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Tag: OTT

  • Tata Motors, dentsu Play targets premium subscribing OTT audiences

    Tata Motors, dentsu Play targets premium subscribing OTT audiences

    NEW DELHI: The rising trend of cord cutters and streaming surpassing cables, in many economies, has brought with it a new challenge for the advertising sector – that of reaching the audience behind the OTT paywall.

    With the changing audience behavior and a dramatic increment in over-the-top (OTT) subscriptions, the segment has emerged as one of the most engaging format for digital content consumption during the lockdown. OTT is no longer a niche but a mass market.

    In an effort to plan for activating OTT, audiences from premium platforms such as Netflix, dentsu Play partnered with WATConsult on Tata Motors. It has pioneered a unique solution to target premium, behind the paywall OTT audiences on platforms outside of the OTT through industry first integrations using first-party and second-party data partnerships.

    Earlier this year, in January 2020, Tata Motors launched its electric vehicle, ‘Nexon EV’, pioneering the EV segment in India. As a result, dentsu Programmatic’s unique solution delivered an astounding 3X higher CTR than regular display campaigns. It also achieved an 81 per cent higher qualified lead ratio and a deramatic improvement in leads. The ability to enrich OTT audiences beyond their native platforms has resulted in a dramatic success for the brand and proposition to the Industry.

    Tata Motors head – sales, marketing and customer care, electric vehicle business unit Ramesh Dorairajan said, “The great reset has highlighted several audience trends that will help us enhance our overall brand reach. The increase in OTT content consumption has transformed the way people consume content. This unique data-driven approach from dentsu Programmatic has opened up additional avenues for us to interact, particularly with the audience behind the paywall, while creating a phenomenal impact on our campaign performance as we pioneer an industry-first approach.”

    “With our industry first partnerships and integrations enabling insights from platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Zee5 and large players in the sector, coupled with our proprietary technology, dentsu Programmatic is proud to have unearthed a unique way to drive business success for clients wishing to target OTT audiences. Using Machine Learning at its core, coupled with intelligence from platforms such as Facebook and Google, we aspire to deliver many such industry leading solutions to common client challenges,” added dentsu international CEO, dentsu Programmatic and chief data officer (south Asia) Gautam Mehra

    Read more news on Tata Motors

    WATConsult CEO Heeru Dingra said, “As OTT platforms grow and evolve at an exponential rate, they seem to emerge as one of the key focus areas for brands as well as marketers. Therefore, dentsu Programmatic’s tool to effectively tap those audiences has efficiently helped us in actioning a campaign for our brand Tata Nexon EV. From targeting the right set of audiences to creating awareness about the brand and attaining the right amount of consideration, it delivered some remarkable results for the brand.”

  • Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    KOLKATA: Of all the challenges, piracy is one major issue that has been bothering the over-the-top ecosystem for a long time. Video piracy tends to eat a major chunk of streaming services’ revenue, advanced security integrations can help the platforms to curb the piracy threat.

    Indiantelevision.com in its next webinar in partnership with Synamedia will host a discussion on security challenges faced by OTT platforms and content owners and how leveraging solutions can reduce piracy and increase platforms’ revenues. The webinar is set to take place on 1 October at 4.00 pm.

    Read more news on OTT

    Some of the esteemed speakers include Synamedia intelligence and security operations vice president Avigail Gutman; ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra; SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma.

    The panelists will discuss different types of streaming piracy, how to employ a layered security approach using a strong conditional access and OTT security baseline along with other issues.

    Don’t forget to tune in to know more! Register here

  • How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    How OTT platforms stay innovative in a cluttered market

    KOLKATA: As OTT platforms are making all the necessary moves to keep the users hooked, these players are realising that innovation is the key mantra to achieve this objective. To keep up with the pace with which users are adapting to streaming services, most of the players in the ecosystem are scaling up their offerings. However, innovation is more of a continuous process rather than a revolutionary change.

    In a webinar hosted by Indiantelevision.com in association with Accedo and moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, experts from the industry shared strategies and experiences around innovations.

    Hoichoi technology lead Aloke Majumder stated innovation is what should drive the OTT platforms. Innovation not only shapes the product but also strengthens the relationship with users. According to him, the platforms need to stay inspired by the users, other brands, all the current happenings in product offerings for the breakthrough. The largest Bengali platform has been adding new features in recent times including parental control. It is currently working around encoding to have seamless delivery of the videos even with low latency.

