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Tag: OTT

  • Good stories are language-agnostic: MX Player’s Gautam Talwar

    Good stories are language-agnostic: MX Player’s Gautam Talwar

    MUMBAI: Move over English, it's time for regional languages now. It's 2020 and streaming services are looking at regional being the trend for the coming era. Most OTT platforms have now tested the waters and have enough data to back up their claims as well.

    MX Player’s Queen recently hogged the attention of streamers and the content ecosystem. The Tamil-English web-series’ has been recognised across different languages as it has been dubbed in Hindi, Bengali and Telugu.

    MX Player has a “clear regional strategy” where regional is not regional anymore. “We see the uptake of good stories is being language-agnostic,” MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar told Indiantelevision.com during a short candid conversation.

    Talwar terms it as the biggest web-series till date in Tamil Nadu market and adds that the series has benefitted the platform very well. User numbers have gone up as well and Queen was watched across age groups.

    A big show is coming up on the platform in Marathi starring Swapnil Joshi, Satish Rajwade along with two other big shows in the pipeline. There are two shows in Bhojpuri which Talwar believes will get extraordinary viewership if dubbed in other languages. The platform is also looking at a show in Gujarati, one in Telugu, a Punjabi show and a Tamil-Kannada bilingual show.

    Being in the market for nearly one year, there's a whole host of data has come its way on originals, current partnerships with networks, as well as partnerships with other web series creator, like TVF, Pocket Aces and Dice. The platform has been analysing the data to understand which shows work, who is the new audience and what have they been watching. According, MX Player is fine-tuning the content strategy in 2020. 

    Having said that, the focus will still be on the Hindi heartland. These will be small-town stories that can connect with tier II and III audiences. The platform will also have a couple of shows for the top eight metros and a cluster of 29 towns. It also aims to maintain a healthy mix between universal shows and shows targeted at specific audience clusters.

    “We did a very successful non-fiction show Love Ok Please collaborating with Too Yumm. Going forward, we are looking at key integration for brands. You will be seeing another big non-fiction show coming up called Times and Music, which is going to have a very serious brand integration as well,” he adds.

    Notably, MX Player is going to be experimenting with interactivity of content. An upcoming show will involve audience interaction with the story itself. Plans are afoot to make it a norm across shows. 

  • The top shows on AVOD services

    The top shows on AVOD services

    MUMBAI: It’s been raining premium originals on streaming services such as ZEE5, Hotstar, Netflix, Hoichoi, Arre, ALTBalaji and MX Player. The genres have been varied, but what makes the shows stand out is the quality of storytelling, production values, and casting. The good ones have a cinematic quality about them. Some of them hide behind pay walls and some are on free services, dependent on advertising. But there’s no doubt they are generating buzz amongst subscribers and viewers – some more than the other.

    What’s also working well on a handful of broadcaster-linked streaming services is the catch-up shows which either debut on their OTTs or on television. Some of these get larger audiences and watch times than do the premium originals made for OTT.

    They also serve to bring viewers back almost daily to watch the release of new episodes or catch up with the ones they have missed. Most of the top notch premium originals are on SVOD services, which release data when they want to.

    Choosing the most popular ones without any metrics or data to rely on is therefore  a challenge. However, we at indiantelevision.com took a shot at drawing up a list of shows on advertising video on demand (AVoD) platforms that we think made an impression and were a favourite amongst the OTT-bingers.

    The list is not definitive, is in random order, and it is subjective without any malice intended towards those who do not feature in it. Read on to find out.

    Kumkum Bhagya :

    Kumkum Bhagya is a ZEE TV drama series about a star-crossed couple Abhi and Pragya, who are now separated. Ranbeer falls in love with their daughter Prachi, while their other daughter Rhea vies for his attention. The show with a very high BARC rating has been running for the past five years on television, but it attracts viewers on Zee TV’s ZEE5 service as well.

