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Tag: OTT

  • CBS revenues up 9%, gains from retransmission, skinny bundles & OTT

    MUMBAI: CBS Corporation has reported record second quarter revenues, operating income, and diluted earnings per share (“EPS”) from continuing operations.

    “CBS delivered outstanding second quarter results while continuing to take a number of steps to achieve our long-term financial goals,” said Leslie Moonves, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation. “First, we had a terrific upfront with gains in pricing and volume, including more and more deals that better reflect how people are watching our programming on a delayed basis. In addition, we took significant steps during the quarter to grow our affiliate fees from both traditional and ‘skinny’ bundles. Retransmission consent and reverse compensation increased 25% in the second quarter. And we are now seeing the benefit of our recent skinny bundle deals with Google’s YouTube TV, Hulu, fuboTV, and just today we announced that we will be a part of DIRECTV NOW as well. At the same time, our in-house over-the-top subscription services, CBS All Access and Showtime OTT, continue to grow beyond our expectations and are on track to surpass a combined four million subscribers by the end of 2017. We are now gearing up to take the next strategic step with All Access by expanding it into the international marketplace, starting with Canada in the first half of 2018. Showtime also had a terrific quarter, led by the successful return of Twin Peaks, which boosted OTT subscriptions dramatically, and we continue to expand the Showtime brand overseas with new deals to license our entire portfolio in France, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and others. So, 2017 is turning out to be a great year for the CBS Corporation even without the Super Bowl and political spending that we had in the prior year. And as we look ahead, we are positioned to have an even better year in 2018.”

    Second Quarter 2017 Results

    Revenues for the second quarter of 2017 increased 9% to $3.26 billion from $2.98 billion for the same prior-year period, with growth across all of the Company’s significant revenue streams. Affiliate and subscription fee revenues were up 16%, driven by a 25% increase in retransmission revenues and fees from CBS Television Network affiliated stations, as well as growth from new initiatives, including the Company’s digital subscription services. Advertising revenues were up 4%, led by the broadcast of the semifinals and finals of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship (“NCAA Tournament”) on the CBS Television Network. Content licensing and distribution revenues benefited from a higher volume of television licensing sales and grew 12%, despite a difficult comparison to the second quarter of 2016, which included the international sales of five Star Trek series.

    Operating income for the second quarter of 2017 increased 3% to $669 million from $651 million for the same prior-year period, despite higher-margin licensing sales in the second quarter of 2016. Net earnings from continuing operations increased 6% to $397 million for the second quarter of 2017 from $373 million for the same quarter last year, mainly a result of the higher operating income. Adjusted net earnings for the second quarter of 2017 were $427 million compared with net earnings of $423 million for the same prior-year period.

    Net earnings for the second quarter of 2017 were $58 million, which included a noncash charge of $365 million in discontinued operations to reduce the carrying value of CBS Radio to the value indicated by the stock valuation of Entercom Communications Corp. CBS Radio is classified as held for sale and therefore, in accordance with accounting guidance, the carrying value will continue to be adjusted based on the trading price of Entercom’s stock, which could result in future gains or losses.

    Diluted EPS from continuing operations for the second quarter of 2017 increased 18% to $.97 from $.82 for the same quarter in 2016, driven by higher earnings and lower shares outstanding in the second quarter of 2017 from the Company’s ongoing share repurchase program. Diluted EPS for the second quarter of 2017 was $.14 as a result of the above-mentioned noncash charge at CBS Radio, compared with $.93 for the prior-year period. Adjusted diluted EPS increased 12% to $1.04. During the quarter, the Company repurchased 4.7 million of its shares for $300 million.

    Details of the discrete items excluded from financial results, along with reconciliations of adjusted results to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, are included at the end of this earnings release.

    Free Cash Flow, Balance Sheet and Liquidity

    For the second quarter of 2017, operating cash flow from continuing operations was $231 million, compared with $216 million for the second quarter of 2016, and for the first six months of 2017, operating cash flow from continuing operations was $909 million, which included discretionary contributions of $100 million to prefund the Company’s qualified pension plans, compared with $1.14 billion for the first six months of 2016, which included CBS’s broadcast of Super Bowl 50. Operating cash flow from continuing operations for 2017 benefited from higher affiliate and subscription fee revenues. Free cash flow was $190 million for the second quarter of 2017 compared with $181 million for the same prior-year period, and for the first six months of the year, free cash flow was $841 million in 2017, which included the aforementioned pension contributions, compared with $1.07 billion in 2016.

    In July 2017, the Company issued $400 million of 2.50% senior notes due 2023 and $500 million of 3.375% senior notes due 2028. The Company used the net proceeds from these issuances to repay its $400 million outstanding 1.95% senior notes which matured on July 1, 2017, and to redeem all of its $300 million outstanding 4.625% senior notes due May 2018. The remaining net proceeds were used for general corporate purposes, including the repayment of short-term borrowings, such as commercial paper.

    Consolidated and Segment Results (dollars in millions)

    The tables below present the Company’s revenues by segment and type; operating income (loss) excluding other operating items, net, by segment (“Segment Operating Income”); and depreciation and amortization by segment for the three and six months ended June 30, 2017, and 2016.

    Entertainment (CBS Television Network, CBS Television Studios, CBS Studios International, CBS Television Distribution, CBS Interactive, and CBS Films)

    Entertainment revenues of $2.18 billion for the second quarter of 2017 were up 12% from $1.95 billion for the same prior-year period. This increase was led by 38% growth in affiliate and subscription fees, driven by higher station affiliation fees and subscriber growth at CBS All Access. Advertising revenues increased 6%, as a result of the broadcast of the semifinals and finals of the NCAA Tournament on the CBS Television Network. Content licensing and distribution revenues benefited from more television licensing activity in the second quarter of 2017 and grew 12%, despite the difficult comparison with the prior-year period, which included the international licensing sales of five Star Trek series.

    Entertainment operating income of $346 million for the second quarter of 2017 decreased 1% from $351 million for the same prior-year period, primarily reflecting higher-margin revenues in the second quarter of 2016.

    Cable Networks (Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network, and Smithsonian Networks)

    Cable Networks revenues of $571 million for the second quarter of 2017 increased 7% from $536 million for the same prior-year period. The increase was driven by higher affiliate and subscription fees, led by growth of the Showtime digital streaming subscription offering and higher international television licensing sales of Showtime original series.

    Cable Networks operating income of $253 million for the second quarter of 2017 increased 11% from $227 million for the same prior-year period, primarily reflecting the revenue growth.

    Publishing (Simon & Schuster)

    Publishing revenues of $206 million for the second quarter of 2017 grew 10% from $187 million for the same prior-year period. The increase was led by growth in print book sales and digital audio sales. Bestselling titles for the second quarter of 2017 included Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare and I Can’t Make This Up by Kevin Hart.

    Publishing operating income of $28 million for the second quarter of 2017 increased 8% from $26 million for the same prior-year period, mainly reflecting the revenue growth.

    Local Media (CBS Television Stations and CBS Local Digital Media)

    Local Media revenues of $412 million for the second quarter of 2017 increased 4% from $396 million for the same prior-year period, driven by higher retransmission revenues. Advertising revenues for the second quarter of 2017 decreased 2%, driven by lower political advertising sales, which were offset by CBS’s broadcast of the semifinals and finals of the NCAA Tournament.

    Local Media operating income of $127 million for the second quarter of 2017 decreased 2% from $130 million for the same prior-year period due to the mix of revenues. Retransmission revenues have associated network affiliation costs paid to the CBS Television Network, whereas political advertising sales carry a high operating income margin.

