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Tag: OTT

  • “FanCode is focused on delivering value to our users”: Yannick Colaco

    “FanCode is focused on delivering value to our users”: Yannick Colaco

    Mumbai: India’s premier digital sports destination FanCode is initiating a slew of new offerings on its platform. FanCode deals in three major areas like live content, sports statistics, analysis and commerce. 

    Under the umbrella of Dream Sports, FanCode was launched to change the dynamics of sports consumption in India. The platform offers live streaming, sports data, analytics, statistics, a merchandising store, tour passes, expert analysis, opinions and the latest sports news.

    The company is led by co-founders Yannick Colaco and Prasana Krishnan. Both worked together at sports broadcaster Nimbus Sports until 2013. Colaco went on to join the National Basketball Association (NBA) while Krishnan joined Sony Pictures Networks India.

    Colaco was part of the international leadership team of the NBA and managing director of its India business. He spent the next six years driving the grassroots development of the basketball sport in India, setting up a full-fledged NBA Academy and building partnerships across licensing, content and marketing initiatives. He was also instrumental in bringing the first-ever NBA Games to India. 

    A consummate sports enthusiast, Colaco has been in the sports and media industry for two decades. In his view, avid sports fans in the country were underserviced when it came to accessibility to sports content. The consumption of sports content was fragmented across multiple platforms.

    He joined forces with Krishnan in 2019 to launch their entrepreneurial venture with a commitment to give sports fans a highly personalised and unified experience of sports content.

    Colaco told Indiantelevision.com that FanCode’s goal is to “redefine the way sports fans follow their favourite sports by creating a more integrated and immersive experience as well as by giving them greater access to a wide variety of sports content.”

    In an in-depth conversation with journalist Ashwin Pinto, FanCode co-founder Yannick Colaco spoke about the company’s progress, challenges, trends in the sports business, acquisitions, expansion plans and more. 

    Edited Excerpts: 

    On the progress, FanCode has achieved

    FanCode focuses on redefining the way sports fans follow their favourite sports by creating a more integrated and immersive experience. It gives them access to a wide variety of sports content. Our greatest ally in delivering on this is the ability to unlock the potential of digital for sports fans.

    Since 2019, the company has significantly upgraded the viewer’s experience by integrating key services which are fundamental to their ability to follow their favourite sports. The services supply include live scores & commentary, live stream & video on demand, match insights & analytics, and official fan merchandise. All of this while supplying fans access to live streams of over 350 events and over 50,000 hours of live content. We are thrilled at the way sports fans have embraced our product and we now have over fifty million users on FanCode. 

    On the challenges faced by FanCode and its determination to be a standalone product

    FanCode is focused on delivering value to its users. Every offering that this company provides has been predicated. Given the response received so far, its viewers see value in having an integrated experience, rather than having to access multiple products to follow the same match or event.

    Fortunately, having an amazing team of FanCoders, including some of the best talents in the country, who have met the challenges head-on and continue to deliver amazing results, FanCode is blessed to meet all its product and technological challenges and give a seamless experience.

    Indian sports fans have limited access to great sports content. An integrated solution before the launch of FanCode did not exist overseas. Some companies do provide streaming of sports content but are limited to offering news and analysis. Earlier, the experience for the viewers was broken.

    On FanCode’s business model as an SVOD platform and cracking micro-transactions

    Paying for content on digital platforms is still very new in India. Realising the need for paid users at a very early stage FanCode worked on a priority basis in expanding the ecosystem. As per the feedback received, the company found out that the largest constraints were not willing to pay even for the entry tickets. To address these, it took a page out of the hugely successful sachet pricing strategy of FMCGs in India and gave fans the ability to buy matches and events, instead of buying only monthly and annual packages. The company has also invested significantly in building technology around an in-house subscription service which created an exceptionally smooth and seamless purchase experience.

    Results have been great with a rapidly growing number of transacting users. What’s also remarkably interesting is that many match and tour subscribers come back to buy multiple times and even upgrade to annual packages.

    On offering sports fans a personalised experience

    For Fancode success is about users’ seamless experience. For example, if you’re a fan of Virat Kohli, you should be able to watch him bat, watch replays of his best shots, access his stats in the current match and his career, chat with other Kohli fans, and buy his jersey; all inside the same experience with minimal friction. 

