consumption

Wavemaker India unveils earned equity report on IPL 2022

Mumbai: The real-time data intelligence solution provider, Wavemaker MESH, has revealed an earned equity report on IPL 2022. The report captures the social conversations around IPL 2022 based on multiple data points collated to create meaningful and actionable insights. The report analyses how the audience perception of IPL has evolved over the years. It focuses on the digital audience and uses data points like consumption data around digital content and also social and search insights.

The report has data sources from multiple consumer touch points across the digital ecosystem, ranging from social listening, video analytics in partnership with intuitive intelligence, and interaction data points collected from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The methodology behind measuring earned equity draws from social listening, content analytics, and audience measurement.

Wavemaker plans to bring out an earned equity report on key properties, which will help brands add a qualitative layer to their decision-making process.

Talking about the report, Wavemaker India chief content officer & GroupM India head of branded content Karthik Nagarajan said, “The perceived value of a property today is measured in a uni-dimensional way. ‘Earned Equity’ is Wavemaker’s way of quantifying the ‘digital perception’ and sentiment around it. Along with complementing the traditional media metrics, these earned equity reports will help brands decide their associations with premium events.”

Key highlights of the report:

When we talk about sporting events across the globe, the English Premier League emerges as the buzziest sporting event in the world. Just behind the EPL, we have the IPL, which has become the second-largest in the world and the buzziest sporting event in India. The popularity has been growing year on year and in 2022, with growth of over 300 per cent last year, the season garnered 334 million buzz, making it ahead of other global sporting events like the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball.
This season of IPL was unique in multiple ways, which is why the audience engagement was at its peak. After trailing in the number two spot for the past three consecutive seasons, RCB broke the jinx and emerged as the most popular team this season. The winner, ‘Gujarat Titans,’ was the sixth most popular team this season. One more interesting fact is that RCB has only seven per cent of fans from Karnataka cheering for the team. This clearly shows that in this event, the loyalty is not with the city/state team but with the franchise.
IPL is growing as an opportunity for content creators and advertisers to engage with the audience. This season, the IPL received over 6.5 billion video views on digital platforms, representing a nearly 50 per cent increase over the previous year.
This rise in popularity corresponds to the media’s assessment. The popularity of this sporting extravaganza, along with potential growth rates of digital, is the reason why digital rights were sold more than TV for 2023–27.
For the third time in a row, Virat Kohli is the most popular player in the IPL 2022. The top three player spots have been the same for the last three years, with Virat, Dhoni, and Rohit on the leaderboard.
Amongst the advertisers, Vi continues to lead the advertiser leaderboard by being the buzziest brand around IPL 2022 for the fourth time in a row. The “Fan of the Match” campaign has become a critical engagement event for the audience. Tata, the title sponsor, garnered the second spot this season, followed by Vivo, Dream 11 and Unacademy.
IPL is synonymous with India’s Super Bowl and is the time of year when advertisers create engaging advertisements to make an impression on the audience. Creds had the top two most viral ads for “#Credbounty” this season, according to our technology partner Intuition Intelligence (Viral analytics and Insights provider). The nostalgia of the 90s content theme was the driving factor for the success. This was followed by the Cadbury 5 Star “#DoNothingLegend” ad, which incorporated humour around cricket’s third umpire.

October 11, 2022

Hotstar Trends 2017: Women, small town, cross-language consumption rises

MUMBAI: Want to get a handle on what kind of traction that India’s answer to Amazon and Netflix – Hotstar from Star India – is getting? Well, the OTT service has come out with an India Watch Report 2018 (IWR 2018) – just as the IPL is around the corner in a bid to pique brands’ and ad agencies’ curiosity and jiggle their memories.

Says Novi Digital Entertainment (Hotstar) CEO Ajit Mohan in a preface to the report: “The biggest change (between 2017 and 2016) has been how consumers are responding to the explosion in access to affordable data. Three years ago, most new data users would start with messaging, do text search, move on to social platforms and a few brave ones would watch video on the mobile network. This pyramid has been completely inverted. In a world that does not fear data charges, video is very often the first port of call for new data users. Familiar stories, whether TV shows, movies or sports, unconstrained by any language limitation, are acting as powerful triggers to light up their smartphones and their data connections.”

The study says that Hotstar was the most downloaded video app for 2017 with a total of 325 downloads per minute totting up to an incredible 170 million downloads cumulatively. Hotstar users gobbled 3 GB data per month as compared to the average user who consumes 1.6 GB a month. Almost 90 per cent users logged on to the Hotstar app on their handsets even as there was a 6X growth in those consuming it on their connected TVs. What were they watching? 96 per cent of them gulped down videos longer than 20 minutes, thus rubbishing the long held notion that OTT users snack on short form content.

