Tag: indiantelevision.com

The Content Hub 2020: Creators emphasise on importance of content quality over formats

MUMBAI: It was an exciting morning session on the first day of the Indiantelevision.com’s fourth edition of The Content Hub 2020, hosting discussions across a wide array of content-creation topics. Some of the most successful and powerful names from the content industry shared secret recipes and insightful and incisive analyses of churning out engaging stories. The conversations revolved around every genre of content like long-form episodic, short-format videos and digital-original movies.

The Korean connection!

The session started with an investment banker-turned-film maker from South Korea who has now expanded his creative horizon to India. In conversation with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief Anil Wanvari, Kross Pictures co-founder Thomas Kim stated how he started his career as an investment banker and then working in Walt Disney and Pirates of the Caribbean inspired him to become a filmmaker.

”I was working on a project where I realised that movies can be made with any kind of story. This thought stuck with me and I decided to become a filmmaker. So, I quit Disney and started my company in 2003. I am mostly active in Korea and China in making films and TV series based on famous IPs, mostly in comics and novels. In 2015 I had the pleasure to come out to India and worked on a film project called ‘Teen’ with Amitabh Bachchan. This was my first experience in Bollywood. Today I have offices in Seoul, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Hyderabad," Kim stated.

Kim believes that not all stories are able to resonate in foreign countries, except some. He is currently working on the adaptation of the Bollywood film Kahaani and finds Indian films exciting and emotional. However, he feels there is a lack of disciplined storytelling in India. That's what Kross Pictures can bring to India.

ZEE5’s content strategy relies on consumer understanding

ZEE5 programming head Aparna Acharekar said that the core values of ZEE5 are based on three Cs – compelling content, convenience and the consumer-viewing experience.

Acharekar said that the content must eventually give value for their money while increasing the viewing experience.

“Relatable content that is real and resonates with the audience is going to work,” Acharekar says. She believes that convenience is the basic reason we see the shift of audience towards over-the-top platforms.

The golden age of content

Sooni Taraporevala, an Indian screenwriter, photographer and filmmaker best known for her work in Mississippi Masala, spoke on The Golden Age of Content at the Content Hub 2020. Taraporevala also shared her experience on the making of Salam Bombay and how a rejection from National Geographic changed her fate.

Sooni Taraporevala believes it’s a golden age of content for writers and others as suddenly they are in demand. Yeh Ballet, currently on Netflix, proved to be a game-changer for her. A Harvard University student, Taraporevala came to movies both by chance and destiny. Her biggest lesson, ‘never hate the naysayers and never give up,’ made her successful and relevant in the industry.

Uncovering opportunities to create great content

The first panel discussion discussed uncovering opportunities to create great content. The panel was moderated by Bulldog Media and Entertainment co-founder and producer Akash Sharma. The panelists included: Zee Studios VP & head Ashima Avasthi, SonyLiv original content head Saugata Mukherjee, and Contiloe Pictures CEO Abhimanyu Singh.

The panel discussed the drivers of content boom, how creating great content differs between TV and digital and content strategies adopted by production houses.

Avasthi said: "As technology grows and boundaries demolish, content boom has to happen. In our country it's fabulous to see how we have gone from television to every person watching content on mobile."

According to Singh, the number of screens has increased as well as the number of audiences, and therefore, there is more requirement for content today.

The panelists also said that there are opportunities in creating any kind of content as audiences are open to experience different genres. They also believe that the focus should be on telling the story and not on what the audience wants.

We are hungry for people who have not been discovered yet: Netflix Aashish Singh

Netflix, the streaming colossal that revolutionised the way of consuming content, is now trying to make inroads in India, said Netflix India original film director Aashish Singh, during an interaction with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief Anil Wanvari. Along with long-format episodic content, the streaming giant promises a slate of 15 new original films by the end of 2020.

Singh revealed the platform’s intent to work with new talent while not overlooking content quality.