    Personalisation of experience is an extremely important part and thus the focus is exactly on where to invest significant resources over the next year. Sports fans wear their allegiance on their sleeves and are happy to talk about who they support. It is the company’s job to take this data and build technology solutions to provide a customised experience for higher engagement.

    On setting new trends in sports consumption

    The migration of fans from traditional modes of sports consumption like linear TV, newspapers, etc., to digital channels, has been phenomenal and this continues at a rapid pace. With this migration, the expectation of what a fan should have access to has also grown. Fans want to access scores, live matches, highlights, and stats. They want everything packaged in bite sizes and they want it at once.

    On its foray into streaming sports content

    There is absolutely no doubt that there is a significant growth in fandom for sports in general across India. As FanCode continues to expand the range of events and sports that are featured, a lot of growth in other sports is also observed, which were previously underserved.

    There is some particularly good traction in partnership with Major League Baseball and the J League (football) as well as the remarkable thing is that every user who consumes these on this platform is authenticated and not just a blip on a rating scale. For FanCode, it becomes easy to improvise by having an amazing opportunity to build a direct relationship with consumers and get real-time feedback.

    On the acquisition strategy behind FanDuniya

    The acquisition of FanDuniya helped in strengthening sports statistics and analytics offering under FC stats. It helps to build one of the largest stat hubs. FanCode will continue to explore these opportunities to help create more value for the users.

    On launching its merchandising store FanCode Shop

    Sports merchandise has been a significantly underserved market in India. As sports fandom has grown the demand for fan gear has increased. There are other many elements to consider including ranges of fan gear, styling, name and number gear, fit, pricing, etc. and honestly, the market has been ignorant of most of these.

    FanCode spent a significant amount of time with the teams and leagues it partnered with, which caters to fans across the country and now has over 30 sports brands with more than 800 products. Making fan gear, and variations of it, accessible and affordable has been an important part of growing the ecosystem.

    It has partnered with several sports leagues and teams for their licensed merchandise and worked with official partners of many of the other leagues and teams which enabled it to be a comprehensive destination for fan merchandising including 10 IPL teams, NBA, Manchester City FC, Liverpool FC, FC Barcelona, Bengaluru FC, MotoGP and WWE. We also improvise our technology to innovate and deliver rapid turnaround times in both the creation and distribution of fan gear, ensuring that fans will have the latest, most topical designs of their favourite sports brands and teams.

  • OTT platform OMTV raises Rs 4 mn funding to scale up original production content

    OTT platform OMTV raises Rs 4 mn funding to scale up original production content

    MUMBAI: An OTT network, OMTV that showcases content on Indian Sanatan culture on Wednesday announced that it has secured funding of Rs 4 million. The company shared that it will be using this funding to cover its current operational cost and ramp up the production of original content.

    Raj Kumar Jalan and Subhash Jalan led the funding. Raj Kumar Jalan is an IIT alumnus and has been working in Silicon Valley for the last three decades. Raj is a serial investor and invested in a lot of start-ups. He has served as the CTO of A10 most recently (a listed company on the New York Exchange) and played a fundamental role in the company’s growth trajectory. Subhash Jalan is currently settled in Bahrain and has over 15 years of experience in the investment banking domain. Over the years, he has invested in structured and monitored a private equity portfolio with total assets under management exceeding $5 billion.

    OMTV founder Nitin Jai Shukla said, “We’re a group of passionate people who wanted to offer content close to our cultural roots. Our motto is ‘Gyan bhi, Garv bhi’ and through our OTT platform, we are showcasing stories that either evoke pride or learn something new. Partnering with Raj Kumar Jalan and Subhash Jalan puts us in a strong position and will enable us to make more interesting stories and connect with a larger viewer base. I thank you for the confidence that they have shown in the concept. I have a go-ahead from them on their participation in the next round of funding.”

    “Sanatan Dharma is the richest, culturally most diverse, colorful religious tradition. A vast rainbow for every facet of life. A celebration of life in every way. We need an app like OMTV to tell the stories to the widest range of audiences to create a renaissance, a new sense of awareness, awe and pride for the most beautiful, meaningful religious cultural heritage. Living in America for so many years our 2nd generation American-Indians should be aware of their culture and roots and OMTV promised to deliver just that. I wish all the best to Nitin and his team for the amazing job that they are doing for sanatan culture,” said Raj Kumar Jalan.