    Thinkistan:

    Made by Rajnish Lall of Jigsaw Pictures, it is the story of the Indian advertising world in an era when the industry was just beginning to stand out. Created and written by Paddy, set in an ad agency in the 1990s, it chronicles the journey of two advertising professionals in an entertaining manner. It also touches upon one of the most prevalent problems which was deep-rooted in the industry – inherent bias against languages other than English. India’s answer to Mad Men has already launched its second season too.

    Kundali Bhagya:

    Kundali Bhagya is a ZEE TV drama television series starring Shraddha Arya, Dheeraj Dhoopar and Manjit Joura. The story revolves around the two sisters of Pragya, from Kumkum Bhagya. Her sisters are Preeta and Shrishti who discover the existence of their mother Sarla and sister Pragya, after their father’s death. The sisters try to unite with their mother and sister.

    Big Boss:

    The saga of friendship, betrayal, love, bonding, feud, laugher, tears in a house full of celebrities – the formula to keep the audience glued to a show even in its thirteenth edition. Big Boss changed the meaning of reality shows in the country since its first season. The star-studded contestant list, and the association of Salman Khan with the show for more than a decade have favoured it to sustain the excitement, engagement among its fans. While the 100-day reality show is being aired on Colors, it gets millions of viewers on Viacom18’s digital arm VOOT as well.  

    Sembaruthi:

    Sembaruthi is a ZEE Tamil romantic drama TV series about circumstances that force Parvathy and Aditya, the son of an affluent woman, Akhilandeshwari, to get married secretly. But will the shrewd Akhilandeshwari, who has high hopes for her son, learn their secret? If you are not able to watch it on TV, you can definitely go to ZEE5 to find the answer.

    Queen:

    The MX Player original Queen has really ruled the web-entertainment space after it was launched in December. Shakti Seshadri, the central character of the web-series, bears strong resemblances to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. In the course of portraying a majestic political leader, the narrative does not glorify the character. The realistic emotional tonality of the story makes viewers connect to it. Along with a strong storyline, Queen offers a brilliant screenplay to from its  writers.

    Fuh se Fantasy:

    Fuh se Fantasy , the VOOT original is about the delight in modern relationships that dare to explore their deepest, quirkiest and most exciting desires. The 10-episode series which started streaming on VOOT last year features popular faces such as Karan Wahi, Plabita Borthakur,Naveen Kasturia, Anshuman Malhotra , Gaurav Pandey and Anupriya Goenka. The millennial audience will certainly connect to the anthology as it takes a look at the tabooed and unsaid desires.

    Feet up with the Stars:

    You may like to peep into the lives of your favourite celebrity but all the quintessential interviews make you wane. VOOT has a brilliant alternative, Feet up with the Stars  – a chat show which has caught word of mouth for its intimate and personal conversation. The celebrities here talk more about themselves in a personal and cosy set up rather than taking a dig on others in the B-town. After its first season cut through the clutter of chat shows, the one of its kind chat show came back with the second season last year.

    Agga Bai Sasubai:

    Agga Bai Sasubai on ZEE Marathi tells the story of the loving bond Asawari shares with her daughter-in-law, Shubhra. The women stick together during good times and bad and help each other face the challenges life throws at them. A refreshing and unique take on saas-bahu relationships is also available anytime anywhere on ZEE5.

    Rani Rashmoni:

    Rani Rashmoni is a Bengali television period drama series starring Ditipriya Roy in the lead. The show on Zee Bangla revolves around the life and struggle of Rani Rashmoni, widow of Babu Rajachandra Das of Janbazar, Kolkata. She took charge of the zamindari and business, after her husband's death and proved herself as an effective leader. The show has created a buzz in the Bengali market and has become a part of daily routine in many Bengali households.  If you are keen to look back at the life of a fierce lady of the colonial era, it can be watched on ZEE5 as well.

    Kalyana Vaibhogam:

    Kalyana Vaibhogam is a ZEE Telugu drama television series that also lures viewers to ZEE5 platform too. The Suryadevara Family is cursed and the first wife of all their first sons are bound to be chomped by the jaws of death. While Nithya and Jai, the current heir of the family, fall in love, Nithya’s mother is aware of the curse and replaces her daughter with a lookalike, Manga, an innocent village girl. How things fall in place between Jai, Manga and Nithya forms the crux of the story.