According to IWR 2018, ViVO IPL 2017 saw a jump of 6.6 times in watch time as compared to 2016. And 70 per cent of men who consume video online were on Hotstar watching the T20 journey during its 2017 edition.

The good news is that women are also coming online in a big way, says Hotstar. Consumption by women from smaller towns (between one and 10 lakh population) grew by three times in 2017, even as that by women in one million plus population towns and in metros doubled. The consumption growth is pretty rapid when it comes to women from places like New Barrackpore (5X), Siliguri (6.5X), Kanchipuram (5X) and Ranchi (4.7X).

Overall watchtime is growing at an astounding clip, says the IWR in the non-metros. In cities like Moradabad the growth was 22 times, Allahabad (13X), Hubli (12X) and Sonipat (12X).

Hotstar notched up some other records, says IWR 2018 – it crossed a billion minutes of watch time in a single day several times in 2017.

Viewers cannot seem to be getting enough of the content IWR 2018 says: In 2017, cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune switched off their phones at 2:37 am, 2 am and 2:35 am respectively. In Gurugram, Amritsar and Kolkata, the curfew time came out as 2:08 am, 2:15 am and 2:05 am respectively while for Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderbad, the cutoff time was 1:59 am, 1:38 am and 1:54 am respectively. Not unexpectedly, the largest share of watchtime came from Mumbai.

What were Hostar subs watching?

Unsurprisingly, the nation’s most-watched genre is drama, and while West Bengal and Maharashtra can’t get enough of romance, Tamil Nadu and Delhi revel in comedy! And doing away with set notions that only women watch drama, IWR 2018 says that 50 per cent of watch time for shows such as Yeh Rishta kya Kehlata Hai was accounted for by men. Youngsters too are turning into drama with their tribe accounting for 63 per cent of watchtime of Ishqbaaaz. To add to that, Indian women accounted for 18 per cent of watchtime of Bahubaali 2: The Conclusion.

The report points out that 70 per cent of premium users who watched English shows and movies also viewed other programming genres and languages. 26 per cent of Modern Family watchers tuned into cricket; 26 per cent of Game of Thrones viewers watched Hindi TV shows, and 14 per cent of premier league watchers popped up the app’s Bengali TV shows.

The Champions Trophy final between India and Pakistan 2017 resulted in it – at 113 million views – emerging as one of the most globally watched online videos in the shortest span, that is eight hours. That same nail-biting final saw 4.8 million simultaneous viewers making it the event with the highest concurrency seen in APAC.

And the viewing of one day internationals saw a spurt of five times in 2017 vs 2016.

Which sports are gaining popularity in India?

The IWR 2018 says football is India’s second most loved sport and grew massively with watch time for the ISL rising 3.5 times and for the Premier League by 10 times. The Vivo Pro Kabaddi League saw its watch time skyrocketing nine times over 2016.

The crown of the most watched show in 2017, according to IWR 2018, goes to the Rajan Shahi produced Yeh Rishta Kya Kehalata Hai. No surprises in the English show category with Game of Thrones emerging on top, and Big Boss Tamil and Telugu reigning in their respective languages.

Shift towards Lazor/LED, projector market expanding at 22% CAGR

MUMBAI: Projectors are one of the fastest growing product lines in India due to the booming education market. Changing lifestyles, decrease in price and rising spending on electronics has led to an upsurge in demand for high-end products including projectors.

Various emerging segments such as Education and Audio Video System Integration in commercial segment are booming with demand for projectors. India’s education sector is moving towards the digital age. Educational system integrators are thriving in India and helping to cater to the growing requirement of audio-visual equipment. Further, the market is expected to grow at a faster pace due to the revival of delayed projects affected by the Indian general election of 2014.

According to “India Projector Market Outlook, 2019”, India’s projector market was growing with a CAGR of 21.74% by volume over past four years. IT, corporate, media, entertainment, rental, BPO and education sectors were the major industries driving the sales of projectors.

The education sector is reportedly the biggest segment of digital projector sales in 2014 followed by mid-size and small business segments. Beyond this, development in the home entertainment and gaming segment is also being scaled up with the arrival of 3D, HD and Wi-Fi support features within current projector models. These days the projection technology is more sought after in homes with spectacular increase in availability of full HD and 3D content in form and availability by HD DTH and Blu Ray discs.

The technology used in projectors can generally be broken down into two types: DLP and LCD. Both the technologies LCD and DLP have an almost equal market share in 2014 with DLP technology slightly ahead. However, in future the trend is expected to reverse with LCD technology to dominate the market heavily. Moreover, the market will continue its shift towards new technologies like Lazor Interactive/LED Interactive Android due to the low maintenance cost and superior technology. High-Definition (HD) projectors are replacing the Standard-Definition (SD) projectors due to increasing popularity among consumers.