    Subhash Jalan said, “Our investment in OMTV is predicated on the thesis that OMTV will be the game changer..i.e, it truly heralds a positive change in the way in which viewers will want to absorb, acquire and nurture knowledge of our Sanatan Dharm. The way we see it is that the current landscape of electronic content is minuscule compared to the endless, limitless and huge knowledge base embedded in the Gita, Upanishads and the Vedas in particular and also in our heritage. All that needs to come out and be available to the man on the street in a readily available medium of OTT is now expected to be the order of the day. There is a lot of pure entertainment content out there, but OMTV will be the first platform that would combine knowledge, wisdom, values and morals with entertainment. We are very excited and look forward to OMTV scaling heights in the years to come.”

    OMTV was launched during the pandemic and strives to be synonymous with quality content related to Indian culture. The app is available on both Android and iOS and is based on subscription video on demand. OMTV has been associated with short video apps Chingari and Josh and has clocked 100 million+ views and one lakh followers on these apps. It has also collaborated with Magic Box Animation Studios, one of the country’s biggest animation content providers.

    The content that one will see on OMTV will either enhance your knowledge base (Gyan) or make you feel proud (Garv) about your culture and therefore reinforce the Indian value system. Over time, OMTV intends to be the aggregator of the content that deals with Indian Sanatan culture. It features a range of content from mythology, history, education, and similar genres.

    Post this funding, OMTV is also looking to produce a lot of original content. There is great demand for content that can inform and educate people about the correct values through entertainment. Storytelling is a powerful medium and the best way to communicate, transfer and impart knowledge. All the shows on OMTV will reflect compelling Indian stories and showcase the rich Indian culture.

  • Q1 2022 streaming renewals is at an all time high: Ampere Analysis

    Q1 2022 streaming renewals is at an all time high: Ampere Analysis

    Mumbai: Ampere Analysis Q1 2022 reported rising demand for renewed seasons on Video-on-Demand (VoD) platform giving impressive numbers altogether.

    The increase in the volume of streaming renewals is being driven by relative newcomers to the VoD landscape such as Disney+ and Discovery+, as they turn their considerable production capacity to streaming. Both companies can be seen taking multiple season risks on high-profile titles, as well as renewing existing titles previously intended for their linear platforms. Despite a common misconception that streaming series are more likely to be short-lived than their linear counterparts, recent VoD commissioning shows that streamers are increasingly committed to long-running series.

    Of all VoD renewals in the UK and US announced in 2021, 51 per cent were in their fourth or later season, a 6 per cent increase in comparison to 2020, suggesting that long-running series are no less effective in driving both subscriber growth and retention than shorter, or limited series. But there are differences in strategies between streamers. Netflix first run commissions continued to increase throughout 2021 (with 8 per cent more new titles announced than in 2020), but the number of returning titles announced by the streaming giant showed a decrease, with 2 per cent fewer renewals announced in 2021 than in 2020.

    Unscripted titles are less likely to be cancelled than their scripted counterparts, representing just 7 per cent of all streaming cancellations in 2021. Unscripted titles are also more likely to last longer, representing the highest proportion of all VoD renewals in Q1 2022 (54 per cent).

    Ampere Analysis senior analyst Olivia Deane said, “It has been suggested that streamer’s high rate of cancellation is purely due to their high rate of commissioning, where a large volume of titles are ordered with the expectation that only a handful of titles will succeed. However, with an overall increase in the volume and proportion of returning VoD titles, streamers must strike a balance between committing to fresh new content and satisfying fans of existing titles in order to compete.”

    “For streaming newcomers like Disney+ and Discovery+, which have well-established fan bases for key IP, it’s easier for commissioners to make long-term commitments to titles they know viewers will love. Streamers also need to compromise between pleasing fanbases of more expensive scripted titles from genres like Sci-Fi & Fantasy, while making a range of unscripted content. The latter fleshes out their catalog with cheaper to make, easily digestible titles that can be very popular, and therefore represent a better return on investment.”

  • Laminar raises $5 million seed funding from investors

    Laminar raises $5 million seed funding from investors

    MUMBAI: The platform as a service (PaaS) Laminar that enables content owners to launch OTT services raised $5.11 million led by Artha India Ventures (AIV) and Leo Capital. Garuda Ventures, Cloudcap, and Sampson Acquisitions also participated in the round. This raise will accelerate product development and market expansion.