    Hello Mini:

    Someone has been watching, following every move of a girl living alone in Mumbai. Does it sound terrifying? MX Player’s thriller drama series Hello Mini revolves around her life. The protagonist Rivanah Bannerjee who moved from Kolkata to Mumbai seems to have everything at the place in the beginning – a good job, loving boyfriend but as the story goes on her life also goes topsy-turvy. The mystery around the stalker, however, prevails throughout the series making it binge-worthy.

    Gattimela:

    Gattimela is a drama television series on ZEE Kannada starring Sudha Narasimharaju, Rakshith Gowda and others. The story revolves around Vedanth and Amulya, 2 people with contradicting personalities, who are constantly at loggerheads whenever they meet. Whether both of them will turn their sour relationship into a loving one forms the rest of the story. The local users love sampling the show on ZEE5 also. 

  • Solo video viewers on the rise in India: Ampere Analysis research

    Solo video viewers on the rise in India: Ampere Analysis research

    MUMBAI: Going solo! That’s something Indian streaming services have been working hard to get viewers to do with their video apps – especially in a mobile-first country like India.

    Apparently, it seems to be working, according to a new research report put out by UK research firm Ampere Analysis, late last month.

    It stated that 15 per cent of viewers in India went in for solo viewing of video content in Q3 2019-2020 as against 10 per cent in Q1. While 50 per cent growth in two quarters will have the streaming service heads grinning in glees, the Indian consumer has some way to go before reaching the high solo viewing habits of those in Europen markets.

    In Sweden, for instance 45 per cent of internet users watched video and TV alone in Q3 2019, up from a little over 40 per cent in Q1; in Denmark, the figure went up to 35 per cent in Q3 2019 from 30 per cent in Q1-2019. The Netherlands had a smarter jump growing from 25 per cent in Q1 to 35 per cent in Q3. The UK shares similar numbers.

    The research revealed that solo viewing is high in markets where OTT usage is high clearly indicating that video on demand content is driving this behaviour. Research also showed that these viewers believe that family viewing is no longer important.

    This trend will only gather momentum as existing leaders like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and new streamers like Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max, and other country players like Hotstar, Zee5, Voot, SonyLiv aggressively roll out and push their offerings globally and localise content.

    The trend must specially give some satisfaction to Star India and Disney APAC big boss Uday Shankar. It was in 2015 that the network had launched its Hotstar  “Go Solo” campaign.

    “We were talking to young Indians, who prize individuality and non-conformity. Those who weren’t satisfied with the traditional viewing in India, sitting around a living room TV set, watching a channel that someone else had chosen,” the network says.

    “She is always on top of news and opinion articles, yet I have never seen her hold a physical newspaper,” Uday is quoted as saying on the Star website, referring to the young women in India who are changing how they consume media. "Her daily dose comes exclusively from the digital universe. She is a voracious consumer of movies and drama; yet goes to theatres more for fun than for creative consumption. Fixed schedule programming sounds as bizarre to her as silent movies to us.”

    With Disney announcing the launch of Disney+ as a tab on Hotstar by March 2020, this solo viewing trend can only head further northwards.

  • ZEE5 India improves customer engagement with Appier partnership

    ZEE5 India improves customer engagement with Appier partnership

    MUMBAI:  ZEE5 India today announces that in partnership with leading artificial intelligence (AI) company Appier, it has significantly improved its customer engagement- including a 3x jump in click-through rates and video sampling- through effective use of AI to uncover critical insights about its viewers.

     ZEE5 India launched in 2018 and as of December 2019, records more than 11.4 million peak daily users. As the audience grows, ZEE5 India is committed to understanding viewers at an individual level so it can hyper-personalize the most relevant content at the right time. This requires leveraging viewer data using AI to understand where people are in the customer lifecycle and how they consume content. With these insights, ZEE5 India defines and deploys a strategic mix of communication channels, content and consumption timeframes to ensure high acquisition, viewership, and retention rates.