    Balaji Telefilm’s digital venture is also looking at a robust product offering. ALTBalaji chief technology officer Shahabuddin Sheikh said that the platform is highly focusing on metadata. “It’s a mix of both the worlds in terms of using technology and manual interventions where we can have more enriched metadata in terms of characters, keyframes, emotions which can be tagged and which is fed into the system. While the user is watching or viewing content, it can be liked back to his experiences and accordingly help to plan or program the content for him,” he added. Using experiences, the platform is also bringing other small changes like adding markers where users can identify content genres.

    "Epic On has done a couple of upgradations which are paying the platform good dividend now, " said Epic On chief operating officer Sourjya Mohanty. The platform has attempted to bring a multi-format experience by accumulating video, e-books, games, podcasts which has resulted into a good surge in mobile engagement. It is also factoring in the current situation while bringing new experiences. As more people are inclining towards smart TVs to enjoy in-home cinema experiences, the platform has brought few changes on that front which have yielded positive feedback yet, Mohanty said.

    However, innovations always don’t turn out to be fantastic if user need is not understood properly. Arre GM technology Rohit Bapat spoke of such an experience. While they ran a web series with an option to allow users to click on a specific character to provide information on that individual, they did not see any traction. Down the line, they had to take off the feature. Bapat acknowledged that it would have been more effective for events like sports tournaments where users would be keen to get match statistics.

    Like other players, fitness app Simple Soulful is also innovating user experience but more often as it has to deal with real-time issues. screen SSK Osmosis product head Soumik Solanki shared some examples. According to a users’ need, it is customising rest time feature during exercises. For users who don’t are already accustomed with various workouts and don’t want to watch the entire video, the app has come up with a complete programme list for that segment. It is also using a 360-degree camera view to help users exercise with correct postures.

    Accedo innovation director Niklas Bjorken agreed to the other panelists that innovation is key to a brand’s relevancy in the moving world. According to him, knowing users properly, adapting to new user behaviours, embracing technology, learnings from other services should drive the changes. 

  • ALTBalaji seeing rapid uptake in tier II & III cities during post-Covid period

    ALTBalaji seeing rapid uptake in tier II & III cities during post-Covid period

    KOLKATA: Going beyond the initial metro syndrome, over-the-top (OTT) platforms in India are seeing massive adoption in tier II, tier III cities, and even in rural areas. The massification is happening faster than it was predicted courtesy to content in Indian languages, better bandwidth, easier payment options. Meanwhile, homegrown platforms are becoming more relevant in the game.

    Unlike many other platforms, which had to tweak their content strategy, pricing models to attract the new section of OTT users, ALTBalaji has always focused on mass India. The strategy is reaping good results as the platform is seeing a rapid uptake of the platform in tier II and tier III cities post-Covid period.

    “As India is a price-sensitive market, we think consumers from tier II and tier III cities will need a very affordable price proposition and therefore our focus is on converting these first-time samplers into avid subscribers of premium content on the platform. ALTBalaji with its less than a rupee a day pricing has been successfully meeting this challenge and it is one of the lowest-priced video streaming players in the market, this has allowed us to quickly penetrate and grow our reach,” ALTBalaji management said in an earnings call after q1 results. 

    “Viewers spend an average of 60 minutes and 90 minutes per week in metros and non-metro markets respectively, the highest in its category in 2019, this trend continues in quarter one FY2021,” it added. According to a report from RedSeer Consulting, the OTT consumption to see 80 per cent share from tier I, tier III cities and rural areas by 2022.

    While ALTBalaji has recently made a strategic investment in fan connect platform Tring, one of the main reasons lies in the fact that the latter also wants to target tier II, tier III cities. “The synergies for this are the fact that both of us are in the area of getting onscreen talent and more importantly both Tring as well as Balaji want to target Tier II and Tier III cities of India. So, I think that is the synergy, it is kind of a talent representation business and we work with talent and so does Tring,” the management commented.