    Corporate

    Corporate expenses for the second quarter of 2017 were $85 million compared with $83 million for the same prior-year period.

    ALSO READ :

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    US$ 232-bn TV ads market expanding at 7% CAGR, online TV fastest growing: Report

    Telly awards: Mediaboss, Discovery, Disney, Fox & Viacom among winners

  • Limelight’s Adam Diep joins Ownzones as VP – client solutions

    MUMBAI: Veteran business development and technical marketing executive Adam Diep has joined Ownzones Media Network as the vice president – client solutions, it was announced by Aaron Sloman, Chief Technology Officer at the OTT EntTech company.

    Ownzones Media Network is a global “tribrid” media company combining content, distribution and technology solutions for the motion picture, television and digital entertainment industries.

    In his new post, Diep will lead technical client engagement to offer robust OTT solutions and digital media logistics utilizing Ownzones’ proprietary delivery platforms, OTT management systems, and advanced suite of device software and apps.  He will also build technology and industry relationships and champion strategic initiatives in business development, product management and marketing.

    “Adam will help solve OTT and app migration challenges confronting our clients by using our best-in-class product and workflow solution,” said Sloman.  “His experience and proven track record for delivering innovation will be invaluable to Ownzones.”

    Diep brings 15+ years working with startups to Fortune 500 companies as a technology and business management consultant.  The recent 10 years, he has focused on the digital media distribution and online streaming markets and advises many of the studios, networks and broadcasters on their digital video workflows and online distribution strategies.

    Diep comes to Ownzones from Limelight Networks, operator of one of the world’s largest and fastest content delivery networks, and recently served as the Director of Product Management of the company’s Video Platform and Services based in Tempe, AZ.

    The tech entrepreneur also founded and served as the Principal Consultant at WhDiYo Digital, a digital media consultancy, applications development and project management company specialized in building complex online services.  He is active with the local Orange County startup community and is an Expert-In-Residence at the UC Irvine’s Applied Innovation incubator as well as a judge for the Business Plan competition.  

    Diep holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Irvine and an M.B.A. from the Merage School of Business.  He resides in the Greater Los Angeles area.

    Also read :

    Netflix’s Nick Nelson joins Ownzones Media as head of product innovation

    Paywizard’s Vaguine joins Ownzones as SVP, to elevate European presence

     

  • Chef Kapoor-promoted Food Food bolsters ops with Amagi Cloudport

    MUMBAI: Amagi, a leader in cloud-managed playout services and targeted advertising for TV and OTT, has announced that celebrity master chef Sanjeev Kapoor-promoted food and lifestyle channel, Food Food, has deployed Amagi’s Cloudport edge playout platform to launch its new international feed.

    “Since we launched in 2011, Food Food channel has been building an enviable viewership, not only in India, but also across the U.S., Canada, UAE, Qatar, and Mauritius,” said Sanjeev Kapoor, co-founder and director, Food Food. “However, till now, we had been broadcasting a common feed to all our markets of operations. Owing to popular demand for our programming, creating dedicated international feeds was a natural step in consolidating our position as a food and lifestyle channel of choice.”

    “Using traditional broadcast models, Food Food channel would need to create a separate playout infrastructure for each international market. This would not only be expensive, but it would also limit the channel’s ability to scale rapidly in new markets. In contrast, Amagi Cloudport is a low capex and opex cloud broadcast model, with unprecedented scalability to expand into non-contiguous geographies as needed by Food Food channel,” said K.A. Srinivasan, co-founder, Amagi.

    Amagi enabled Food Food channel to push all its content assets to a secure Amazon Web Services cloud. Using a web-based UI, the channel’s operations team was able to import schedules, add dynamic graphics, create playlists, and manage the entire content asset library to create a new international feed. Amagi installed its Cloudport edge playout servers at operator headends. Through a simple business internet connection, playout-ready content was pushed to the edge servers. The server then played out the content as per defined playlists and schedules, offering audiences a feature-rich, world-class playout and viewing experience, in HD format, 24×7.

    The channel’s international feeds using Amagi’s cloud technology are distributed in the U.S. through Dish TV, and in Mauritius via Mauritius Telecom. “Amagi made it simple and cost-effective, helping us to launch entirely new feeds in less than two months. Further, with its edge-based playout architecture, we now have the ability to localize content in the U.S. and Mauritius, and support regional advertisers in the future”, added Kapoor.

    Since all its content is now on the cloud, Food Food channel can easily expand into new geographies, significantly reducing go-to-market timelines. From any remote location, the operations team at Food Food can manage the entire channel operations through a simple, yet sophisticated, web-based UI.

  • “We have a multi-headed monetization approach for Viu”- Vishal Maheshwari

    In January 2016, emerging markets OTT service Vuclip – operated by Hong Kong based PCCW –  appointed former Yahoo executive Vishal Maheshwari as country manager, India, close to the launch date of its Indian product. The Viu launch went through successfully three months later under his supervision. Since then the FMCG, telco and digital veteran has stealthily steered the service towards an enviable subscriber base of four million plus.

    Viu’s has been a no-nonsense-back-to-basics roll out in the country; it had none of the frills and bells and whistles that are associated with launches.

    Maheshwari has his task cut out for him. The OTT market is getting crowded with every one including his uncle, aunt and cousin believing that they could make a success of their streaming entertainment apps.

    But Maheswari believes that  Viu  is being built bit by bit, content piece by content piece, and customer by customer. And that it is on the right track.

    Maheshwari was part of Indiantelevision.com’s second edition  OTT conference Vident 2017 and he took part in a one on one conversation with founder, CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari. Excerpts:

    What is your view of India as a VOD market?

    We believe that this market is not a single homogeneous market, as a lot of people like to believe. We believe this a three tiered market. There is a bottom of the pyramid market which is called the mass market. There is a mid-market, which is being typically being catered to by mobile consumption and by apps.  And then there is the top end of the pyramid, that we have yet to see evolve over here. We think that eventually will happen. We are here to participate in the broad spectrum of the market. Currently we have offerings in the bottom of the pyramid in terms of the  B2B mass market offering . We have been so far been in the mid-market as we like to call It for a year and a half.  – the B2B offering

    I believe you have got a massive war chest. Apparently, Nickhil was quoted saying that he spent about 100 million dollars so far since PCCW came in. So how big is the war chest in India, if you would like to disclose that. If you don’t want to talk about the initiative in terms of local content, making sure you’ve distributed well across different devices whether it’s handsets or being inbuilt into Telco, apps etc.

    I think it is futile trying to talk about numbers in terms of millions of dollars of investments in so and so. It i suffices to say that this is a game of really deep pockets. I have always maintained that OTT is a very easy market to get into. Because I think the common understanding is that all you need is a little bit of content, slap on some technology, some vendors lurking around in Hyderabad and Bangalore who you can hire and get for cheap and you can get into the market.

    But OTT is a very very difficult market to stay in. And a lot of players who were there in this market are beginning to  sort of understand that. The key and the bottom line over here is you need very deep pockets to fundamentally stay in this game. I wish I new how long you need to sustain it; I wish I was a clairvoyant.

    Needless to say, I maintain that this is not a P&L business. It’s a balance sheet business. And you really got to have deep pockets and a very entrepreneurial attitude in terms of trying to win this market. If you try to play by the known rules of how these businesses are built, then there’s only one thing going to happen – you are gonna lose! Given that, we have our own game plan in terms of this market.