     ZEE5 India implemented AIQUA, an AI-powered proactive customer engagement solution from Appier that allows marketers to drive engagement across all devices and channels. Using AIQUA, Appier helped ZEE5 India streamline data sources to ensure relevant customer engagement.

     “At ZEE5 India, we are committed to excellence when it comes to both our product and customer service, and we are always looking for partners with disruptive technology to help us achieve this,” ZEE5 India customer lifecycle management head Vani Dixit said. “To engage with and stay relevant to our customers, we need to leverage data efficiently using AI to better understand and reach them at times when they are most likely to take action. With Appier we reimagined how we make consumers’ content viewing experience hyper-personalized. As India’s largest producer of original content, it is our endeavor to make the consumer’s journey on to the ZEE5 platform intuitive and provide them with a seamless content viewing experience.”

    With AIQUA, ZEE5 India has increased the number of specific customer segments by 10 times- from just a few hundred to thousands- allowing for the most highly personalized content delivery. AIQUA also allows for quick development and adjustment of campaigns to meet the immediate and specific needs of viewers. ZEE5 India has increased the number of campaigns it runs through AIQUA by 2000 per cent since March 2019, running several hundred campaigns daily

    “Working with ZEE5 India has led to an excellent partnership, and we appreciate that the ZEE5 team has been so open with us about both their challenges and vision for success,” said Michelle Wong, Appier enterprise sales senior Vice President. “We look forward to continuing to support ZEE5’s growth through marketing excellence, and to helping them apply Appier’s AI solutions in the most effective ways to drive their business forward.”
     
    Appier and ZEE5 India continue to work together, maintaining the focus on attracting and retaining customers via customized outreach, leading to long-term, meaningful relationships with viewers.

  • Apple TV recruits Netflix engineer to enhance subscription services

    Apple TV recruits Netflix engineer to enhance subscription services

    MUMBAI: Apple has hired one of Netflix’s top engineers Ruslan Meshenberg. He joined the technical team working for the company’s newly launched TV-streaming and subscription services. Ruslan Meshenberg was responsible for building Netflix’s platform, especially creating a speedier and consistent service for audiences. He helped build out a smoother platform with higher latency.

    According to reports, Michael Abbott, a former engineer with twitter who joined Apple last year is recruiting experienced engineers for Apple’s technical team. With Apple’s services expanding in recent times higher revenue generation, its decision to strengthen the technical department is no surprise.

    Meshenberg joins Apple at the time when it is expanding its $4.99-a-month TV+ service, bringing in additional movies and originals. This comes out as a complex move that has tripped up other competitors in the streaming world.

    Apple seems to have learned its lesson from Disney’s streaming platform Disney + who had a failed launch with subscribers not being able to login due to technical issues.

    In the past couple of years, Apple has struggled to keep up with its technology rivals in terms of its performance and newly launched services like iCloud, Maps and its music-streaming business. For example, its subscription-based magazine service; News+ faced heavy criticism from analysts and reviewers for its default sync system.

    However, Apple TV+ has not faced any major issues since its launch. Meshenberg has the expertise to help address the company’s technical challenges. While being at Netflix, he managed to run most of the infrastructure enabling to increase the streaming with more than one billion hours of weekly programming.

    Moreover, Apple TV+ which started in November with few shows in its kitty is now prepping up to add a bundle of TV movies and shows to its bucket and tapping the international market. It will help Apple to compete against streaming giants including Netflix, HBO, Amazon and Disney.

    This kind of talent acquisition is certainly helpful for strengthening the end-user experience, which is beneficial for consumers who are paying hefty amounts to enjoy a better quality product.

  • Regional to prevail as 2020 buzzword for OTT

    Regional to prevail as 2020 buzzword for OTT

    MUMBAI: All major streaming services in India are keeping regional markets at the heart of their expansion strategy. In the last two years, regional has persistently guided the contenders in the over-the-top (OTT) ecosystem and 2020 is not going to be an exception. Some of the major platforms have already tasted success in the regional markets while others are looking at those markets as the next growth frontier. South Indian languages are undoubtedly the ones getting higher priority but other markets like Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi are also emerging gradually.