    Founded in 2020 by Narendra Nag, Raheel Khursheed, Tirthraj Singh, Kumar Shorav, and Yin Shanyang, the London-based company enables content owners to launch a global OTT service in 12-weeks or less. It takes over the heavy lifting of creating back-end technologies from OTT players so that they can focus on their core business of content creation. Media companies get the ability to customise and launch apps across all classes of devices, set up multiple types of monetization options, meet all tax and compliance requirements, and get a complete data and analytics suite at zero capex. It enabled Chaupal, a leading multi-regional OTT platform from India, to launch in 110 countries in 12 weeks, four times faster than the average industry timeframe.

    With an anticipated CAGR of 20 per cent, OTT has entered the mainstream space but needs to outsource the making of complex technologies to over 30 service providers. Laminar allows brands to launch a globally compliant streaming service through its fully managed PaaS offering; all offered under one roof. Moreover, Laminar is solving the pressing domain challenges such as heavy capital investment and set-up costs by providing services on a “pay-as-you-grow” model rather than incurring large upfront capex. Laminar’s current clientele includes Chaupal TV, planet entertainment, and streaming faith brands across two continents.

    Laminar co-founder, CEO Narendra Nag said, “Laminar will immensely benefit from the collective experience of our investors in rapidly scaling our business and expanding our global footprint. In Nielsen’s recent ‘State of Play’ report the number of people subscribing to four or more services has more than doubled in the US — this is a secular trend around the world. Such growth will only accelerate as consumers coalesce around (and pay for) content that speaks to their cultural reality.”

    Artha India Ventures director Anirudh A Damani said, “This is our 1st significant investment in Europe, and we are glad that it is in Laminar. Laminar gives content creators the backbone to challenge the duopoly of Netflix & Amazon Prime by building the world’s first zero code cloud-based PaaS offering. We were pleasantly surprised by the width of their client base that needs Laminar to solve their pressing issue. Because they let OTT content providers focus on their core business – creating content!
    “Moreover, we see immense potential in the OTT-enabler ecosystem and are glad that we backed the best team for a PaaS offering in the segment.”

    Leo Capital founding partner Rajul Garg said, “Media companies can see content consumption rapidly shifting away from cable, satellite, and DTH worldwide. Laminar has timed this industry transition beautifully with a product that is ready today for media companies who don’t want to spend time and money re-inventing the wheel, and we are excited to partner with them to help create the next global leader in the media-tech space.”

    Laminar has a presence in London, Toronto, Wroclaw, Dubai, New Delhi, and Singapore. It has an engineering team based out of Wroclaw and Barcelona.

  • OTT global revenues to increase significantly in 2022: Report

    OTT global revenues to increase significantly in 2022: Report

    Mumbai: Global revenues from OTT TV episodes and movies will reach $224 billion in 2027. According to the reports, this will be up from $135 billion in 2021.

    About $21 billion will be added in 2022 alone, according to Digital TV Research.

    SVOD revenues will climb by $48 billion between 2021 and 2027 to total $136 billion. AVOD revenues will increase by $37 billion between 2021 and 2027 to reach $70 billion.

    From the 138 countries covered, the top five will command 65  percent of global OTT revenues by 2027. OTT revenues will exceed $1 billion in 25 countries by 2027; up from 17 countries in 2021.

    Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray said, “The US will command 45 per cent of global revenues by 2027. We forecast that US revenues will climb by $45 billion between 2021 and 2027 to reach $106 billion.”

  • DTH business continues to see headwinds: Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal

    DTH business continues to see headwinds: Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal

    MUMBAI: At Bharti Airtel’s fourth quarter 2022 results CEO Gopal Vittal noted that the DTH business continues to see headwinds.

    During the company’s Q4 FY22 earnings conference call, Vittal said, “While the category continues to see a significant long-term opportunity for upgradation from cable, it’s also a classic case of an industry that has been brought to its knees due to excessive regulation”.  

    “The new tariff order brought about by TRAI a few years ago mandated every miniscule aspect of pricing in an industry which was managed until then very simply through forbearance. This created an overwhelming amount of complexity for the DTH players and even more importantly for the customer with no benefit to any stakeholder”, he further elaborated.