    At the beginning of the lockdown, the platform’s subscriber addition zoomed to 14000-15000 per day. However, due to lack in fresh content and the initial phases of unlock,  the number has come down to 10000 per day which is at per with pre-Covid period. However, the platform currently has 1.5 million active user base with a churn rate of 66 per cent.

  • Amazon Prime Video makes Mirzapur Season 1 available for free

    Amazon Prime Video makes Mirzapur Season 1 available for free

    KOLKATA: As the release date for the most-anticipated season two of Mirzapur fast approaches, the excitement for the show is increasing every single day. So much so that the team of Amazon Prime Video is all set to give die-hard fans like us the full first season at no cost! With Season 1 of the show streaming on the platform, Amazon Prime Video has now uploaded the entire first season on their official YouTube channel to gear up the audience up ahead of the second season hitting the platform.

    In a nutshell, Mirzapur is the story of Kaleen Bhaiyya, the King Of Mirzapur vs the Pandit Brothers, Guddu and Bablu.  What initially begins as a battle for power, leading to the throne of Mirzapur, eventually shapes the destiny of the city, influencing its business and its politics. While season 2 of Mirzapur is all set to premiere on 23 October, fans can binge-watch Season 1 and enjoy the world of Mirzapur while they wait for the second season to drop!  

    Fascinating viewers in a terrific first season, the show featured Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Vikrant Massey, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Shweta Tripathi, Rasika Duggal and Kulbhushan Kharbandha in the lead. While Tripathi stole the show essaying the role of Kaleen Bhaiyya, the King Of Mirzapur, Ali Fazal and Vikrant Massey packed a punch as Guddu and Bablu Pandit – the wannabe gangsters. Shriya played the love interest of Ali and Shweta, as Golu, was seen as a studious girl entering into college politics. Rasika Duggal played the role of Beena – Kaleen Bhaiyya’s wife and Kulbhushan Kharbanda played Kaleen Bhaiyya’s father, a don of his era. Joining them in Season 2 are Vijay Varma, Priyanshu Painyuli, Isha Talwar, Amit Sial, Anjum Sharma.

    With all eyes firmly fixed on what happens next on the show, the makers have kept everyone’s curiosity high by not revealing much about the story. Produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani under their banner Excel Media and Entertainment, the second season of Mirzapur will premiere on 23 October on Amazon Prime Video.

  • Why OTT platforms focus on user feedback

    Why OTT platforms focus on user feedback

    KOLKATA: As the over-the-top ecosystem turns more cluttered and competitive, the platforms are gearing up to retain users. Along with building a robust content slate, all the streaming services are also ensuring seamless viewing experience for the users. To build a good product, these players are focusing on multiple aspects including easy sign up to smart recommendations, and hyper personalisation. For all of these players, the user feedback holds an important position in the development of a sound UI/UX strategy.  

    In a webinar hosted by Indiantelevision.com in association with Accedo and moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari , experts from the industry discussed about what UX strategy one should adapt to stay relevant and create a differentiation in the market.

    Epic On chief operating officer Sourjya Mohanty said the platform gives high importance to customer listening across the cities, across cohorts of age groups to understand what kind of technical changes are needed to be done on front end and back end. According to him, these constant improvisations have helped them to hit 3x-4x DAU compared to pre-Covid period.

    Read more news on OTT

    Arre GM technology Rohit Bapat highlighted how one bad experience can lead to losing users. “Over the past couple of years, internet access has become very easy for consumers. People are coming from lowest end devices to users accessing the internet from fancy phones or laptops, all these people are essentially consumers. The market is very crowded which means a combination of easy access to internet and a lot of available applications with consumers having very less patience. So, all it is going to take is one bad experience from your platform for the consumers to take off and perhaps switch to a competitor,” he added.

    According to him, most of the players approach UI from a human interaction perspective. Even if an interface might tick all the boxes of what makes great UI or UX, it may not be necessarily geared towards understanding the user journey on the website. He added that the exercise of trying to understand the target audience and what attention paths they could take is a good way to figure out how you want to build your app. But for existing apps, the right way to improve is benchmarking the current state of the app, mapping user journey, and tracing the blind spots.

    ALTBalaji chief technology officer Shahabuddin Sheikh agreed that there should be an empathy towards users while designing UX. He added that hyper personalisation is important. As he shared, when a user samples an episode for the first time on the platform, the user does not experience any intervention. “What user is looking for hyper personalisation where he can look for a content piece programmed for him in the easiest way. We capture a lot of data of user behaviours while they interact on the app. Accordingly, content can be personalized for them,” he added.