Singh reemphasised that good stories can come from anywhere and can be watched everywhere.

Talking about new talents, he said the platform is working with ten new directors, nine writers, eight women directors and writers this year. “We are hungry for people who have not been discovered yet," he said. He made it clear that Netflix does not want to keep working with the same faces repeatedly.

Once a film gets the nod, Netflix will have a positive involvement, helping the filmmakers throughout the project across segments including pre-production, post-production, VFX and finance, he said.

TikTok has a comprehensive set of community guidelines: Nikhil Gandhi

TikTok has taken the Indian social media universe by storm. Although TikTok India head Nikhil Gandhi did not reveal the exact numbers, he said that the platform has witnessed massive growth in the last two years in terms of the user base in India.

He mentioned that the platform lends a lot of support for anyone with talent, which is unlikely on other platforms and provides huge discoverability too.

He also added that short-form content is being enabled with the growth in vertical video format, which, according to him, was pioneered by TikTok.

While there are a number of controversies around TikTok videos, Gandhi noted that it has a comprehensive set of community guidelines which it keeps updating every year. “We do a lot of social campaigns for creators to make them conscious about posting responsibly and be sensitive to issues relating to India,” he said.

March 4, 2020
Telcos are great partners for OTT discoverability and monetisation

MUMBAI: With an explosion in the smartphone market and rise in the number of OTT channels operating in India, telco-OTT partnerships are well-strategised and the most beneficial for content platforms to gain eyeballs and drive monetisation asserted a panel speaking on the topic of “Captive Audiences of the Telecom Trace” at the recently concluded Business and Tech Track of Indiantelevision.com Vidnet 2019 summit.

Sitting on the panel, moderated by Elara Capital VP – research analyst (Media) Karan Taurani, were ZEE5 Global chief business officer Archana Anand, IndiaCast Media Distribution group CEO Anuj Gandhi, Apalya Technologies founder & CEO Vamshi Reddy, Lionsgate South Asia MD Rohit Jain, Shemaroo Entertainment COO digital Zubin Dubash, and Hungama Digital COO Siddhartha Roy.

Roy mentioned that as aggregators, telecom companies are greatly positioned as single payment option for most of the OTT channels and Zubin Dubash vouched for the ability of telco partners to get greater traction on content sites and drive up numbers.

Taking the example of Ditto TV, the VOD service from ZEE, Archana Anand shared that partnerships with telecom companies have always been fruitful for the ZEE network’s OTT offerings, for both consumer acquisition and marketing.

She said, “I think, back then, we were the first ones to go across and do partnerships with the telcos and we created quite a stir in the market because of the lovely sachet pricing we were offering. The telecom partners ensured that they are paying on behalf of the consumers and it gave us brilliant traction. I believe, we managed to get the highest subscriber base in those days.”

Anand added that there can’t be a better distribution network than telcos as it also translates into a ‘fantastic payment mechanism’. “With all the hesitancy around credit card payment, etc., the direct carrier billing is something that the consumer can be confident about and adapt easily.”

Vamshi Reddy seconded her thoughts as he quipped that telcos can become the easiest ways for the industry to build a monetisation model around the whole content consumption. He noted that with fragmentation happening in the OTT space, the telecom partners can provide a universal experience to users in a seamless manner.

Gandhi, however, highlighted that in the long run, the issue of ownership of the consumer can arise. “This challenge will take some time to settle, but from a pure bundling perspective, the discoverability on TV is extremely easy, and that is something that the OTT platforms are struggling with. Telcos can help in solving that.”

To this, Anand noted that today there is a great symbiotic relationship between the OTT platforms and the telcos as the former wants to own the content and the latter, the consumer. But the platforms need to be mindful of the fact that it gets constant data from its partners and also keeps on communicating with the consumers through in-app notifications to ensure scalability of the partnerships in the long run.