    I believe in terms of content, people expect a very different set of content from a premium OTT player. So there is UGC and the YouTube type content at one side and then there is TV broadcasting and cinema on the other side. What consumers expect of an OTT play is really something in the middle. They want content that is high quality, that is potentially cinematographic, in terms of finish, look and feel. And more importantly for the target audience that we are after, which is frankly the millennials, they want content which is real. They want content which reflects their aims, aspirations etc. So, I think you got to be very very careful in terms of how you go about executing your content game. I would say the mantra is being fresh and contemporary. Secondly, we believe regional is really an important play. We were actually the first ones to launch Telugu regional content a couple of months back and that I think pretty much took the industry by storm. That’s because the content put in over there was very high quality. The content that we produced along with Annapurna Studios, was original – Pilla and Pelli Gola.

    And what sort of traction did you get for those shows?

    I am not going to drop numbers again but let me tell you what we did. It was really interesting. Our entire philosophy towards this game of OTT is that it isn’t like a ‘one night stand.’ It is a hare and a tortoise game, but with a little bit of a difference. We don’t believe that ‘slow and steady’ is going to make us win. We believe ‘smart and calibrated’ is going to make you win.

    So when we actually launched our first suite of originals in the month of April, people were surprised, there was no brand campaign? There was  no full page in The Times of India?

    What we actually did over here was very simply put the content into the market, used all organic means to sort of see what the traction on the content was, ran that content frankly for a 10 week period, which is when we actually released our content and came back absolutely beaming in terms of  the results. The traction numbers that we were seeing over there were completely mind boggling as far as we were actually concerned. And if this year proof of the pudding is in the eating, we’ve actually come in and post that have commissioned another eight originals.

    When do we see these eight originals rolling out? Are they with the same production studios or are they with new studios?

    If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Yes, Vikram Bhatt did a couple of products with us. After Gehraiyaan and Spotlight, we have commissioned him again for another two products that will be out in the fourth quarter of this year. And you will see this new suite rolling out from the month of September onwards. We will continue to sharpen our focus on the regional market, we will be adding regional markets to our suite, we will continue our focus on Telugu and you will see some really high quality content coming for those regional markets.

    You were mentioning that you were actually going to do dual language production? Is it going to go beyond dual language, while doing a Hindi show?

    It is part of our overall DNA of experimenting. In our first round, what we actually did was create content specifically for Telugu, create content for Hindi, we have done dubs, we have done crossovers, we are actually studying how that market reacts, what their uptake on that sort of content is. And in the next phase what we are getting into is doing bilingual productions. It could make sense from an advertiser point of view.  It could make sense from a marketing economics point of view. So I think like any good old internet company we are really open to lot of experimentation and bilingual production is one of them. I don’t think the die is set as yet, we are still sort of in discovery mode on these types of things.

    Some numbers on your (monthly active users) MAUs and (daily active users)  DAUs? Downloads?

    We hate downloads because downloads is a bought number. Actually anyone can go out and buy those numbers. As company we are very focused on the metrics that can not be bought and the type of metrics we really focused on UVs (unique viewers), minutes per UV and returning users.

    I think these are the three sets we are absolutely concerned about. Those metrics you can not buy and you have to earn those metrics from the consumers.

    I think with all these three we are on top of the chart in terms of these numbers.

    We have minutes of usages in excess of 100 minutes a month. We have people coming back to us at least six to seven times in a month to view content and that is with the limited suite of the kind of content we have right now.

    Those are some very important numbers we look at and we think that, as content depth fundamentally expands, those numbers are actually going to go up. I think all indicators we are currently capped  on these two consumption metrics by the volume of depth we have available with us on our platform. So that’s the reason we are looking at large volumes of content getting commissioned because once that goes up we know the guy is going to come back to us.  

    You mentioned there are four and half million active users a month?

    Yes, that’s the number we had in the month of April in India.

    So the number has gone up?

    The number has moved up very significantly because April was when we started out with the original content. Those numbers are significantly north.

    Somebody who has visited once month is your active user?

    Everybody has got their own definition. We sort of tried to stick to the most acceptable definition that somebody at least consumed the video once a month and somebody who has  come in and just opened your app. We are sort of pretty clear in terms of the type of standard apply to us in terms of measurement. Honestly BARC coming in is going to be really very interesting.

    What lessons have you learnt in terms of distribution, the customer’s propensity to pay, content creation, technology. Sometimes acquiring a customer is not worth it that what some players are discovering. So the acquisition cost can go haywire and set your entire gameplan haywire.

    Our philosophy in terms of distribution is to go with where the customer is and therefore what we really followed has been a really multi-headed distribution strategy where we had content housed on our apps, we had content housed on our browser. We incidentally believed that the browser still have a very important role to play especially for certain types of content and specifically for certain types of devices. We have also got the Viu video audience network where we collaborated with a bunch of like minded sites who ingest our player. For instance, we have What the duck 2 today which is a cricketing product which runs on Cricbuzz also. We have a strategy in terms of YouTube, Facebook where we don’t hesitate to put our full form of original content. Therefore the strategy for distribution is very clear  – go where the customer is.

    In terms of relationship, we have a very deep relationship with Samsung, where every Samsung device that has been shipped out since November 2016, the Viu SDK ingested in every device as part and parcel of the my Galaxy 2.0 product. So, it’s a bit of a Trojan strategy that we are present on the best Android device that is out there. The underlying philosophy is don’t pull them in,  go also where they are that is the strategy we are going to continue.

    Coming to your questions of acquisition and acquisition cost, it’s a fairly bloody game at this particular point of time. Let’s face it,  your economics are going to tend to infinity and the only way any OTT player can counter that is frankly focus on the depth of engagement that he actually got.

    So there are two philosophies that drive us over there. Either I get you here and make sure that you stay with me for a prolonged period of time and you keep coming back to me. So the strategy of a  sustained-content-release calendar works really well. Or I  get you in and make you consume as much you can within a short period of time because I really can’t stop you from going. And I think that’s where a binge consumption strategy works really well.

    So from us what you will really see is a combination of sustained content release and binge watching strategy and that’s going to be very powerful in terms of trying to maximize the lifetime value of the customer as he comes in. And in terms of recouping your acquisition cost over there. Obviously, I think as we get a lot more brand visible, as brand Viu becomes known, and we expect those costs to move southwards. I think a combination of these two strategies will help us to turn the corner in terms of starting to break even at a unit economics.

    So what is the sweet spot for the price that customer can pay? You’re charging Rs99 apart from the free content that you are giving out to a premium subscriber. So is that a sweet spot  or is the Amazon price a sweet spot, Rs 40-45 when they announced.  What’s the sweet spot?

    Sweet spot is like saccharine, if you have too much of it is going to be very bitter. Our belief over here is customer are going to  pay you for value.

    Indians paid Rs 350 crore a few months back to watch a man beat up his daughters to make them wrestlers. And that’s Dangal.  People do pay for content.

    We think the fundamental point is it’s not about whether customer is willing to pay or not, it’s about the value he is seeing from what you are actually giving to him and we want to keep that power  to choose and decide in the hands of the customer.

    Our strategy is out and out a freemium pricing strategy. We believe that we will continue to give the customer the best possible value in terms of content. He can come and continue it without any barriers, as long as he does not have a problem to get somebody else to pay for him doing it via advertising. We believe we have to make advertising as non-obstrusive as possible. A bunch of initiatives we have taken over there. We collaborate extensively with Facebook and Google to ensure that advertising delveries should be non- obstrusive as possible. We are innovating in terms of ad monetization models. Native is a much abused word but we have taken it very seriously in terms of what are we doing while building our entire ad ecosystem and ad model around.

    At the end of it if we able to give enough value to that customer and he decides  that he actually doesn’t want to see your advertising, he will come and pay us. So we have the patience to sort of wait for customer to graduate from a free service to a paid service.

    Is that happening, the graduation?