    Since its grand entry in the crowded OTT space, ZEE5 has emphasised on three ‘Vs , one of those is vernacular. In 2019, ZEE5 had at least one original web series come out in six different languages each month on an average in regional languages including Marathi, Bengali, Telugu and Tamil. The parent company also mentioned in its third quarter result – Kaale Dhande in Marathi, God of Dharmapuri in Telugu and Karoline Kamakshi in Tamil received positive reviews.

    ZEE5 India programming head Aparna Acharekar also explained while talking about the regional strategy that it definitely differs across the markets. Factors like penetration of data or adoption of OTT services, that particular language consumer’s affinities for his language, openness to other languages, etc., influence the strategy widely.

    “I cannot have a one size fit approach for everyone. I am looking at the show that has to cut across say largely Hindi speaking audiences, then my themes will be different because they are exposed to a whole lot of that. Today other competition also, who has entered the OTT space, is largely first creating Hindi content. So whatever I create as a benchmark starts getting compared in Hindi to another benchmark created by another OTT. But we are leaders in other languages and no one has actually come closer, the smaller players have tried little, local players are there. But there is no national-level player who can say let me try to take on the regional market. So, each market has to be looked at differently,” she added.

    Moreover, ZEE5 provides an option to change the display language of the app. If a consumer is not comfortable navigating in English, he can change the display language to Hindi or other regional languages. The platform has seen an uptake in that alternative display adaptation. “In fact with every passing month, we see more uptake of this and we see the relative share of English as a display language is going down and regional language is actually going up,” Aparna said in an earlier interview.

    The young player on the block which already has created a buzz with its Hindi shows, MX Player also has “a very clear regional strategy”. MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar stated that a big show is coming up in Marathi including big names Swapnil Joshi, Satish Rajwade along with two other big shows in pipeline. The platform is focusing highly on south-Indian languages, as Talwar shared.

    “We have some shows in Punjabi, which are in the pipeline. And we have two interesting shows in Bhojpuri coming up. I am so sure that if these two shows are so interesting that if we dub them in other languages, we will get the extraordinary viewership in other regional languages as well. Regional is a big strategy for us moving forward,” Talwar added.

    As per a recent report unveiled by Hotstar, 63 per cent of total online entertainment consumption happens in the non-metro centres of India, and Lucknow, Pune and Patna rank above Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata in consumption of content. YouTube also reported over 95 of its users watched videos in a regional language.

    Other than home-grown players, international streaming services that are keen on Indian expansion are also looking at regional content. According to media reports, a robust content licensing both in Hindi and other regional languages is in Netflix’s pipeline. Amazon Prime Video has a robust catalogue of blockbuster movies across languages. Amazon Prime Video India content director and head Vijay Subramaniam said that the platform will ramp up its language catalogue in Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati and Punjabi while they want to take up Tamil, Telugu further a few notches. While it tasted the water with one Telugu show, he added that Tamil and Telugu shows are in development.

    Smaller players like The Viral Fever (TVF) are not ignoring the promising sector. “We are actually looking at regional shows in 2020. We are working on Marathi shows. We want to line up shows in Tamil and Telugu. In 2020, we will get into regional space and we will later expand into other languages,” TVF chief content officer Sameer Saxena commented.

  • Millennials seek local and purpose-driven content on TV and OTT

    Millennials seek local and purpose-driven content on TV and OTT

    MUMBAI: Seventy-one per cent of youth in our country are inspired by content. The number has moved from 58.4 per cent in 2016 to 71 per cent in 2018, revealed a new study by MTV Insights Studios ‘Mera Bharat Amazeballs’. Millennials are digital natives and they seek content beyond the confines of traditional TV. So what kind of content do they like? Which are the platforms they prefer to consume content and how is it helping the youth to overcome the challenges in their lives?