    Moreover, he is of the view that a user has to feel the worth of his money as ALTBalaji runs on SVoD model. “We have to program content in such a way through a recommendation engine that he gets most of the relevant content and it is served in the best buffer-free environment,” he noted.

    Arre’s Bapat said that they are in the process of mapping the site, figuring out which areas people tend to take off from. They have made simple changes like having a single sign up for the potential user, how content is being shown on the web page. However, he reminded that the changes should be slow and gradual because an entirely new UI may increase churn on the app.

    While the journey of upgrading product is continuous, the Bengali OTT platform Hoichoi has recently come up with a new prototype. Hoichoi technology lead Aloke Majumder said that they are going to develop it very soon. According to him, details like layout, thumbnail makes a huge difference. But the key to a good experience is to follow the user, Majumdar opined.

    However, along with regular user feedback, in-depth research should be looked at as a very important element to understand consumers, Accedo APAC UX and design director Nikki Perugini added. She noted that the industry is not looking at a purely VoD future. Hence, linear virtual channels could emerge in the future. While some of the panellists agreed to her, SSK Osmosis Pvt. Ltd. product head Somuik Solanki countered that linear steaming does not work for health and fitness apps. 

  • How Netflix is scripting India story?

    How Netflix is scripting India story?

    KOLKATA: This is an age of binge-watchers and Netflix is yet the undisputed king of the new era. Taking off with House of Cards to luring the audience to their screens with La Casa De Papel (Money Heist), the streaming giant has re-written the script of media and entertainment industry across the world. Once a US unicorn, it is now changing the reality of the industry across the world now. India indeed remains at the heart of its international expansion.

    As Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos says, “It's hard to say, how it (Indian market) could be more important. We have said from the beginning that India is a critical market in the world for us.” In a candid conversation with Film Companion editor Anupama Chopra at ET Global Business Summit Unwired 3.0, Sarandos shares insights on how Indian content is travelling outside the world, Indians are adopting global content and how the streaming giant itself is building up its understanding of the market gradually.

    Sarandos highlights that the Indian market is important not only for Netflix but for the global M&E industry. While it has been always adored for great storytelling and great cinema, the appetite for great TV content is also increasing. He says that they are very heavily invested in bringing out original stories from India. “But more importantly, we are not just growing it for India. We will grow these stories to be for the global platform so that people around the world are enjoying these stories,” he adds.

    Read more news on Netflix

    According to him, the Indian stories are travelling everywhere. Netflix’s first marquee content in India, Sacred Games played in every major market throughout Europe and Latin America. Mighty Little Bheem is now the most-watched non-English animated series in the US. On the other side, the reciprocal is true too as Indian subscribers are watching content from Spain, Korea, Japan at large scale. While the Indian stories are travelling globally, Sarandos mentions that the platform is mindful of local sensitivities.

    “It’s a very dynamic place. One of the things that I miss most since these travel restrictions of Covid2019 have been implemented is my opportunities to come to India. It's one of the most fascinating fast-moving dynamic places in the world. The energy on the ground is just you can feel it in your bones when you walk down the street,” Sarandos expresses his love for the market.

    The man who decides what the world will watch is fascinated with the consumption pattern of the Indian audiences. He is surprised by the way the Indian audience has embraced Roma and the overall diversity, breadth of programming. In the last year, more than 80 per cent of Indian subscribers have seen a film every week on Netflix.

    However, the streaming giant’s original movie slate in India is not qualitatively consistent compared to the global market. Sarandos thinks the inconsistency is due to the trial and error method as it has not been very long since when the platform has started building its Indian content library. He reassures that there will be constant improvement. “We're becoming much more ingrained in the creative culture of India,” he states.

    Streaming has been one of the very few businesses across the world which has not been crushed by Covid2019. More and more people have resorted to good stories. While the streaming services have been able to entertain the audience with fresh stories yet, the long pause in the shooting has been one of the main concerns of those platforms. Netflix is not an exception.