    Honestly, at this point of time I don’t care. The one number I don’t look at is what is my free to paid conversion. I think it’s too early and anybody trying to build a castle on subscriptions from day one I think you are walking on  broken glass and it’s going to be very tough.

    On advertising side you have done some deals with DBS and you got some other partners on board?

    We got success with What The Duck 2 where we got DBS Yes we have DBS and Hike coming in as sponsors on the content. I think that’s a very good example of what the philosophy has been in terms of  getting the advertisers to participate as natively as possible in your content. We have recently done a show with McDowell’s known as Yaari No 1 which has Rana Dagubatti over there. It is like a Koffee with Karan kind of a show in Telugu which runs on Gemini TV. A very interesting  product where we actually have gone OTT plus TV simulcast at the  same time with an advertiser like McDowell’s actually coming in and sponsoring that particular product.  And you will see a lot more disruption over here in terms of the type of models we are looking at, they could be ad inventory based, those could be sponsorship based, branded content based or TV to OTT. So it’s going to be multi headed in terms of the monetization approach.  

  • Competing with Google & FB on free side and with Netflix and Amazon on subscription — Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan

    One of the early movers in the Indian over the top (OTT) space, Hotstar – – part of the Twenty First Century Fox-owned Star India – has been setting a scorching pace for itself. In a nation where high data costs made customers wary of consuming content when on the move, it displayed a voracious appetite for acquiring them. Today, its massive subscriber base equals or surpasses the total subs of all the VOD services in Asia and rivals that of the big boys in the US.

    It has also been aggressive in its content strategy – paying top dollar for movies and TV series from  top notch Hollywood studios as well as for sports telecast rights.

    21st Century’s Fox’s leaders – the Murdoch brothers Lachlan and James – along with the Star India management led by Uday Shankar and Sanjay Gupta – are quite bullish that the investments being poured into Hotstar are well worth it and should bear fruit, sooner than later. Estimates are that around $500 million has so far been pumped into the VOD service.

    The man in the hotseat at Hotstar has been the US returned executive Ajit Mohan who has been steering it right from day one three years ago. With single minded focus, he has been at his task of building a robust product and a team that helps it remain so.

    The publicity shy Mohan was one of the Indian VOD leaders who had a one on one with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari at the highly successful  second VIDNET OTT conference in Mumbai two weeks ago.  Excerpts from the conversation:

    First of all, I would like to start by congratulating you on your CBS Showtime deal. Tell me little more about it?

    If you look at what we have built on Hotstar premium we feel pretty proud. I think we have built a fairly distinctive subscription service which in many ways I think compares to the best in the world.  I am not sure that there is any platform worldwide that brings together the best studios for American TV shows and movies. With Hotstar Premium we have HBO, Fox and Disney movies exclusively. And we thought that the only missing piece was Showtime. So we have done an exclusive partnership with  Showtime to both bring the Showtime brand and also the best of their marquee shows  to India on Hotstar.

    I think it really completes our offering. We have built a free service that has scaled up dramatically in the past two and half years or so. Now we are kind of applying some of the same rigor and aggression on P remium as well.  From the content proposition point of view I feel pretty good about how it  looks like.

    What will we get to watch? What kind of shows and will it be on same day and date?

    It is. One of the promises we have as pat of the English part of Premium is that all the TV shows will be aired at the same time as  the US. That’s true for HBO, Fox and it will be true for Showtime as well. Billions, one of their best shows will be on Hotstar and Twin Peaks too. Overall, I think it’s a pretty exciting roster.

    I think more than any individual shows what I am excited about is that both HBO and Showtime in the US have created these fabulous premium pay TV propositions on the back of really redefining what a high quality  American show looks like. I think  by bringing them together on the same platform, what we are essentially saying when it comes to English content there really is no need to look beyond Hotstar Premium. Not in terms of other services.  Or not in terms of torrents, which is still a meaningful source of competition for us.

    We will now start investing in educating the market where there is a substantial number of users who have an affinity to English who are spending a lot of time – especially the younger demographic – digging up for content on torrents. And very often they don’t get good quality versions. They don’t get it on time.Or they get It dubbed or subtitled in a language that is not familiar.

    Now the reality is that as a consumer in India you don’t need to have  to go through the pain. It may be difficult for them to understand the richness of the proposition that is  on offer today. Now when you compare it to consumers in any other part of the world today; the Indian consumer has probably the best deal.  Rs 199 per month only…I don’t think price is a  challenge anymore. So I think it’s more about creating  awareness.  And I think there is still a segment – especially in the younger demographic – who believes it’s cool to pirate. And I am sure that philosophy will be carried by a lot of people. For most people,  it is just creating awareness that there is a serious ease of getting almost every show that you want on Hotstar Premium at a price that is quite affordable. And that is what we are going to invest in on the back of the Showtime deal and what we already have on Premium. And taking it to a mass market in a way that’s not been done in this country before.

    So will you have Hindi sub titles? Or in any other languages?

    Currently, it’s English subtitles. I think the fundamental  point you are making is improving accessibility, can dramatically expand the audience for English TV shows or movies in India. Hollywood has shown that with dubbing. The direction we are moving is to make it accessible by subtitling in multiple languages which you will see over the next few months.

    How are you doing on the app download front?

    We have crossed 300 millions downloads and we are seeing downloads across all operators. Wifi.  Jio obviously has  had a tremendous impact on the ecosystem in terms of expanding access to mobile broadband and increasing affordability. Two things stand out over the last nine months when Jio has had this massive disruption. One is that video has  benefited disproportionately. For us what the last two years -and the last year in particular – has really established is the bet that we made if data was not a constraint,  people will gravitate towards  long-form content including on a mobile. That  what we saw in the early stages of the ecosystem , people consuming short form clips, user generated content  – that it did not represent the truth. It was not the end state; it was the beginning of the market.  That has really played out  And you see that in the data, the time spent time..the watch time on video  has grown disproportionately to social media.. And by multiple factors. And Hotstar has grown – disproportionately to any other video platform.

    300 million I don’t think somebody else has this kind of numbers in the world.

    I think Jio has been an enabler. But more and more you are seeing that for sieving out where consumers are going, both in terms of adoption and in terms of watch time. I think data is an enabler. My sense is that the more people have access to 4G, the cheaper data gets – a high quality propostion like Hotstar that has both the content proposition and is compelling as well  and we are seriously investing in technology to keep improving the consumer experience. I think that combination is quite powerful.

    We are seeing that in the numbers which are substantive. One of the numbers that stands out for us is that just on the Google Playstore globally we crossed 100 million downloads a couple of months ago. From what we know, only Netflix has done that globally outside of Hotstar and may be in the entertainment space, Spotify. And it does feel like even being in one market in India, I think  the scale of what we are seeing clearly compares to the best in the world.

    I believe this should be a moment of pride for the country as well that in the mobile ecosystem that we are blazing the trail in terms of what can be done. And for us, we really think of ourselves as “we are not replicating models that have happened in other parts of the world. We are truly creating a template for what a mobile centric business could look like which would be relevant in any market.”

    How many of these are active?

    In the month of May and June 2017, we crossed more than 100 million active users

    How would you define these actives?

    Somebody coming and spending meaningful time at least once a month. The reality is almost everyone who comes to Hotstar comes multiple times a month. And very often multiple times a day. But a monthly active way is a good way to look at it as it a common measure for looking at adoption across the ecosystem. And all our 100 millions actives are unique.

    Some of the OTT players are distinguishing between monthly active users and uniques.  

    Digital is an interesting space where is there is no common measurement system in place and that equally applies to Facebook, Youtube or Hotstar. It makes sense to have a common measurement that is consistent. To the extent that  we know how to identify  unique users, their presence on devices, not everyone logs in. It’s not the same login across Hotstar, Facebook, Google  – all of those still remain. But We are seeing more than 100 million users coming to Hotstar.