    Vittal added, “The second aspect of skewed regulation is to do with the very same content being made available for free. This is what happens on free-to-air channels and there is, mind you, very good content in many cases here with just windowing or it is being made available on the same screen through a broadband pipe at unregulated prices. This is what happens on OTT platforms. As a result, the DTH industry has been crippled.”

    “We are glad to see that TRAI has just come out with a new consultation paper on tariffs and we hope that at the end of this consultation, regulations will be lightened so that we can focus on what we do best, keep things simple and serve customers,” he added.

    Further, talking about the results he said, “during the year the company added Rs 13,440 crores to the top line and just under Rs 8,150 crores of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization to our India business alone. Beyond these numbers, what was even more satisfying is that we grew competitively in every part of our business; mobility, broadband, DTH and Airtel business grew market share to reach lifetime highs.”

    Vittal also explained the reason behind increasing tariffs. “We challenged ourselves to find a way to expand the reach of our home broadband presence after Covid and cracked an extremely innovative partnership with thousands of local cable operators using our digital promise. We strengthened our portfolio in airtel business through innovations in cPaaS and Airtel Secure. We continue to invest over Rs 20,400 crores into CapEx across our network, data centers, submarine cable capacities, and digital. Finally, we strengthened our partnerships. Use Airtel JV, the investment into level for SD-WAN, which is a software-defined wide-area network, for blockchain, Oracle for data centers, and Google as a strategic equity partner,” he added.

     

  • Govt policies to help media & entertainment ecosystem to generate $53 billion annually by 2025: Anurag Thakur

    Govt policies to help media & entertainment ecosystem to generate $53 billion annually by 2025: Anurag Thakur

    MUMBAI: In the next five years, India will be among the leading quality content producing nations across the globe. The government policies to help the media and entertainment ecosystem to generate $53 billion annually by 2025. There is an old rush amongst broadcasters as well as telcos to set up their own OTT platforms for India. The Indian government will take all measures to speed up co-production collaborations from around the world. The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said this while addressing the India Forum at the famous Palais des Festivals in Cannes.

    The session was moderated by Indian producer, Central Board of Film Certification member and film personality Vani Tripathi Pikoo; Ministry of Information And Broadcasting secretary Apurva Chandra; writer, poet and Central Board of Film Certification chairman Prasoon Joshi; Indian actor, writer, director and producer R Madhavan; Indian filmmaker actor, television presenter and entrepreneur and Film and Television Institute of India chairman Shekhar Kapur; Hollywood Reporter editor Scott Roxborough and producer Philip Avril.

    This year marks the 75th year of celebration of both the Cannes Film Festival and the establishment of India-France diplomatic relations. Speaking on the importance of Cannes Thakur said that over the years, ‘Festival de Cannes’ has played a significant role in strengthening Indo-French relations.

    The minister noted historic highs of Indian cinema and said that Indian content has been ruling the hearts and minds of the global audience and the stepping stone was laid by bestowing the Palme d’Or to the prolific Indian filmmaker Chetan Anand’s film Neecha Nagar in 1946 and a decade later in 1956, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali won the Palme d’Or.

    Today the recognition of our cinematic excellence the world over is set to manifest the country into the ‘content hub of the world’, the Minister added.

    Speaking on India’s current presence in Cannes, the Minister said “India intends to give you – the global audience, a flavour of the country’s cinematic excellence, technological prowess, rich culture and illustrious heritage of storytelling. India’s red carpet presence captured the diversity of our cinematic excellence not only in terms of representation of actors and film-makers from various languages and regions but also on OTT platforms, with a strong presence of music composers and folk artists who have enthralled audiences both young and old”.

    The Minister informed the audience about the presence of Indian startups in Cannes and said the startups from the media and entertainment sector will showcase their technological prowess and pitch to the best from the world of AVGC along with a strong delegation of animation professionals from the sector.

    The Minister informed the audience of the various measures by both the Union and State governments and said while the Center has envisioned major initiatives over the last eight years to boost co-productions, film shoots and film facilitations in India, States like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have formulated their film facilitation policies and provided co-production opportunities. He stated that these efforts aimed at boosting India’s media and entertainment ecosystem, which is expected to generate $53 billion annually by 2025.

