible for building the content and community verticals. Rajneel Kumar, who has successfully built large gaming, streaming, and consumer-tech platforms in the past, will soon join as a co-founder to lead the product, technology, and growth verticals.

  • Myntra and Voot partner to bring Myntra Fashion Superstar Season 3

    Myntra and Voot partner to bring Myntra Fashion Superstar Season 3

    Mumbai: Myntra and video streaming platform Voot have come together to launch Myntra Fashion Superstar Season three exclusively on Myntra Studio on the Myntra App and Voot starting 11 November.

    The show will provide an opportunity to fashion enthusiasts across the country to showcase their creative prowess. Centered on the theme #MFSIWearMyStory, the new season will showcase the hunt to find India’s next big fashion influencer and leverage the synergy between iconic fashion trends and social media. 

    The show will witness several budding and established fashion, lifestyle, and beauty influencers battle it out based on their inherent talent, individual expression, and powerful engagement. The episodes have also been designed to highlight Myntra’s thriving influencer engagement channel such as Myntra Studio, the platform said on Thursday.

    Myntra VP and business head – social commerce Achint Setia said, “This edition will focus on shaping mindsets around celebrating unfiltered, and real conversations alongside the most relevant and credible voices. Our partnership with Voot will enable us to attract the highly engaged viewer base of Voot and expand the pool of fans for the show. We are also thrilled about Myntra’s proprietary technology allowing viewers to not just watch the show but also interact live with the contestants and the judges, as well as shop all the looks of the influencers (contestants) via Myntra Studio on the Myntra app.”

    In addition to the launch of Season three of MFS, 11 November will also witness Myntra Studio offer India’s largest assortment of shoppable looks handpicked by sought-after fashion and beauty influencers sharing the latest styling trends and hacks, added Setia.

    Viacom18 Digital Ventures head-AVOD (Voot) Chanpreet Arora said, “We respect the commitment that they (Myntra) has shown towards accepting and being a part of the pop culture community. While Myntra is the leader for young fashion, it’s great to see them actively adopting the pop culture trend. Voot is the leader for creating content for the youth and always being the youth whisperer. As a brand that strongly resonates with the youth, our association with Myntra will allow us to leverage our combined strengths to ensure the show achieves significant reach and scale.” 

  • aha’s new web series ‘Alludu Garu’ to premiere on 29 Oct

    aha’s new web series ‘Alludu Garu’ to premiere on 29 Oct

    Mumbai: Telugu streaming platform aha has announced a new web series “Alludu Garu” that is slated to release on 29 October.

    The series stars Abhijeet Poondla, Dhanya Balakrishna, Y Kasi Viswanath, Sudha, and Shalini Kondepudi in key roles. The show is directed by Jayanth Gali (known for “Love Life” and “Pakodi”) and produced by Tamada Media. Bru is the presenting sponsor for the show.

    “Alludu Garu” is a coming-of-age story that revolves around a newly-married couple Ajay and Amulya. It focuses on the plight of Ajay, who is forced to stay with his clingy in-laws Ashok, Nalini in a conservative household. Despite his initial reluctance, Ajay tries hard to meet their expectations and fit into the family, keeping his contrasting world views aside. While his struggles will tickle your funny bones without a doubt, you are sure to empathise with his plight.

    “aha has made it a habit to deliver one hit show after the other in multiple genres, from ‘Tharagathi Gadhi Daati’ to ‘Kudi Yedamaithe’ to ‘The Baker and The Beauty’. We’re sure ‘Alludu Garu’ will be an equally promising addition to our diverse content library of Telugu web originals and movies,” said aha CEO Ajit Thakur. “The show has the potential to strike a chord with audiences across all age groups, for it’s a relevant take on relationships within a middle-class household in a lighter vein. We’re happy to collaborate with Bru and are hopeful to continue our wonderful association in the future. “

    “Being a regional OTT player, we are the one-stop shop for fulfilling all entertainment needs with the convenience of local language connect. Accordingly, our partnership with brands allows us to create more engaging formats. We are delighted to partner with Bru in this,” said aha head – non-subscription revenue Nitin Burman. “As our roadmap is to find unique stories of the Telugu land that are relatable to the constantly progressing audience and fans, we look forward to continuing our associations.”