Jain added another dimension to the conversation as he noted that while telecoms are great in helping the OTT content reach the smaller screen, there is a wide array of opportunities lying in the big-screen space, which the OEMs can latch on to.

He said, “In some ways, this is life coming to a full circle as all of these (telcos, OEMs, etc.) are actually (equivalent to) DTH and cable companies. All we need now is an ecosystem to emerge and thrive and whoever does a good job of aggregating content will eventually become the winner.”

October 9, 2019
Line between international & Indian content blurring: Amazon Prime Video’s Aparna Purohit at Vidnet 2019

MUMBAI: Sensing the wide array of opportunities in the Indian video streaming market, major international platforms have dived in to take a share out of it. Amazon Prime Video is one of the players which have built an impressive slate of local content with hits like Breathe, Made in Heaven, Mirzapur and The Family Man amidst the intense streaming battle. As the platform has a presence across the world with a large international content catalogue, Amazon Prime Video India Originals head Aparna Purohit said the line between Indian and international content is blurring.

At the stage of Vidnet 2019 organised by indiantelevision.com, Purohit shared her interesting insights on the market in a short but freewheeling chat with The Linus Adventures founder and chief evangelist Sunil Lulla, a media veteran with extraordinary experience in the industry.

“The lines between here and there, international and India (content) are blurring. The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel, Jack Ryan connects with us as much as Made in Heaven, Breathe, The Family man trends across the world. So, I think those lines are blurring. But I really want to tell stories of us. We are a nation of storytellers,” Purohit said.

Lulla started the chat curious to know the stories she is chasing now. Purohit said she is always after good, compelling, exciting stories that are deeply rooted within Indian but has resilience across the world; stories that will transcend boundaries of ethnicity, caste, religion, gender, etc.

“Different people get excited about different stories. Fortunately, we have a full range of stories. My father can get excited about the stories we have, my three-year-old niece can get excited about stories. We have romance, psychological thriller, and political satire so we hope we are getting everyone excited,” she added as the chat progressed.

She also added that the platform has a full array of stories including exciting unscripted shows that are coming up in the comedy genre. Moreover, the platform’s popular series Inside Edge is returning for a second season along with an exciting period drama, a musical romance.

She also added that Amazon recognises that people like to consume content in the language they prefer. In addition to Hindi content, the platform is now creating a directory of content in regional languages. It already has content in ten languages. She also pointed out that shows like The Family Man have actors from the south, up north, Kashmir and Maharashtra.

“For us everything is customer-backward. It’s our customers that make us relevant. We try to see what is the need gap that exists,” she answered when Lulla asked about Amazon’s meaning of relevance in India.

“Even for me understanding the consumer is extremely important. I would not say our consumer is just one kind of a person. An educated working liberated woman like me, a smart, entrepreneurial person like you, it could be a retired government official like my father sitting at home and watching our content, it’s like my uncle sitting in a remote town – our audience is varied. Now we have footprints in 400 cities of the country,” she commented on the importance of consumer understanding.

There have been talks on how Amazon Prime Video and Netflix are spoiling the Indian market with their deep pockets and increasing the cost of content for others. Purohit said creative people can never be owned and they never have the intent of owning anybody.

She said that what they are doing is trying to create a cinematic TV experience. Every show is like three and a half or four films. No matter who looks at the show, Indian or internationally, it should never look like it isn’t international.

As saas-bahu saga is largely tagged as TV content, Lulla asked how this filtration has been done. Purohit said that they will also have shows involving families where there will be mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, and daughters-in-law.

“We just got started. We just touched the tip of the iceberg. There are so many marvellous stories to be told. There will be an ecosystem where writers and creators will be respected. We will tell all kinds of stories that can never get a platform,” she added further on probable progress in the next five years.

“The interesting thing about this medium is that it’s not formulated. It's not driven by any options like box-office. So, we can cast any actor. We can truly cast a character freely,” she said towards the end of the engaging session.