    Whether its Bhuvan Bam’s roleplay, Ashish Chanchlani’s gyan or Jose Covaco’s parenting on social media platforms, or the rise of thoughtful entertainment like Pad Man, Toilet, Dangal, Mary Kom and other movies or even dozens of stand-up comedy specials available on different platforms, there is an upsurge of local/Indian digital content being consumed by the youth. The report informed that there is more diversity than ever within digital content.

    The study revealed some interesting numbers, read below

    Why youth watch what they watch: 52 per cent of millennials watch content to learn something new; 30 per cent watch to distress and refresh themselves and 27 per cent watch content to help them to get through their life’s problem.

    What drives them towards new piece on content: 35 per cent of youth choose content based on the uniqueness of concept; 18 per cent like entertaining content; 14 per cent choose content based on the relatability of story; 10 per cent prefer content on ease of understanding story; seven per cent pick stories because of credibility and narrative and three per cent choose emotional narrative.

    What really gets them: As per the report 75 per cent of youth like stories where people struggle to win; 71 per cent of youth prefer stories based on real life people; and 62 per cent youth prefer watching real stories.

    What do they do when they discover a new show: 37 per cent of youth discusses it with friends whereas 21 per cent binge-watch the show. 20 per cent check out trivia about the show; 14 per cent try to find more similar shows; five per cent discuss with family and three per cent talk about it on social media.

    Where do they discover new content: 26 per cent youth discover new show on the internet and watch it online or download it to watch later; 24 per cent of them discover a new on TV and only watch in on TV; 24 per cent of youth discover new show on the internet and then find out when and where it comes on TV and watch it there; and 21 per cent discover new show on TV but they go online to watch it.

    Millennials' most preferred genre of shows: 30 per cent of youth like comedy; 13 per cent prefer romance; 12 per cent like family shows; 10 per cent looks for fantasy shows; eight per cent like action genre; seven per cent like documentary; seven per cent like crime genre; four per cent like historical genre; four per cent prefer music and dance genre; three per cent prefer Quiz shows and two per cent like animation.

    Where do they watch their favourite shows: 37 per cent of youth watch shows on both the platform but more on online than TV; 26 per cent watch shows only online; 20 per cent watch shows only on TV; and 14 per cent of youth watch shows on both but more on TV than online.

    Preferred device and platform: 75 per cent of millennials prefer watching shows at home on TV; 55 per cent of youth watches content on laptop; 41 per cent prefer streaming platform and 39 per cent opt for theatre.

    How MTV uses this study

    MTV Insights Studios has been doing this study since 2002 once in every two years to understand its target audience and cater tothem with better content. “Doing the study and sharing the facts with marketers have given them positive affinity that we know youth better than anybody else. That's one primary reason for us to do that from the external perspective. From internal it also helps form our choice of both new shows, tweak existing shows and even brand marketing,” says Viacom18 youth, music and english entertainment marketing head Navin Shenoy.  

    This year the channel will be tweaking its flagship show Roadies’ theme. The study revealed that the youth are purpose-driven, they want to get behind the cause and they are action-oriented. Therefore, this year Roadies’ theme is called Roadies Revolution, which means the contestant will not only be doing normal physical challenges, but there are also causes behind which they'll get and they'll have to perform actions to support that cause and showcase the impact.

    Last year, one of the insights that people felt more about was plastic pollution. “So we took up this issue and on the day of Dussera we called upon a message which was ‘Plastic is the new Raavan’ with TrashAsur. And what activities like these do is they reinforce brand affinity in the consumers’ mind, they realise that this brand understands what causes matter to them and they are actually taking action in that space. So in a nutshell, that's how it works for both existing shows, choosing new shows and for brand marketing; these insights inform most of our decision,” said Shenoy.

    This year one big theme that has emerged is women empowerment. He opines, “I think every aspect of that space seems to be something that bothers young people, and hence it equally bothers us, which is whether it's the brutal crimes against women or the fact that they are not getting enough of opportunities, or that society, in its thinking is more likely to be patriarchal, and gender stereotypes being enforced on women. There is very little positivity on how the system is structured, so that's likely to be a space we would want to explore.”