    In one such measure, he said, “The government officially designated audiovisual services as one of 12 ‘champion service sectors’ and recently set up an AVGC task force comprising of industry leaders to prepare a policy roadmap for India to take a quantum leap in this sector and position us as the preferred ‘post-production hub of the world’ “.

    Thakur added that on one hand artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and immersive technologies such as the metaverse, present immense possibilities to India’s IT skilled workforce, the OTT market in India is predicted to grow by 21 per cent annually to nearly $2 billion by 2024 on the other.

    The minister promised that the government will take all necessary measures to transform India into a ‘Global Content Sub Continent’ and use the skills of our youth to make India the preferred post-production hub for the AVGC sector and to that end government will speed up co-production collaborations from around the world and also offer the best locations in India for Film Shoots. These Thakur envisioned, will in the next five years, catapult Bharat into the league of leading quality content producing nations across the globe.

    Thakur concluded his statement by extending a warm invitation to shoot in India, bask in its hospitality and relish its landscape.

    Meanwhile, Kapur spoke about the effect of access to cheap broadband and mobile devices having a disruptive effect on movie industry and said that India is about to become the world’s biggest ‘influencer economy’ and that cinema will soon be redefined by the young film makers.

    “India is a pool of restless dreams, dreams that are restless to make it big, of looking forward”, said Prasoon Joshi to the comment Kapur. Joshi further added that India has more and more self-belief, and that it shows in terms of the quality of recent cinematic productions. “When a civilisation can express its core authentically, he argued, it becomes even stronger,” he said.

    Chandra cited movies like “Lunchbox”, “Mr and Mrs Iyer” and “Rocketry” that are typically Indian in their story but have resonated with audiences across the world. He further reiterated the incentives announced by the government for filmmakers from across the world.

    Madhavan commented on how India has so much to tell the world in the field of science and technology and the cinema world must explore this idea. From Aryabhatta to Sundar Pichai India has extraordinary stories which are aspirations of youngsters around the world. Madhvan also argued that the advance of new technologies is offering new opportunities to the cinema industry. He reminded the audience that, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the micro economy has grown spectacularly; he suggested that digitalisation will offer new avenues to shine for Indian cinema.

    Avril who has worked in the past with Tamil and Malayalam movies, applauded the move, which he labelled as significant. He further commented that India has immense talent and extraordinary potential in terms of story-telling but that cultural barriers can sometimes prevent stories to reach foreign audiences. To ensure that Indian stories are not lost in translation and effectively reach foreign audiences, Avril noted the importance of encouraging co-production across countries, which is precisely the strategy of the government.

  • Optiminastic Media launches OTT production house 4Dots Production

    Optiminastic Media launches OTT production house 4Dots Production

    Mumbai: Digital marketing agency Optiminastic Media has launched 4Dots Production, a full-fledged OTT production house. The launch of 4Dots Production marks Optiminastic Media’s foray into the digital entertainment industry.  

    4Dots Production will work closely with OTT, digital and social media platforms to create interesting web shows for millennials across India and the world. “The production house aims to bridge the existing gaps in the current ecosystem with content that is immersive, unique, fresh and first of its kind thus creating newer opportunities and engagement techniques for brands and platform custodians,” said the statement. 

    4Dots will bring together some of the most talented, experienced and hands-on professionals from the entertainment space and aims to create an engaging concept-oriented project that targets the millennial consumer. For its maiden project, it has partnered with director Arbaaz Afzal, DOP Nawaraj Thapa, executive producer Ganesh Kharal, associate director Aradhya Mahashilkar, and writer Siddharth Goyel.

    Speaking on launching a specialist production house, Optiminastic Media founder Akshae Golekar said, “Over the last four years, Optiminastic Media has had an interesting journey dotted with many milestones across the internet marketing industry. The OTT sector in India and globally is filled with opportunities and keeping this in mind, and with the intent of becoming a significant part of this sector, we have launched 4Dots Production as a production house that will innovate, design and create shows specifically for OTT and digital platforms. There currently is a dearth of production houses that create such content and we believe that with the right partners by our side, we can bridge this gap. We have partnered with some of the industry’s most talented people and will work closely with them as we embark on this new journey.” 