October 4, 2019
Vidnet 2019 set to lead engaging discussions on the OTT industry

AMUMBAI: As over-the-top (OTT) platforms have started capturing audiences from tier II, tier-III cities, beyond the top metro cities, all major players in the ecosystem have upped their investment significantly. Both international and homegrown players are trying to win more consumers with original content, innovative marketing strategy, and right distribution partnerships.

Despite the fact that the market is thriving, certain challenges like content protection, regulatory issues, monetisation, lack of measurement system are bothering video streaming services. Indiantelevision.com's flagship event Vidnet 2019 summit is ready to facilitate conversations on the opportunities and challenges of the ecosystem.

Various studies have also indicated the bright future of video streaming in India. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report said that India’s video streaming service is set to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.82 per cent to reach Rs 11,977 crore by 2023. Moreover, media agency Zenith also predicted that by 2021 Indian consumers will spend 79 minutes per day on mobile internet, up from 54 minutes today.

The summit is hosting panel discussions on OTT streaming piracy, OTT-telco relations, challenge of content protection, monetisation, consumer engagement, technology’s influence on storytelling along with other topics.

Red Chillies Entertainment Gaurav Verma, The Linus Adventures founder and chief evangelist Sunil Lulla, House of Cheer founder and CEO Raj Nayak, Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gourav Rakshit, ZEE5 Global chief business officer Archana Anand, Viu India country head Vishal Maheshwari, Sony Pictures Networks India digital business head Uday Sodhi, IndiaCast Media Distribution group CEO Anuj Gandhi, Amazon Prime Video India originals head Aparna Purohit will participate in the sessions along with other veterans from the industry.

"It is still day 0 in the Indian OTT landscape and the category has already witnessed exponential growth fuelled by affordability, accessibility and availability of data. Most of the growth in the category is on the back of marquee Indian originals and catch-up content from network TV. With evolving audience preferences, content consumption has now become device and screen agnostic, presenting significant growth opportunity for the category," Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gourav Rakshit said.

October 3, 2019
Vidnet 2019 to discuss untapped potential of OTT-telco partnerships

MUMBAI: In the race to reach a larger audience easily, all the over-the-top (OTT) players in India have struck deals with major telecom players. While all the video streaming platforms in India are still struggling with monetisation, telco platforms have created an alternative route to monetise content. Moreover, the OTT platforms are not limiting the partnership opportunity to telco platforms but also joining hands with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMS), broadband players, smart TVs for a stronger distribution strategy.

According to a report from KPMG, telco partnerships have contributed 30-35 per cent to overall subscription revenue of OTT platforms in FY 19. The revenue from telco partnerships is expected to achieve robust growth in the coming years, although slower as compared to direct subscriptions.

Vidnet 2019 summit is hosting a panel discussion on ‘Captive Audiences of the Telecom Trace’ where experts from the major platforms will share how telco partnerships have helped to gain them more audience and what are the untapped opportunities in the space. “With the unlimited choices today the customer has, it's all about giving the right content to the customer and engaging deeply with what's in the library,” Apalya Technologies co-founder and CEO Vamshi Reddy commented.

The panel discussion will also trace answers to relevant questions like how telcos and OTT players can maximise revenue potential through the partnerships. Moreover, there are large feature phone users existing in the ecosystem. Hence, it will be also discussed if the OTT players can tap these consumers or they are happy just identifying the smartphone users.

However, these partnerships are not only helping the OTT platforms, telco players are being benefitted as well. After the entry of the market disruptor Reliance Jio in 2016, the average revenue per user (ARPU) has sharply declined. Hence, it has become important for the telco partners to encourage more data consumption with lucrative content offerings

October 2, 2019
Vidnet 2019 to trace major issues related to content protection

MUMBAI: While the growing over-the-top (OTT) ecosystem in the country is providing a large number of opportunities to platforms and content creators, it is still riddled with a number of challenges. Streaming piracy along with other challenges of content protection continue to daunt the OTT platforms across the world. Not having proper content security in place not only create technological challenges but can lead to the platforms towards huge loss of revenue.