Out of the total shipment, almost one-third market is captured by 1024×768 display resolutions, followed by 800×800 resolutions. Higher resolution projectors are less likely to require signal compression and its associated loss in quality. Hence, High-Definition will be the most popular display resolution in future with highest market share by 2019.

In this crowded market, BenQ is the No. 1 brand in India followed by Epson, InFocus, Hitachi, Panasonic and many others. “Apart from all these flagship players, Canon which has recently entered the category is expected to emerge as a big player in future,” said a research analyst.

The company, which has launched nine LV and XEED series projectors, is targeting Rs. 100 Crore revenue by 2017. It has tied up with Ingram Micro as the national distributor for its mass products and will partner with AV integrated solution providers for high-end projectors. Moreover, the company will also be using its own retail stores ‘Canon Image Square’ to sell its projectors. Aggressive marketing and distribution strategy coupled with a well-know brand image will push the sales of these projectors.

The metro markets dominate the consumption but new demand is expected from tier II and tier III cities with rapid urbanization of these towns. The vendors are targeting more than 30 Indian towns beyond the top eight metropolitan centers for projectors.

May 26, 2017

Guest Column: English content consumption showed upward trend in 2016

Consumption of English content continued to show growing trends during the year 2016 and the momentum is expected to be sustained this year as well. An interesting and encouraging trend was the continual surge in Hollywood box office collections in India as compared to previous years. This reflects the growing affinity of Indian audience towards English content. There has also been substantial growth in social media conversations on Hollywood and other English content and expect the trend to continue in a big way in 2017.

Coming to Hollywood movie channels, the key to success is to have a strong pipeline of premieres and library films. This is at the core of our business and a big reason why we invested aggressively to get the best content for our viewers. The tie up with NBC Universal enhanced our programming with blockbuster films and franchises like Jurassic World, Fast& Furious, Minions, Steve Jobs, Straight Outta Compton, Jason Bourne, Sing and Secret Life of Pets to name a few. We have also extended the PIX Brand to the South Asian markets.

Our market research indicated that the audiences are segmenting into two parts. One that loves mainstream cinema. The second is that loves good cinema, irrespective of the fact it being mainstream or not. We capitalised on this opportunity with launch of our new movie channel in 2016 – Sony Le PLEX HD – which brings to its viewers movies that are critically acclaimed and are based on powerful stories and characters. Our objective was to create a differentiated product and present content in a never-seen-before manner, while positioning the channel as a fun hangout for the community of movie lovers who converse around quality cinema. With premieres of Oscar winning film like Spotlight, The Walk, Concussion and other acclaimed movies on the new channel we have opened up an opportunity to consume great cinema for an audience set whose needs were grossly underserved.

In the English general entertainment space we relaunched our flagship channel AXN making it more contemporary and appealing to the audience through the new brand positioning – Live R.E.D. We were able to build strong character and show associations with the channel which was one of the key tasks we had set out to achieve. Our content is highly diverse, which is reality, entertainment and drama – and that is what Live R.E.D stands for. From a viewer gratification perspective, LIVE R.E.D. stands for Rush Excitement and Dream; that is what our shows provide. We have leveraged R.E.D. to define our characters as well. For example, Live Eccentric, Live R.E.D defines Sherlock’s character.

In the general entertainment category, there exists two distinct audience segments. The first set is called the influencer and the other set is called the adopters. While the influencer is an audience who is clued on to the latest shows as and when they are released worldwide, the adopters are those who are easing into the category and would want to consume long running cult shows. Our programming caters to both the audience segments. It consists of new as well as old shows that have been well received by the US audience. For instance, under AXN’s property Fresh from the US, we enable the audience to watch the latest and popular shows closer to the US timeframe like Sherlock, Billions, Orphan Black, Bull, Elementary and Supernatural to name a few. Getting to watch new shows on their TV sets will certainly discourage the viewers from downloading content and help curb piracy.

2017 is going to be a year where we will consolidate the gains from our investments of the previous year. Our programming strategy is likely to remain consistent with the previous year and we don’t foresee significant changes in the audience behaviour or need.

Maintaining our loyal fan base along with targeting fresh consumers is another task at hand and I am sure we will execute it well. We have a lot of exciting content in store for the year 2017 across channels as we strive to bring the best of Hollywood to our viewers. And we start all of this with the much awaited premiere of Sherlock season 4 on AXN.

(The writer is EVP and Business Head, English Cluster, Sony Pictures Networks, India. Views expressed in this article are personal and Indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to them.)

January 10, 2017