    Are you still in the consumer acquisition mode or you have passed that. In what phase are you?

    I think we are going to be in a perennial growth mode for a long time because of two reasons: I think that’s the kind of company we want to build. The proposition is so exciting,  it’s relevant for more than 100 million users.

    Second, the context of India where as more people get access to  data… one of the things that we are convinced is the primary use case for getting people getting online can be video and Hotstar.

    The next 100 million or the first 500 million to go on digital in India.. we think mobile video and especially around the entertainment proposition that we have.. more than search, social media or ecommerce we can be the beach head. Because people love stories and it’s relevant for  a larger number of people. From that point of view I don’t think we are going to stay away from focusing on growth for a long time. I think we can be the primary use case for bringing people online in India.

    But your customer acquisition cost are going up or down?

    I think costs are going down. It’s a two and half year old platform now; there is a lot equity of the Hotstar as a brand. Once you reach a certain scale and have broken through I think the organic momentum starts kicking in. We are in the stage where it feels like growth is happening with far less effort than two years ago. Having said that it looks exciting to look for the next100 million users..and the next 100 million users after that.

    It’s not in an optimization mode, it’s in growth mode and in growth mode our focus is all three:  adoption of new users, it’s watch time and the third is revenue.

    I think for a uniquely consumer internet company we believe there is a virtuous cycle between consumer adoption, engagement and revenues.  We don’t see  it as competing, we see it as going together.  

    Varun (HotStar head of product and engineering EVP) said in some conference that he would like get some billion minutes. Correct me if am wrong?

    A year ago in APOSTech in Shanghai Varun had articulated this ambition of crossing a billion minutes a day in watch time. I don’t think we have said this publicly but we have crossed that  number a few times  in the past couple of months.  

    How has the playground has changed since you were here last year. What do you seeing? Your tech is keeping up or you have to spruce up your tech. You invested in Zapr to get some analytics in place. What has changed?

    Three things in my mind have changed.

    We have made significant movement in the past 12 months.  I think we have hired 60 engineers just in the last nine months. I think we are looking at doubling that number in the next six months.

    We have the clarity that we can build something unique in India and compete with some of the best global tech companies. It comes with building our own technology muscle.

    Second, if you look at the consumer internet space with lot of actions across e-commerce, fin-tech and our own media space, we have been quite thoughtful in building a deep bench in leadership. The past 12 months have been marked by a significant bulking up of our leadership capacity in Hotstar.

    Third big change that has happened as a result of that there is starting to be  a bit of a separation in terms of services that are standing out from an adoption, engagement and scale point of view – and clearly that’s happening.

    The last 12- 15 months have seen the launch of whole bunch of new services in OTT and a lot of them have very interesting propositions. They are occupying interesting positions in the market …some fairly niche but if I step back and think about it what we are proud of at Hotstar is we are breaking away when it comes to  serious scale and engagement.

    And for me it looks like we are competing with Google and Facebook on the free side which is all about its large scale,  ad supported and big numbers. And on the other front its subscription, which is still nascent, much smaller audience at the moment, we are competing with Netflix and Amazon Prime. At Hotstar, we have two sorts of vertical, one is the free ad supported business and the subscription business where we are facing two different sets of competitors.

    But I believe the ad supported services, IPL got you good revenues from two partners Vivo and Maruti. Agencies have told me its Rs 20 crore per head.

    I think we did okay.

    But that is serving out well in the terms of revenue.

    One of things is clear to advertisers and that’s a big movement in the last 12-24 months especially at a time when there have been a lot of issues around  brand safety that came up in the UK. I think two things are showing up I think most advertisers started to recognizing that the Hotstar proposition is unique. In most parts of the world high quality on demand content on streaming is completely behind the paywall. Therefore it’s not available for brands to advertise on like you can’t advertise on Netflix in US.

    So Hotstar represents a unique opportunity on digital where for the longest time advertisers could only reach audience through user generated content or short clips whereas on HotStar you get premium content which is very different from most streaming business models.

    Second thing that the advertisers started recognizing the power of its engagement. I think it different when you reach an audience when they are scrolling and checking something on social media for 30 seconds or when watching a 40 second clip. It’s a very distracted audience. So even when you presumably get scale and you get metrics like video views what you are not getting is real engagement that comes with long form content. There is a reason why television helped build brands for 50-60 years. It was because people spent time deeply immersed into stories. And that’s the proposition we offer on Hotstar.

    Sports is driving you plus Hollywood. You kind of have tip toed away from originals unlike what Amazon Prime or Netflix are doing?

    I feel I keep answering this question but for whatever reason people don’t want to embrace the answer – especially my peers. Sports is big on Hotstar.  Sports is less than 15 per cent of our total watch time. It’s definitely played a meaningful role for us.

    But TV shows and movies are much larger on Hotstar. The proposition of Hotstar at least for consumers is  that they know that Hotstar is beyond cricket or sports. On originals, almost everything we have is exclusively on Hotstar on digital. Right from the early stages we believe in the power of exclusive content. Which is why Game of Thrones, a Star Plus show is all exclusively on Hotstar. The originals bandwagon was started by the people who did not have the enough content. I am not sure why Hotstar with the most compelling  content portfolio in the world would want to get on the same bandwagon.

    Why is Republic TV  there on your platform?

    …..For more of the interview click and watch the video  link below…

  • ALTBalaji is essentially everything that Balaji on TV is not: Sameer Nair

    MUMBAI: It was in the year 1994 that Sameer Nair was hired as a director-producer in the television industry. Shortly later, he became Star Movies’ executive producer.

    In the following years, he controlled acquisitions of movies for Star in India, and subsequently became its programming head. He eventually became the CEO of Star TV-India, a position he enjoyed till 2007. In 2008, Nair became the CEO of NDTV Imagine, a Hindi general entertainment channel from the NDTV stable, which went off air in 2011. In 2012, after quitting NDTV Imagine, Nair partnered with a few ex-colleagues and founded few startups in the media sector. In 2014, Nair became part of Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms, a company that he had given break while in Star TV. He joined as group CEO and expanded Balaji’s digital business. In a recent development, just before Balaji and Reliance Industries announced that the latter has taken an equity stake in BLT a shade less than 25 per cent, Nair announced his departure from BLT end July.

    Nair was one of the speakers at indiantelevision.com’s second edition of Vidnet2017, held mid-July. He had a one-on-one conversation with Indiantelevision.com consulting editor Anjan Mitra.  Edited excerpts from the conversation:

    Has being in Balaji different from what you’ve been doing at Star and Imagine TV or even at a startup company?

    First of all, I have been associated with Balaji for many years because we used to work with them in Star. Balaji is primarily a television production house and is one of the most successful television production houses in India. And, the plan with Balaji was that how do you take a business like this and scale it up. How do you grow 10x? For example, for a company that is already having eight to nine shows on air, we have 20 per cent market share in general entertainment Hindi fiction. We make some movies too. So how do you grow 10x? We can’t go from 8 shows to 80 shows. So the sense was we have to go from being a B2B business to being a B2C business, which is where this plan of creating a (digital) platform came up. Now, if you could take all the Balaji shows today and put it on one channel, then that one channel would become the #1 channel. But obviously that ship has sailed and we couldn’t have started one more GEC channel. So it became clear that we should go B2C and should go digital (OTT). We should create content for it and act on our key strength, which is content creation.

    Which segment of the Balaji media business drives the revenues?

