ITV

Tag: Salil Kapoor

  • Hooq to maintain its Hollywood focus in India

    Hooq to maintain its Hollywood focus in India

    MUMBAI: Content differentiates the platform and hook the consumers. To become a differentiator, VoD platform Hooq differentiated its offering by not diluting its energy into various verticals.

    In an interaction with Indiantelevision.com, Hooq MD India Salil Kapoor said, “We have the best of Hollywood and locals in all the markets, whereas in India, we are focusing only on Hollywood.”

    “We took this call because there are 25-30 players as far as the Indian market is concerned, and the cost of content is significantly high as compared to other market primarily for the local content. In India, broadcasters and several other players focusing on the local content that has pushed the price of the local content higher. So, we decided that instead of trying and win in every vertical, i.e., Hollywood, Bollywood, Local-Regional and Original, it would be better to concentrate our energy on one,” he added.

    Hooq, which offers content in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and India, is one of the cheapest video-on-demand offerings in India with Rs 89 per month subscription pack, which lets viewers stream and download up to 10, 000 movies and 78 TV shows. Its content includes films owned and distributed by Sony and Warner Bros, such as Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Baby Driver, Suicide Squad, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

    Kapoor said that the platform has recently launched an additional service in India which will allow viewers to watch the latest Hollywood offerings just after their theatrical release. “We have launched TVoD service in India, in which latest movies (after theatrical release) can be watched on Hooq in a little amount of about Rs 59, while TV shows and other movies will be a part of subscription package.”

    In 2018, Hooq will shift its focus towards providing content in various regional languages. Talking briefly about the same, Kapoor said, “We have launched Spiderman home coming in four languages – English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. This is something we will do in coming time. We are going to build up a lot of dubbed movies in our systems, so that people around the country can get taste of it.”

    “Although, English content is very popular on Hooq but we also want to give our subscribers an option of watching dubbed content, i.e., content in their own language. We have observed that people are liking it and we have observed the consumption of dubbed content picking up on website as well. However, apart from English, we see a lot of traction in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu as far as consumer interest is concerned.”

    Hooq has different sources of attracting subscribers, one is through the deals with Vodafone and Airtel in which customers get free access to Hooq, and on the other side, they have the partnership with ACT Fibernet, which is a broadband player. While discussing about their distribution partnerships, Kapoor said, “We get a lot of subscribers from partners and we are planning to get into partnership with smartphone brands. We get a large chunk of customers from B to C and from B to B to C.” Currently, Hooq is in partnership with Vodafone, Airtel, ACT Fibernet and ICICI Credit Card, and Hooq will be announcing couple of tie ups soon as they currently are in advanced discussion level. Mobile handset brands like Samsung, Xiaomi and Motorola-Lenovo are on top three positions in terms of usage of watching content on Hooq.

    Salil Kapoor has shifted his focus from D2h to OTT. While talking about the future of television, he said that television is not going anywhere in near future. He said, “OTT is complimentary to the television, a lot of people are shifting from watching TV in standard manner to watching it online.”

    In 2018, the trend will move towards three directions according to Kapoor, which will include – first, TV shows becoming more popular than movies like Live TV or catch up TV is already picking up; second, the numbers of people getting engaged from mobile phone is high, however, the relation of engagement is much higher in the large screens, i.e., TV, will continue to grow, and third is that more and more people want to watch it on demand, so, hardware based boxes through which they can get television interface like Chromecast, dongle, and more will grow very fast. He said that international content is anyway growing In India but regional content consumption will grow fast in 2018.

    Also Read:

    Indian filmmaker among 6 selected for Hooq

    Hooq plans to invest $2 million on original Indian content

  • Hooq to stream Hollywood, Bollywood, regional TV shows and movies on Vodafone Play

    Hooq to stream Hollywood, Bollywood, regional TV shows and movies on Vodafone Play

    MUMBAI: It’s another entertainment feature one would love to Hooq on to — on a mobile device.