    The channel has doubled its viewership compared to last year. He informs, “A flagship show for us like Hustle has been key to the strategy of pulling more viewers, because it has pulled in both time from an existing viewer who's had a new MTV show and also a new kind of viewer whose destiny is hip hop music but may not have consumed so much of MTV’s other shows in the past. So that pretty much has been the key. And now the challenge is to keep the momentum going in season two.” 

  • What factors drive content commissioning decision of OTT platforms?

    What factors drive content commissioning decision of OTT platforms?

    MUMBAI: From the later part of 2017, streaming players have delivered many “blockbuster originals”. Social media chatters, peer groups, office rooms see numerous discussions on premium content available on ZEE5, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Voot , MX Player and so on. But what are the key factors that help OTT platforms to wisely craft their content library?

    In the last two years, a plethora of content was churned out by over-the-top (OTT) players in the country. Despite high investment in production, and marketing, not every show could create a buzz like Sacred Games, Inside Edge, The Family Man, Mirzapur, Karenjit Kaur, Rangbaaz, Thinkistaan. With a curiosity to find the secret sauce of this success, Indiantelevision.com spoke to experts on what are the prime factors they focus on while content commissioning as well as licensing. However, it was evident from the discussions that one simple factor stays at the centre of it – user taste and preference.

    ZEE5 India programming head Aparna Acharekar says data is the first benchmark and the decision starts with that, and ends with that. She reaffirms that data is the new oil that runs the entire industry. According to her, whether it is acquisition or buying, filters will have to be the same. The process has changed massively compared to one or two years back. A lot of their earlier commissioning was based on the overall knowledge of what consumers in OTT like.

    “Depending upon who I have on the platform, who I want to be on my platform, which is that most valuable group that I want to cultivate, acquisition also happens, commissioning happens, green lighting of original projects happen. Everything is guided by that one. Finally who we do this for, the consumer, the demand that is fuelling the supply,” she adds.

    Amazon Prime Video India content director and head Vijay Subramaniam says the decision of content commissioning starts with the customer, understanding her tastes and preferences, looking at how its evolving and what meaning the platform makes of it. Accord to him another input is diversity as India has multiple communities, several micro cultures. Hence, he adds it's important to recognise the nuanced changes between all of these communities and be able to tell stories that matter to all. He also says that it's important to respect diversity of individuals as well.

    “What do Indians care about? We know they care about movies. And so then they care about the latest and the greatest movies. It's important to be able to provide that to our customers, you know, young adults care about comedies, making selection there. So I think all this comes from an innate understanding of customers preferences towards content, also looking at everything else that's available to them, and where are the open spaces where there is a need and that is unfulfilled,” he states.

    “User is going to be at centre of this. Product, marketing, tech, content revolves around him. Either it can get me a lot of new users which are not there on my platform today or to my existing audiences it will drive higher views,” VOOT AVoD business head Akash Banerji comments.

    After announcing Q3 result, ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka said that the network would continue to invest in original content for ZEE5 to create a rich content library that will make it a compelling offering for consumers. Recently, Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings said that the online video streaming company is investing Rs 3,000 crore in 2019 and 2020 to create more original content from India. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos also recently revealed his intention to double down the investment for the company's streaming service, Prime Video.  Moreover, Times Internet-owned OTT platform MX Player also announced recently a $110 million (INR 775 crore) funding round from Tencent and its parent entity. Hence, it is strongly clear that both homegrown and international players will be churning more premium quality content in the coming years.

    “Content commissioning takes a lot of time but you have to really look at who the show is being made for. We are overall a very consumer and customer-centric company,” MX Player chief content officer Gautam Talwar says.

    Talwar points out another important fact. “We also look at, are we overindexed or under for a certain genre? So we have to look at what is the balance required per genre,” he adds.

    Acharekar notes another clichéd but important factor. Content strategy is derived from business strategy. So what is the business need, how will the platform get more subscriptions? It’s not about getting accolades for content. But it’s about what is that content able to get for the platform as a business.