    Currently, television, obviously. TV is our base business where all the money comes from. But the future will be the digital business, which is Alt Balaji that we launched on April 16, 2017. That’s where the future is.

    How is Alt Balaji different?

    Balaji is known for its daily soaps on TV…shows that have been extremely popular and also have been criticized (for regressive themes, at times). Alt Balaji is essentially everything that Balaji on TV is not! The kind of content that we get to create (for Alt) is stuff that’s not available on TV; that you don’t see on TV and is exclusive to a platform. And, it’s in the fiction space because that’s what we specialize in. This is a big market. We have chosen to be in the OTT SVOD space.

    But critics say that the Indian digital realm is still more of traditional broadcasters, TV companies putting content available on linear or traditional television onto a digital platform. Do you agree with this line of thinking?

    It’s true. It’s common sense. Whenever a new medium starts and it grows, it lives off content from an old medium. That’s the way it goes. When satellite TV started in India, it was living off the English language programming from the West. Then English language programming was dubbed into Hindi and finally original Hindi and regional language programming came. It’s a process of evolution. Logically, if you got to put the content out there into a new medium, by default, Star’s Hotstar would put its own TV shows. In fact, that drove a lot of the viewership (to the digital platform) to start with. But as it goes forward, if you can get content everywhere, then why would you pay for it? If you actually want people to pay for anything, then it (content) has to be good and exclusive and people must see value in it.

    You mean content that you once famously described “between Narcos and Naagin”. Has that median changed or are you still grappling to traverse that terrain?

    In India in the 2000 (decade), we did the ‘K’ soaps — `Kyunki’, `Kahaani Ghar…’, etc. In 2017, that is pretty much the staple on Indian television, almost after a generation has gone. So, what we have missed as an evolutionary step is premium subscription television — the likes of HBO and Showtime. The closest India came to premium subscription television was, may be, Star One. So that’s where the opportunity is. The need (today) is the world between `Narcos’ and `Naagin’. It’s a world between a Colors Infinity and Colors — in all languages, not just in Hindi. And, that’s what we (at Balaji) are going after.

    I was reading an interview of Reed Hastings where he said that new shows, especially when they are released, do affect the seasonality of the business and the bottomlines. Do you feel in India it is still the same story or India is still an evolving drama?

    Even if you look at the TV business, the content business tends to work like that. So, in the Diwali quarter, your spends are up and your revenues too go up. However, I think, the big difference between Netflix and traditional content houses is if you have a subscriber model, then you have a basket of programming for a basket of revenue.

    Would you like to share some of the numbers?

    I am not going to share the numbers, but I can tell you what we are doing and why we think what we are doing makes sense.

    Why are you shying away from numbers?

    I am going to come to that. I got to build up to it. What we are doing is we are creating fiction shows— 10 to 12 or 15 episodes in a series and with multiple seasons going forward. We will give five episodes free. So we don’t have a one-month free scheme. What we have is every series of ours is free for the first five episodes — three episodes you can see on YouTube, two you can see on the app and then it means you have liked it; which means you are hooked on to it. We are going to ask you for some (subscription) money then. That’s the play we are aiming at. There are some things you want to pay money for and some you would not. For a movie like `Dangal’, a big section of the audience in India gave Aamir Khan Rs 300-400 crore (Rs. 3-4 billion in ticket sales) despite being aware that the film would come on TV for free technically, in a few months (of its theatrical release). But they still thronged the theatres and bought tickets. There is a draw that (good) content has…where people want to pay and see it. Our sense is to create content that people would want to watch and pay for.

    Coming back to numbers, we have got a great start. We have got about four-five million downloads. We have got subscriptions from day one, primarily because we are in five-episode free model. I can’t give you subscription numbers, but we are doing well compared to the market now. We have got subscriptions from about 70 countries. Most people have taken the quarterly pack and not the annual pack, which is fair I guess. They may first want to sample the content and see how the service is. We have got good reaction to our content.

    People who have downloaded your app are mostly of the Indian diaspora?

    Indians mostly. It’s an Indian and Indian diaspora game. It’s all in Hindi for now. We have done one Tamil show and are going to do one Bengali show. But it’s targeted towards Indians primarily. So we are not yet in the foreign (audience and non-Hindi speaking) space.

    What are the expansion plans for Alt Balaji?

    For first couple of years, we are going to focus on content, build up customer base and do content in multiple languages. We are doing content in Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. We want to add Gujarati, Punjabi and Telugu too, which we are planning to launch within 18 months time.

    The sense that I get from feedback that even the big OTT players don’t know where the revenue is going to come from in India. What is Alt Balaji’s point of view on revenues and business model, considering you are quite a late entrant?

    We are looking at the revenue from a subscription point of view and we are not in the AVOD space. We are not looking for advertising support. Within the SVOD space, our business plan is to spend some amount of money on content and getting to a certain number of paying subscribers by the end of two to three years, which takes us to break-even. That’s the plan. And, for that, the kind of content we are creating is premium subscription television content — the kind India has not seen so far. We are putting it out there (and) giving consumers the opportunity to sample it. We think the market is pretty large. There are two million homes that are watching Star World or Colors Infinity and there are 165 million (TV) homes that actually a Colors or a Star Plus reaches. The in-between audience, say about 25-30 million homes, today are already spending Rs.1000 to Rs. 2000 on a combination of Internet, entertainment and telecom (per month). They have two-three smartphones, have a DTH connection and watch one or two movies in a month. These guys will potentially spend $10 more per month in the next five years. That figure when you take to 25 million homes becomes a $3 million market. Now, what will they spend it on? They will spend it on OTT services, watching new movies. So, we are focusing on those 25 million homes, which will, in the next five years, probably become 25-40 million homes. Out of that, we want a fair share.

    By 2019-2020 you will reach the breakeven point. So, where are the stumbling blocks? Which are the three biggest stumbling blocks for digital platforms in India?   

    One of the big stumbling blocks used to be the connectivity issue. We used to wonder how this is going to work and how would we reach the consumers. Call-drops and bad connectivity is a problem. But in the last year or so, with the kind of push Jio is doing, the (digital) highways are being built. Second big stumbling block would be, would people pay? We keep saying that Indians get everything for free and that’s like a constant refrain. But ideally you pay for everything. You get nothing for free. If you go to a temple, you got to put money in the pooja thaali for blessings. So, I think people will pay. They are paying for movies, IPL matches…In fact, people have always paid for TV. For all this drama around ‘Indians like to get everything for free’, ever tried to not pay for your cable connection? They’ll (LCOs) just cut it (connection) off. Right? And, from 1992 this is going on. The third stumbling block would be if consumers are willing to pay, what are they going to pay for? That’s where the content comes in. Already, almost all of us have become Netflix subscribers. It may be expensive, but for a certain set of audience it is good to go. Amazon has come along too. So, these are the three key things and they are being addressed.

    In all this, do you feel somewhere the government can be helpful in removing the stumbling blocks?

    I don’t know actually. But government should stay far away from it. This is going reasonably well. Private players are helping in building infrastructure and are building businesses. Let market forces decide.

    At the moment, it is almost like ‘free for all’ without any regulations for the digital players; something like what cable and satellite TV was once upon a time before MIB and TRAI waded into it in 2003-04 onwards. How do you view the growth of the digital world vis-a-vis regulations or its absence?

    This is a tough one because the Internet is open; so technically at this point of time you can go out on the net and find porn too. Now going forward, more and more people will create (digital) content and somebody will push the boundaries and maybe or maybe not the government decides to regulate it. Ideally, if the players together are not creating obscene content just for the sake of creating obscene content, that would be the best self-regulated environment. But it is a big a market; too many content creators are out there and it’s hard to assume things. But I feel there are already some rules and regulations in place.

