Executive Dossier
Star India’s Gaurav Banerjee on Hotstar’s content diversity, SVOD uptake & nurturing talent
Hotstar has consistently outperformed some of the global over the top (OTT) platforms in India with the help of a mix of TV show content, sports and the recently-added originals. After Criminal Justice, the next original to launch under the Hotstar umbrella will be Out of Love. Launching 22 November, the series is based on BBC’s award-winning series Doctor Foster.
Star India Hindi entertainment president and head Gaurav Banerjee attributes the platform’s success to its content mix. Compared to traditional TV, the digital space provides flexibility to creators to play with content narratives, style and direction.
On the sidelines of the Out of Love launch, Banerjee spoke about Hotstar’s upcoming content strategy, feedback to Hotstar Specials, viewership ratio, online content regulation along with other topics in a freewheeling chat with Indiantelevision.com.Edited excerpts:
Hotstar Specials entered the market at the beginning of this year when one of the main goals was to turn AVOD consumers into SVOD base. How has been the initial response? How has it helped to increase the SVOD base till now?
It has been an incredibly good journey. We are very excited about the response we got. People have liked the shows. Our attempt at creating different types of content has been noticed. Sports documentary, a big edgy legal kind of drama, thriller, comedy and now a female-centered drama – we have it all. We have been overwhelmed by some of the responses we got from viewers and critics for shows like Criminal Justice. Obviously, we are doing this to power up Hotstar VIP and that strategy is playing out well.
This is just a start. Everything takes time, consistency, effort and a series of quality content. For all digital content in our country, this is day zero. We have a lot to learn.
What does your inside data say about viewership demography?
Hotstar as a platform skews twoard the younger Indians. We have a great opportunity with all these types of content which are edgier and varied. The second opportunity from the creative point of view is very interesting; we can play with season length and episode length. In television, over a period of time, the format gets settled. Whereas here it can be led by the kind of stories we have such as the right point to finish a particular episode. This allows for a lot of flexibility for creative people.
You have worked with renowned production houses or studios for Hotstar Specials. Are you considering giving a chance to young producers like you did for television business?
Yes we do and thank you for noticing that about Star India and that's something we are deeply proud of that we are that platform where new voices can come in and tell big stories. But we are just starting out. This is like a startup and there is a lot of content with new filmmaking, stories and talent. Hopefully, there will be a lot to talk about in the coming weeks and months.
Now many of the platforms are launching a number of originals to build a loyal subscriber base. When do you see SVOD monetisation actually turning easier?
Brands, including Hotstar VIP, are already attempting this. This will happen as the per capita and GDP grows and people will want to be discerning about the choices they want to make. They would want to watch higher quality and they will be willing to pay for it.
Cinema prices have gone up but viewers are willing to pay. As a content creator platform, we have to create the experience that people really like, whether it is the technology experience, marketing, talent or stories. All of that has to combine to create something which you say that you like and makes you agree to pay more for it.
Do you see a model emerging in the future where viewers can go for a bundled model in OTT like cable TV?
It’s hard to tell. But I think that having an incredible content asset should be any company’s priority. Even with so many OTT platforms, viewers have a lot more choices today. So, people can decide where they want to spend. Essentially everyone is competing for time.
What is your content strategy for 2020?
Our first goal is variety. We want different stories and keep expanding them. This year we did a sports documentary, thriller and a social drama. A lot of OTT drama has been male-oriented. Out of Love is breaking that. It’s female-centric, emotional and about marriage. We want to keep experimenting and attract the best talent in the country. We want to work with the best actors, directors, showrunners all the time and we will do everything we can to create the right culture and figure the right scale of ambition so that Hotstar will be their target destination to work.
Lately, online content regulation has been the talk of the town. What is your take on this?
My team and I, across TV and digital, believe that we don’t want to do anything irresponsible. We won’t do edgy content just for the sake for it. That’s an ethical choice we all need to make. We need to figure out a method so that people don’t think of this as a chaotic classroom where there are just unruly kids and they need a class monitor or a strict supervisor. That’s the maturity needed from the creative community, platforms and the entire ecosystem and I feel if we do that we are all going to be fine.
Executive Dossier
Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star
MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.
Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.
Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.
Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.
Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.
With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.
Digital
SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform
INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.
The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.
Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.
Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.
Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.
Executive Dossier
Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention
MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.
In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.
On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8.
Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability.
On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns.
LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives.
About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes.
Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement.
• Automotive | Renault Triber
For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.
• FMCG | Namaste India
In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift.
• Real Estate
For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.
On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.
As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.
On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium.
LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception.
On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.
OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence.
About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors.
LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:
• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.
• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.
• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.
• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.
These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable.
On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact.
Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.
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