    Sarandos acknowledges that getting back to production safely tops the priority list to resist any interruption in the story. While it has been particularly challenging in India, it is also seeing very encouraging signs with more than 10 originals scheduled to be back for production in November. 

  • MIB expresses dissatisfaction with IAMAI’s self-regulatory model for OTT platforms

    MIB expresses dissatisfaction with IAMAI’s self-regulatory model for OTT platforms

    KOLKATA: While all the major OTT players have agreed to come under the ambit of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)’s self-regulation guidelines recently, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has expressed its dissatisfaction with the model.

    Earlier this month, IAMAI unveiled the ‘Universal Self-Regulation Code’ for Online Curated Content Providers (OCCPs) in India. The first set of signatories included Zee5, Viacom 18, Disney+Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, MX Player, Jio Cinema, Eros Now, Alt Balaji, Arre, HoiChoi, Hungama, Shemaroo, Discovery Plus, Flickstree. Later, Lionsgate play and SonyLIV also came on board. 

    According to media reports, IAMAI has been informed of the disapproval of MIB in a letter from the ministry. MIB has asked the organisation to look at other self-regulatory models. Previously, IAMAI had written to the ministry for its guidance and support in implementing the self-regulatory code. 

    “The proposed self-regulatory mechanism lacks independent third-party monitoring, does not have a well-defined Code of Ethics, does not clearly enunciate prohibited content, and at the second and third-tier level there is an issue of conflict of interest,” the ministry stated in the letter.

    MIB has also observed that the model does not classify prohibited content.  Moreover, the second tier advisory panel is constituted by OCCP itself rather than having an independent oraginsation.    

    IAMAI has also been advised to look at the structures of the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) and News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) as guiding principles.

  • Industry experts to discuss how to differentiate and innovate OTT experience

    Industry experts to discuss how to differentiate and innovate OTT experience

    KOLKATA: The over-the-top (OTT) platforms across the world are developing robust content slate for viewers to keep them glued to the platforms. But what is more important to retain consumers is a seamless viewing experience.

    Indaintelevision.com in its next webinar in partnership with Accedo will host a discussion on how to differentiate and innovate OTT experience in the competitive landscape on 24 September at 12.00 pm.

    Some of the esteemed speakers include Accedo solution director Angus Kirkwood; Accedo UX & design director APAC Nikki Perugini; Accedo innovations director Niklas Bjorken; ALTBalaji CTO Shahabuddin Sheikh; SSK OSMOSIS PVT. LTD. product head Soumik Solanki; and EPIC ON COO Sourjya Mohanty.

    The panelists will discuss how to build a human-centered approach for product decisions, why innovation is important to differentiate the service, the considerable variables for platform strategy along with other related topics.

    Don’t forget to tune in to know more!

  • Tata Sky Binge+ becomes available at lower price

    Tata Sky Binge+ becomes available at lower price

    KOLKATA: Keeping customer interests at the forefront, Tata Sky has further fine-tuned the pricing of its android TV-powered smart set top box, Tata Sky Binge+. Converging the strengths of DTH and the world of OTT content together on the television screens, this new age device will now be available at a competitive price of Rs 2,999 for new subscribers and Rs 2,499 for existing subscribers opting for an upgrade or a secondary Multi TV connection.

    Tata Sky Binge+ set top box comes with six-months access at no extra cost to premium content from eight OTT apps as part of the Tata Sky Binge subscription including Disney+ Hotstar Premium, ZEE5, VOOT Select, VOOT Kids, SunNxt, Hungama Play, Eros Now and ShemarooMe. Additionally, three-months of Amazon Prime subscription is also provided at no extra cost.

    Speaking on this offer, Tata Sky chief commercial and content officer Pallavi Puri said, “Content consumption is witnessing trends where people want to consume linear TV as well as OTT content on one integrated platform. Tata Sky Binge+ is powered by Android TV, supports Google Assistant-based voice search, offers Google Play Store access, and offers six months subscription to some of the most-viewed premium OTT apps at no extra cost, making it an ideal destination for content viewing. We’ve seen a positive uptake in subscriptions in the past few months. With the festive season around the corner, we have decided to further delight the customer by offering the Tata Sky Binge+ Smart set top box connection and apps bundle at a really exciting price point.” 

    New pricing has gone live from 18 September across all channels of purchase for new and existing subscribers.