  • Mankind Pharma launches Docflix, an OTT platform for doctors

    Mankind Pharma launches Docflix, an OTT platform for doctors

    Mumbai: The leading pharmaceutical company Mankind Pharma has announced the launch of Docflix, an OTT platform only for doctors. Along with building scientific content through the expert team of doctors, Mankind Pharma has also hired the National Institute of Design pass-outs team to ensure the best representation of data and figures, directors and scriptwriters who can weave science into a story to deliver the message in a fun and engaging way.

    With the launch of Docflix, the company is committed to bringing world-class content and technology to Indian doctors under the parent umbrella of Mankind Pharma. The new vertical will add to the commitment of the company to “serving life” and ensure to put knowledge first for Indian doctors.

    The platform will have twenty different shows on varied subjects, a few shows include Science simplified, Legend inside the white coat, Stitch in time, Cardio Unflip, Digital for doctors, Medico legal Cases in India and Vantage point.

    On the technology side, the team is building an AI-enabled personalized interface to deliver individual experiences on the platform. Technological innovations are aimed to deliver convenience to consume content.

    Leading expert doctors in cardiovascular space have already partnered with Mankind to build reliable and authentic content that helps doctors in taking clinical decisions faster and thereby aid in reducing cardiovascular mortality rate in the country, which have become the leading cause of mortality in India.

    There are several platforms for Doctors to deliver routine content, however, with changing times content delivery formats have become redundant and repetitive. Also, doctors have limited time in our country considering the large gap of doctor to patient ratio. Considering, this Mankind pharma is taking conscious steps to deliver engaging scientific content created by doctors specialised in their fields, in short, and video formats.

    Announcing the launch, Mankind Pharma senior president India business Sanjay Koul said, “We are happy to announce our launch in the Digital HCP engagement space with Docflix. It is a new age OTT platform with a wide range of scientific content tailored to various practice needs of Doctors. Design, Story and Convenience are three strong pillars of the platform that will deliver unique, authentic and reliable scientific content.”

    Mankind Pharma president of India speciality business Atish Majumdar said, “One of the greatest disruptions that the pandemic has caused is the way we, as humans, have perceived learning.”

    “Docflix is but a manifestation of Mankind’s understanding of the new definition of learning and is meant to be a platform that will not only present the best of medical science but also delve into the art behind the science. With Docflix, we at Mankind envision a new age global knowledge platform that will be a humble partner in the learning journey of all our doctors. The platform is launched by the newly set up digital team at Mankind under the guidance of head of digital Rinkesh Shah. The new team brings in a plethora of experience in the HCP engagement space and has overseen the growth of the doctor platforms space in India and Asia in the last decade. The team is uniquely equipped to deliver on the promise.”

    On this, Rinkesh Shah said, “It’s important that scientific content is simplified and made interesting for doctors to consume in a short time. The need for continuous education for doctors is very high and thus we at Mankind are committed to making this journey of doctors convenient and engaging. We aim to offer an uncompromised world-class quality experience with reliable scientific content from Indian and global experts and a platform enabled with the latest technology in the OTT space.”

     

  • Vidnet’22: Shining a light on the art of OTT filmmaking- What’s different?

    Vidnet’22: Shining a light on the art of OTT filmmaking- What’s different?

    Mumbai: The OTT sector in India has witnessed a massive surge in viewership during the pandemic era with a host of new players and paid subscribers tuning into the online streaming space. With manifold growth across metrics, the sector continues its bull run even post pandemic, even as the next growth wave is expected to come from tier II, III, and IV cities and regional language content.

    To discuss the role of OTT in influencing the content preferences in our country, Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair, and Dharma Cornerstone Agency COO and renowned film critic Rajeev Masand got together for a fireside chat on the ‘Art of Creating Diversified Content and Secret of Mastering Them’ at the Vidnet 2022 summit organised by IndianTelevision.com in Mumbai last month.

    Mumbai-based content studio Applause Entertainment led by CEO Sameer Nair has been betting big on the web series format since its inception in 2017. The company struck gold with several of its recent shows such as Hansal Mehta’s “Scam 1992,” Pankaj Tripathi-starrer “Criminal Justice,” “Hostages” to name a few on various OTT platforms. Nair acknowledges that in the last four to five years the single biggest revolution that has happened in the business of content is via the streaming platforms globally. “TV was always fundamentally limited by its nature- a linear medium with geographic and language boundaries and appointment viewing,” he says in response to Masand’s query of whether he sees OTTs replacing linear television in India ever.