    And where do the OTT platforms fit into the Indian debate of net neutrality?

    Obviously, there should be net neutrality. I think all the OTT platforms are now pushing for net neutrality. If we don’t have net neutrality, then it would be like the TV business’ carriage phase, which still persists, though it has gone down because of the digitization.

    Is the digital world at the moment a content driven business or a technology driven business?

    Well, it’s a combination of both. Tech is equally important.

     

  • Synergy between quality content & branding workable in digital space, feel industry experts

    MUMBAI: Providing young ‘jobbers’ in India with new, engaging and emotionally-connecting original OTT content that may be closer to their life, family or work situations with or without subtle brand integration would eventually lead to a pay-model (SVoD). And, that seemed to the underlying theme of ‘Expanding the content creator value chain’ session at the recent Vidnet 2017 organised by Indiantelevision.com in Mumbai.

    Moderator Sidharth Jain opened the discussion with four interesting models of the evolving OTT content some of which, as claimed, got 100 million views. One was the self-funded yet reasonably successful model of a Bollywood struggler, Navjyot Gulati’s short film ‘Best Girlfriend’. The second was Jyoti Kapur-Das’ Royal Stag branded ‘The Chutney’. The third experiment was YouTube-discovered Tamil director, who used his film proceeds to part-fund an original episodic series on Hotstar, and the fourth was the recent Amazon Prime-commissioned ‘Inside Edge’ model, which is loosely based on IPL and its evolution.

    Given this context, especially in the last two years, where did the panelists think the opportunities for content creators were? How could one use these learning to draw up strategies? Who is creating value and opportunities for creators? These were some of the posers by Jain to panelists, which included Reliance Broadcast Network Limited CEO Tarun Katial, Still and Still Media Collective founder Amritpal Singh Bindra, Monozygotic’s Raghu Ram, Viacom18 Digital Ventures head of content Monika Shergill and Perform Group director, content sales, India, Subhayu Roy.

    “Independent content creators getting some 100 million views underlines my impression that platforms (films, television or digital) dictate the kind of entertainment that will be produced let alone what will work and what won’t,” said Ram, adding that he believed television was for group viewing and mobile for individual viewing, which made all the difference.

    Monozygotic’s ‘Aisha My Virtual Girlfriend’ pocketed several international awards. “A lot of unconventional people who have been struggling in films and television,” Ram felt, “will find their voice on digital.”

    However, the nascent OTT industry is still experimenting, it seems. “Honestly, I feel, we have just begun. And, those who claim they know it all or have figured it out, are talking through their hat,” said Voot’s Monika Shergill. Though, she added that digital was an exciting and formula-breaking medium where people were “judging you all the time.”

    Referring to `It’s Not That Simple’ (Swara Bhaskar’s six-episode web series launched in October 2016), Shergill said that nobody was programming for women at that point in time and most shows were being made for “young, urban boys”. But, Voot chose to a show a disruptive subject for a mature female audience. “It was narrated and depicted tastefully and thought provokingly done,” she explained, highlighting serious subjects too could work brilliantly on a digital platform.

    Dwelling on demographics and experimenting with originals going forward, Shergill said Voot’s core TG was 18-30 years. “There is a misconception that we (OTT players) are catering to a very young or college-going audience,” she said, “But, in fact, we are targeting around 10 million first-jobbers who may have moved away from television and actively looking for stories that talk to them.”

    Rejecting a recently-coined phrase that OTT viewers and content lie “between Narcos and Naagin” as a headline-catching phrase, Shergill was of the opinion a large part of the Indian audience, however, was looking for good stories (and) not necessarily emotionally connecting with those (international) characters. “They (the audience) are looking for answers — life’s answers, which are closer to family and work situations,” she justified her stand on audience’s need.

    However, not everybody seems to have a definite handle on the kind of content that really worked. “Whether it is 10, 12 or 25-minute-series, nobody can guarantee the viewer’s attention as analytics may have found out,” Amritpal Singh said, admitting that a good story couldn’t be “supplemented, complemented or replaced” for sure. Singh has worked on all three formats of films, television and digital.

    While admitting that people learnt new tricks everyday in the digital space RBNL’s Katial felt like the cinema audience changed from single screen theatres to that of a multiplex with everybody becoming a multiplex audience eventually, the digital audience also is changing evolving. “Crucial changes took place (in the audience profile) after the arrival of Reliance Jio…the profile of the video viewer changed completely,” he asserted, explaining that digital has opened up a new class of viewers.

    “Although, on the digital platform one gets the time and space to do newer stuff and feel satisfied, I don’t think anybody is going to make path-breaking shows such as `Narcos’ for sometime (in India) until the audience evolves and stabilizes,” Katial said, adding, however, the journey would be “enriching” — there would be actually opportunities to do many different things.

    Does one needs to look at segmentation such as regional content, low cost or premium content, regional or pan-India market? It could work sometime. Katial highlighted the case of a Hispanic series with English sub titles, a take-off on Narcos, which did well on Netflix, connecting with the audience.

    “This average underdog story with greed, love and lust has reached somewhere, but it may not seem to do well on traditional television in India. But, we have an audience which is willing to experiment,” Katial remarked, adding that though in India there is also a segment of audience that is more confortable with content in their regional language.
    But speaking on segmentation, Katial also said there existed a section of ‘free audience’ on OTT such as FTA in the television space. “The SVoD audience is different from the AVoD audience. The former loves quality content, “he added.

    However, OTT or digital space is not about just fiction — of good quality or otherwise. Sports globally not only are a big attraction, but also revenue earners. And, India too is following that trend, albeit slowly.

    UK-based Perform Group’s Subhayu Roy said it was important to offer content that resonates with the audience. In the west, sports broadcasters did a magazine-kind programming before or after a game giving audiences options such as highlights, best shots at the goal, for example and analysis.

    “One could experiment with that magazine programming thought process in India. With that, one could manage to have a fresh set of audience and break the formula to content creation,” Roy argued.

    Talking about the fiction versus non-fiction, Ram said that they were yet to come up with something that was native to digital, while Shergill felt “non-fiction originals” on OTT had a limited shelf life —like a bursting of a big cracker. But, both of them agreed engagement with the audience was important. `MTV Roadies`’ consumption numbers (on digital) paralleled television and `Big Boss’ too had similar numbers, it was claimed.

    Do digital audiences seek free content or support from brands is critical? While agreeing that brand integration was important, Shergill said, “One needs a revenue model with brand support for the kind of stories that you want to tell. But we have not limited ourselves to that. We have gone ahead and invested in quality content. We did several shows last year and invested in originals pipeline. Now, we are ready with our next slate of shows. If a brand comes on board, it will be good, but quality hasn’t been compromised on.”

    The audience is more open to the idea of subliminal kind of branding as compared to the ‘Paas Paas’’ in-the-face branding, Bindra felt.

    Panelists also agreed that Indians generally struggle with the concept of paying for good — especially original and quality content. “Indians have traditionally struggled with the idea of paying for content. It does not come to them naturally. But, it will eventually happen. One needs to create the kind of content that justifies the kind of subscription they pay,” Bindra explained.

  • Just 11% video viewership is on OTT: Akamai’s Reddy

    MUMBAI: Video viewership is growing at about eight and a half hours a month at present, and is expected to double or triple over the next year. However, 89 per cent of video viewership is on YouTube and Facebook, and only 11 per cent is shared among OTT players in India, according to Akamai Technologies country sales manager Sandeep Reddy.

    Reddy was the keynote speaker at the Vidnet 2017 meet organised by indiantelevision.com. The theme of Vidnet 2017 was: Will Indian OTT/SVOD live up to its promise?