  • Likee collaborates with ShemarooMe’s chat show ‘Likee Stars with Priya Raina’

    Likee collaborates with ShemarooMe’s chat show ‘Likee Stars with Priya Raina’

    MUMBAI: Likee, the pioneering global short video creation platform from Singapore based BIGO Technology has collaborated with ShemarooMe, a video streaming OTT platform launched by India’s leading content powerhouse Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, to create a unique chat show ‘Likee Stars with Priya Raina’. The chat show will be hosted by Indian television actor, host and comedian Priya Raina and feature prominent Likee influencers as guests.

    As part of the promotion, Likee has launched the #Digitalstarshow campaign (from 16th Jan – 20th Jan) wherein Likeers can share the trailer video of their favourite Likeers on Instagram with the hashtag #Digitalstarshow and tag the Likee influencer and Likee in the post. This will give them an opportunity to be one of the 5 lucky winners and get Beat’s earphones and Likee-Shemaroo co-branded T-shirts. 

    The show, ‘Likee Stars with Priya Raina’, centres around the theme of women power and will have prominent Likee influencers including Tanya Sharma, Kreetika Sharma, Riya Subodh, Sana Khan, Anmol Rodriguez and Megha Prasad in attendance as guests.  What sets this chat show apart is that each episode has a different feel to it. Moreover, there are interesting segments such as chit chat, Make Up or Break Up and Dare in One Minute in each episode.

    This collaboration is in line with Likee’s commitment to provide youth-oriented quality content. It will provide Likee influencers an exciting opportunity to interact and engage with the audience on a larger platform, while also giving the viewers a chance to win some goodies.

    Likee is available in different Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi. In 2019, Likee had also won the Guinness World Record for creating the 'Largest online video album of people waving a flag in India' during its 'No matter where I am, #IAMINDIAN' campaign. The campaign saw more than 1 lac Indians participating in celebrating India's 73rd Independence Day. In the recent App Annie’s year-end report on app trends for 2019, Likee has emerged as No. 1 in the breakout category and is also the 7th most downloaded app in 2019.

  • Netflix reports good topline growth, international subscriber additions in Q4

    Netflix reports good topline growth, international subscriber additions in Q4

    MUMBAI: Despite missing out on domestic subscriber addition for two consecutive quarters, streaming colossal Netflix beat its forecast for overall subscriber additions for the fourth quarter of 2019. The company also beat on the top and bottom lines for the quarter.

    The streaming giant witnessed a net addition of 8.76 mn paid subscribers globally including 420,000 streaming customers addition in the U.S. and 8.33 million overseas in the year-end 2019 quarter. Netflix reported $5.47 bn revenue for the quarter while earnings per share (EPS) for the same quarter amounted to $1.30.

    “We generated Q4-record paid net adds in each of the EMEA, LATAM and APAC regions, while UCAN paid net adds totaled 0.55m (with 0.42m in the US) vs. 1.75m in the year ago quarter. Our low membership growth in UCAN is probably due to our recent price changes and to US competitive launches. We have seen more muted impact from competitive launches outside the US (NL, CA, AU). As always, we are working hard to improve our service to combat these factors and push net adds higher over time,” the company said in a note to shareholders.

    The company ended 2019 with 167.1 million streaming customers worldwide including 61 mn in the U.S. and 106 mn internationally. For the first quarter of 2020, Netflix forecast global paid net adds of 7.0m vs. 9.6m in the first quarter of 2019, which was an all-time high in quarterly paid net adds. According to the company, the forecast reflects the continued, slightly elevated churn levels it is seeing in the US.

    “Many media companies and tech giants are launching streaming services, reinforcing the major trend of the transition from linear to streaming entertainment. This is happening all over the world and is still in its early stages, leaving ample room for many services to grow as linear TV wanes. We have a big headstart in streaming and will work to build on that by focusing on the same thing we have focused on for the past 22 years – pleasing members. We believe if we do that well, Netflix will continue to prosper,” Netflix added.