    Nair goes on to say that these being early days for the OTT medium, every operator will go through its fair share of teething troubles trying to find their own business models. Along the way, there will be challenges on how to make content better, to improve storytelling and take our content to other markets and how budgets can be bettered.

    The biggest discovery or learning in the emerging medium has been in the writing. “If you can imagine it, then you can probably shoot it,” declares Nair. “Its not the star cast, it’s not a ‘big name’ director, it’s not a budget- the key lies in the writing. If it’s written well, chances are it may turn out well. After that everything falls into place.”

    The other thing about this business, Nair adds, is that it’s not ‘star-dependent.’ “We have done some 36 series so far and it’s primarily been a collection of ensemble cast,” Nair asserts.

    Referencing the massive hits and popular web shows delivered by the studio, Masand proceeds to ask Nair about “the process of knowing what’s worth pursuing”. While there’s no such “green light” moment, idea sources can be wide-ranging- from an original script or a book, or a foreign series or movie that they wish to adapt, Nair says. The journey from idea to screen, after a particular idea has been greenlighted is a process that takes time and effort, even before one starts filming.

    Expounding on the studio’s hit vehicle “Scam 1992,” Nair says, “From the moment we bought the book rights from Sucheta (Dalal) to the time the series released, it took three years in the making. And all through this period we were on board, we stayed the course, and that’s what is important- to take it across the line.”

    Over time, most platforms have developed their own particular character, when it came to content, noted Nair in response to a query from Masand on making platform-specific content. He added that when they first started out, it was only about making shows for the audiences and not about which streamer it should stream on. “We don’t have as much of a ‘platform-theory’ as trying to understand what genres to go after, where are programming trends headed and what are people watching more of.”

    Now, of course, we get lots of inputs from platforms themselves because they have so much data, insights and understanding, Nair continues. “I think a lot of this is connected to essentially, ‘social-signalling’,” noting that it’s important to have one’s ears to the ground.

    The other significant thing, Nair points out, is the scale at which you want to take an idea- whether it will be a big-budget show. That’s a decision which is full of risk in their business, considering the show is first created, produced and executed before finding a buyer platform for it. “So we have to be very sure and everything has to be planned in detail- the genre, the writing, the casting, the money we are going to be spending over it etc.”

    In that sense, we complement the platform’s services and aid in their pain point by taking over the complete production and directorial decisions pertaining to a show. This allows them to focus on other things to worry about like, gaining subscribers, increasing paid user base, marketing etc, he adds. The studio usually has a pipeline of 12 to 15 shows lined up in various stages of production, reveals Nair on the company’s plans to expand its content library of shows.

    The kind of content being produced and the price point are the chief issues, according to Nair. And then it depends upon how the entire market dynamics works. Deliberating on the recent Netflix stocks crash, Nair observes, “Using any one player, even if they are the leader, as the bell weather for how the entire industry works may not be the right way to do it. Because different businesses have different models of operation.” Larger players like Netflix and Amazon Prime, he says without naming the giant streamers, have very long investment horizons with long investment cycles and diversified businesses. So that becomes a very different dynamic, as compared to securing only streaming.

    On a macro level, the numbers can only increase hereon, as the OTT market continues to grow, Nair observes. Along the way, there is bound to be discovery of various operable models like ad-supported, subscriber-supported models or lower-end content or upper end content catering to every available market.

    On adapting books and shows, Nair says it makes business sense to adapt a good story. “The reason why great stories exist is because they have been retold. So what we do is re-visualise a good story and adapt it according to our cultural sensibilities, while staying true to the original plot.”

    “Measuring success on streamers is sketchy, one way to go would be to check if the platform is happy with the show’s outcome or performance,” says Nair. “We look at the social noise around it and the audiences are happy overall. Another critical way is the data insights provided by the streamer- they have a lot more information, on new subscribers added, drop-off points etc which give a better clue on a show’s performance.”

    “The way forward for the studio is working with debutantes or first-time filmmakers, we are also finding our way around this evolving landscape of the streaming business. For the industry in India, the language content will become more pan-Indian, and the audience for this content will grow. The onus is on us to make the most of this space,” Nair signs off.

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