    Revealing more inputs, Reddy said there are 150 million estimated online viewers at a time when the country ‘is in the middle of this revolution’ and this is bound to grow. The current estimate is that 60 to 65 per cent viewers watch online video in 28 Tier-III cities, and deployment is improving but not at the level of Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore. “There is a challenge of reach,” he said.

    Building a brand, partnership, reach, scale, and economy are the quintessential parameters to make a successful OTT.

    Speaking on OTT and deployment of connectivity, Reddy who has been with Akamai for eleven years, shared his experiences noting that there was deployment only in 25 centres over 15 years.

    While referring to the limitations of traditional broadcasting in TV, he said the turning point would be in 2020 when there would be more online viewership than on traditional broadcast TV. Broadcast TV was headed towards online viewership, he said.

    The rise of affordable Chinese smartphones in India led to cheaper data plans and reduced the entry barrier, he said, and added: “we are talking about buying smartphones and seeing telecommunication providers increasing their deployments. We are observing huge connectivity, huge deployment, and we are seeing the race going up for the state of internet according to the report what we have published. The speed of the internet is about 2 Mbps in India. We are still lagging behind globally but it is growing and there are 40 per cent viewers over 4 Mbps and that is a sweet spot where you can deliver reasonable video and that’s why people are watching for longer hours”, he said. In this context, he referred to the example of Jio which came with low rate data plans.

    Because the number of users was growing, he said there was better connectivity and there were likes of Alt Balaji and Netflix using content specifically made for this audience, resulting in more and more users and that was the opportunity for broadcasters.
    With respect to OTT players, he said there were some key success facts for those sitting on the fence. Referring to a previos speaker who had spoken of how Indians will pay, he said they will pay if the content is appealing and engaging. The Indian population/users was ready to pay and that had been seen from the growth of TV, cable TV, and DTH where the subscription is Rs 600 to Rs 700 per month. “One can watch television when a show is being aired but the internet costs much less and one still gets all the content”, he added.

    There was a lot of scope to make a good business model here, he said, as with traditional broadcast one did not really know, did not really connect, and used it directly. ”When you are online you have the players that are tracking your every activity, you know which videos are being viewed, you know where exactly the users are stopping, you know exactly how to monetize, where to place your ads. So fabulous monetization models are available’, he told broadcasters and distributors.

    Making a point on scale and quality, Reddy said, “We are talking about competing with broadcast television where you have a signal from a tower beaming signal to millions of users. There are no issues, satellites are not strained, but on the internet single user places a load on his system. When you talk about prime time audiences you are talking about India vs Pakistan match at 7pm on Internet. The whole nation is tuned in and so that is a load on the system and there is a challenge one has to deal. Similarly you can offset the system as VOD users are watching at their convenience”.

    When competing with TV broadcasters, “Internet works just on the box, the video is clear, it plays perfectly well and it is not so simple as you cannot click on a video, and it needs to play perfectly otherwise it is going to lose the user”. He added that In the United States, “we are seeing about less than 1 second startup time of the video and the estimate is that if the startup time is 3 seconds you are going to lose the audience and we want to be sure that startup time is good. In India we are lagging behind America and Europe. We have got less than 4-5 per cent rebuffer or more than five per cent for our views delivered. So quality, reach, and economy are the factors impacting the success in OTT.”

    Hotstar is leading the revolution, he said. They took the plunge and they invested the big bucks, they went out and bought rights for undisclosed amount. The streaming content provider ALT produces its own shows. Sun TV launched its ‘SunNxt’ app a month ago growing some phenomenal numbers,

    “The message I want you to leave with is content, which needs to be unique and engaging. Content is king is a cliché but it is true. It is about the brand right now. Anybody in the screen, anybody in the train can watch and their choice is Hotstar. That is the brand proposition they have built.”

  • GTPL boosts channels & OTT with Harmonic, can deliver to 8 mn homes

    MUMBAI: Harmonic, a leader in video delivery infrastructure, announced that GTPL, India’s leading digital cable TV distribution company, which reaches an estimate of more than 8 million households in more than 189 cities, has deployed a next-generation software-based unified video headend system from Harmonic.

    At the heart of the solution is Harmonic’s Electra™ X2 advanced media processor that supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and HEVC encoding for both traditional cable television and live OTT multiscreen services, saving GTPL significant space and power consumption.

    “To remain competitive in the television distribution space, we needed to further differentiate our offering with compelling content, deliver higher video quality at a lower cost of operation and prepare for OTT,” said Aniruddhsinh Jadeja, managing director at GTPL Hathway. “Harmonic provides us with a complete headend solution for CATV and live OTT, with distribution of up to 650 cable television channels and 50 OTT channels from a unified management system. We can also support advanced features such as graphic overlay and scroll insertion, which are integral to our business. We are currently delivering live TV and have plans to explore catch-up TV, nPVR and 4K video in the future to provide an even better viewing experience to subscribers.”

    According to Frost & Sullivan, there are approximately 66 million unique connected video viewers in India, and about 1.3 million OTT paid video subscribers. The ability to support CATV and live OTT services from a unified headend provides interoperability capabilities, operational efficiency and opens up revenue opportunities for GTPL by enabling the operator to launch OTT offerings when ready.

    “Migrating to a software-based unified video headend for CATV and OTT delivery allows GTPL to roll out new offerings quickly and reduce costs through decreased space, power, equipment and personnel requirements,” said Tony Berthaud, vice president of sales, APAC, at Harmonic. “In the future, as GTPL further improves upon its video quality and service offerings, Harmonic’s software-based infrastructure will make it easy to adapt new codecs and formats.”

    The Electra X2 processor maximizes the efficiency and flexibility of statistical multiplexing through tight integration with Harmonic’s ProStream® video stream processor, allowing the operator to increase bandwidth efficiency and broaden its channel count. The unified headend also includes ProView™ integrated receiver-decoders for reception and ProMedia™ Package multiscreen stream packager for deploying secure live OTT services. Everything is managed through the NMX network management solution.

  • Paywizard’s Vaguine joins Ownzones as SVP, to elevate European presence

    MUMBAI: Continuing its expansion throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Ownzones Media Network, the OTT EntTech company, has named Serge Vaguine as Senior Vice President, Business Development.  Vaguine will be based in London. The announcement was made today by Douglas Lee, Head of Programming at Ownzones.

    In this newly created post, Vaguine takes on the responsibility of increasing the company’s worldwide distribution platform services and technology offerings. This includes Ownzones’ OTT video delivery platform, which provides end-to-end solutions for delivering world-class viewing experiences. On the content front, Vaguine will handle the distribution for 420TV, a new VOD “all things cannabis” channel featuring 4K original, multi-episodic series’, long and short form news, informational and entertainment content, as well as Ownzones Passport, a localized app that gives consumers access to original video programs with top international and local influencers and Hollywood movies.

    “Our goal is to gain a foothold in more established European markets, and Serge is a results-driven senior sales and business development executive with a proven track record,” said Lee.  “Given his significant global experience in selling complex software and his deep background in digital media and entertainment, he is the perfect choice to lead us both in the content and technology sales efforts.”

    Previously, Vaguine served as Vice President Sales at Paywizard Group, a provider of subscriber management and billing solutions for pay TV operators. Vaguine undertook the task of boosting subscriber acquisition and retention as well as providing predictive churn analytics and rich data insight to the firm’s clients, including BT Sports, BoxNation, NBCU and ITV.

    From 2006 to 2014, Vaguine served as Director of Business Development, EMEA at Amino Communications, the leading provider of innovative hybrid TV, IPTV and cloud TV solutions and was based in Cambridge during his nine-year tenure with the company.

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