In this context, Vident 2019 summit is hosting a very timely panel discussion on the challenge of content protection. The session will have discussions over all facets of content protection and tech challenges platforms face including avenues of mitigating stream piracy where technology leads of major OTT platforms are participating.

However, the problem of piracy is not brand new as media and entertainment had to deal with it in the past also. A secure service now-a-days not only means that it is impenetrable but also about monitoring and identifying threats in real-time and timely action on the issue. Moreover, advanced data analytics can also help platforms. Several reports also indicated that blockchain adoption is expected to increase soon, enabling OTT platforms to introduce effective access policies and restriction.

“The ability for operators to deliver content to any device is a must in today’s digital environment – and India is no exception. Operators need to evolve their services rapidly in order to remain competitive against traditional and new competitors and need to be able to offer content on different devices with changing business models. At the same time, they need to keep their content secure to counter the growing and varied number of piracy threats and to meet the requirements of their content providers. With this in mind, a new approach to content protection is required, one that combines technology, collaboration and innovation,” NAGRA GM India Hitesh Lokhandwala said.

Apart from technical measures, regulation from authority is also highly needed. More government initiatives based on the discussion among the stakeholders and legislator can also bring more security. The session at Vidnet 2019 on 3 October will dive deep into all the pertaining issues related to topic.

October 1, 2019
Vidnet 2019 to discuss how to engage the OTT consumer

MUMBAI: While user acquisition comes in the priority list of over-the-top players in India, maintaining consumer engagement also seems to remain a challenge. Although a number of new users are flocking to OTT platforms, many of them don’t stay on the platform for long. To stay relevant in the highly competitive market, OTT players should focus on consumer needs to keep them engaged.

At the stage of Vidnet 2019, experts from the industry will discuss on the topic – Competing for Consumer Engagement. The session will provide insights on different approaches adopted by platforms to keep their subscribers hooked.

Many reports have indicated that brand loyalty is not very high among digital audiences as a number of apps are abandoned pretty quickly. Poor app interface, lack of personalised content and recommendation, and lack of quality content are among the most important causes of this challenge.

Easier content discovery, data-driven marketing approach with the use of AI and machine learning, tracing consumer behaviour properly can help the platforms to overcome this challenge. As retention of consumer should be given equal priority to customer acquisition, the panel discussion on 3 October at Vidnet stage will dive deep into the topic.

September 28, 2019
Vidnet 2019 to lead OTT industry discussions on monetisation

MUMBAI: Video streaming services are in the race to grab the attention of India's surging internet audience. Streaming platforms have left no stones unturned with their investments. However, the question mark on monetising content still remains.

While advertising has been the primary monetisation mode till now, subscription will have to catch up soon.

A recent report by MPA also predicted that subscription will form a major chunk of revenue for OTT platforms in the coming years.

At the stage of Vidnet 2019 , experts from the industry will discuss the pressing issue of fine tuning models of monetisation – a session that assesses the challenges video-on-demand services face in pocketing a share of the consumer's wallet, a deep dive into new monetising models, sachet pricing and the potential of branded solutions.

There is no single solution for monetisation in a dynamic market like India. It depends on factors such as content genre, target audience, scale and competition. However, OTT players are attempting many ways such as sachet pricing, content bundling, regional packs, offline payments and collaboration. A session at the Vidnet Summit on 3 October will capture all questions related to the issue.

September 27, 2019
Vidnet 2019 to discuss OTT ecosystem, conduct masterclasses with leading industry names

MUMBAI: The over-the-top (OTT) ecosystem in India has evolved rapidly in the last two-three years attracting large international players along with the growth of home-grown ones. Amid the OTT buzz in the media and entertainment industry, Indiantelevision.com is again ready to host a conference bringing all the experts from the booming industry together. The conference on 3 October will turn into the stage of dynamic discussions on wide-ranging topics while the Masterclasses will give answers to many enthusiasts on the creative process on 4 October.

The ecosystem currently consists of more than 30 over-the-top players and each of them is trying to gain a stronger foothold by investing more into original content. More importantly, the new platforms have widened the opportunities for local content creators as well as the international video streaming services have globalised local stories. Keeping on track with the pressing issues of the market, the conference will focus on these topics broadly – fine-tuning monetisation, the challenge of content protection, consumer engagement and telecom deals.

Red Chillies Entertainment chief revenue officer Gaurav Verma , House of Cheer founder and CEO Raj Nayak, The Linus Adventures founder and chief evangelist Sunil Lulla, Balaji Telefilms group COO and ALTBalaji CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya, ZEE5 GLOBAL chief business officer Archana Anand among other industry veterans will talk on the mentioned topics.

In addition to the conference, Indiantelevision.com, with the aim of facilitating this creative process and giving the budding as well as established creators a chance to learn from the best in the industry, is organising masterclasses on 4 October for writers, directors, and editors at the upcoming edition of its VidNet 2019.

Delhi Crime director and creator Richie Mehta, Kota Factory director Raghav Subbu, Ghoul and Liela director Patric Graham, Sacred Games writers Nitin Bhave and Dhruv Narang , Rangbaaz Writer Siddharth Mishra along with other experts will take the masterclasses which will be divided into two sections: one for writers and the other for directors and editors.

September 26, 2019
COLORS Tamil signs up as summit partner for Indiantelevision.com’s Tele-Wise Tamil

MUMBAI: Viacom18’s regional GEC, Colors Tamil, has associated with Indiantelevision.com as summit partner for its event Tele-Wise Tamil. This day long summit aims to take a deep dive into various perspectives from national and regional broadcasters, media agencies and content creators. Tele-Wise’s first leg will take place on 6 August at the ITC Grand Chola in Chennai.

While Tamil Nadu boasts of a vibrant TV ecosystem, industry watchers are convinced there is scope to push the envelope on content, advertising and distribution fronts.With ‘Power of Television’ as its theme, the objective of Tele-Wise Tamil is to bring together industry stakeholders to understand and find potential solutions to issues faced by broadcasters &advertisers in the state.

The state has over 35 channels offering Rs 11.6 crore seconds of advertisement annually; the Tamil TV boasts of Rs 2,000 crore-plus potential. For perspective, that is nearly 10 percent of India’s total TV ad spend coming from just one state.

Having launched Colors Tamil just over a year ago, the channel has carved out a unique place for itself in this highly competitive market. The rapid progress made by Colors Tamil is largely due to its slate of progressive content and production value as one of the key differentiators.

“The Tamil television industry is at the threshold of change and positive engagement amongst stakeholders will only helpits growth potential. The inaugural edition of indiantelevision.com’s Tele-Wise Tamil promises to deliver great value in terms of insightful panel discussions and powerful debates.”, said Ravish Kumar, Head of Regional TV Network, Viacom18.

The summit will bring together some of the finest minds in the ecosystem leveraging the bright spots of the Tamil market and highlighting the areas that need fine-tuning. With one-on-one chats, panel discussions and presentations dissecting all the important factors at play in the state, concerning broadcasting business, Tele-Wise Tamil, promises to enlighten its audience with insights on what drives national & local advertisers along with views from some of India’s biggest broadcasters.

Among the key speakers at the summit will be Colors Tamil Business Head Anup Chandrasekharan, ZEEL EVP and Cluster Head South Business Siju Prabhakaran, News18 Network CEO – languages Karan Abhishek Singh, BARC India COO RomilRamgarhia, Vikatan Group MD B Srinivasan among others.

Tele-Wise Tamil will also witness India’s leading brands like Paytm, TVS Auto, and Bharat Matrimony among others being represented by their custodians.

August 1, 2019