    Trends indicate that Indians are fast adopting mobile phones as their first screen for entertainment. Time-spent on smartphones jumped by 16 per cent in the period Jan-March 2017 over the previous quarter largely driven by a strong demand for social media platforms, and entertainment apps.

    Ever responsive to the needs of a super-connected customer base, Vodafone India has partnered with Hooq, a video-on-demand service, to offer unlimited streaming of over thousands of hours of entertainment from Hollywood, Bollywood and local movies along with exclusive series, to customers. This basket of entertainment will be available on Vodafone Play, Vodafone’s one-stop entertainment destination to enjoy streaming of content; be it Live TV, popular shows, latest movies or trending music videos.

    Vodafone Play subscribers can now binge-watch popular American shows like The Big Bang Theory, Arrow, The Vampire Diaries, Gotham, Supergirl, Friends, The Flash and many more. Enhancing the video streaming experience on Vodafone Play is a rich list of the best of local and Hollywood hits at no extra charges.

    Vodafone India national head – VAS and content Dipankar Ghoshal said, “With mobiles becoming the preferred screen for entertainment, the average time spent on smartphones daily is significantly higher than TV, demonstrating that the engagement levels provided by smartphones remain unparalleled. We find our customers are increasingly seeking enriching and diverse content options. Through our partnership with Hooq, Vodafone has further strengthened the base of quality content on Vodafone Play.”

    Hooq India managing director Salil Kapoor said, “This collaboration further solidifies our position as the country’s biggest premium video-on-demand service. India is one of the key markets for Hooq and this strategic partnership will ensure a wider reach for us giving Vodafone customers a window to experience the best of Hollywood movies and TV Shows across genres.”

  • CASBAA India OTT Forum: Asian players in search of a winning formula

    MUMBAI: Catering to regional choices, reasonable pricing coupled with fabulous viewing experience, good user interface (UI) and worthwhile user engagement through membership and social media connect seemed to the gist of “the Asian experience” conversation CASBAA chief executive Christopher Slaughter had with Hooq managing director Salil Kapoor, Spuul chief executive Subin Subaiah and NBA India managing director Yannick Colaco.

    Spuul and Hooq are Asian in nature and are willing to adapt according to every market they enter, including India. NBA (National Basketball Association) too is learning to be a player to contend with in a complex market like India.

    Kapoor admitted that, though Hooq has done well in Philippines and Indonesia and, in a small way, in Singapore, the India story is yet to happen after 18 months of presence in the country. “In the Philippines, for example,” Kapoor said, “We garnered good traction with the strategy of best of Hollywood and local content.”

    However, he added, in India, the audience is wide — different regional languages, dialects, content preferences, classes and masses — and a definite strategy is yet to evolve. Kapoor and others were speaking at the CASBAA India OTT Forum in Mumbai on 3 March 2017.

    NBA entered India with its own content. “Small players who seek a bigger premium have less fan growth,” Colaco observed. “If we want to control the destiny of our brand NBA, we need to be more nimble,” he added. “Our growth will depend on how we engage with the users,” the NBA executive said. Colaco elaborated how NBA, as part of user engagement, had put a reasonably-priced league pass behind a pay wall. “Content users, who bought the passes, have access to 1400 live games, archives, four different angles of game viewing and three types of commentaries,” he said.

    With various tie-ups OTT players are reaching out to maximum audience. Broadcasters, sometimes, Colaco felt, may limit content-providers’ engagement with the users. “But, through our association with Sony 6,” Colaco said, “we bring 14 live games to our audience every week.” Reiterating NBA’s aim to control the “destiny of their users”, the NBA man said they have managed to garner around seven million fans on Facebook and were exploring more efficient ways of engagement.

    Subaiah, who sees Spuul as the company’s livelihood in the sense it being a pure play OTT company with no other agenda, said that they were gathering metrics. “We have experimented and ruled out several content formats such as short form,” he added, pointing out that at times the consumer is challenged to find good content.

    Prodded by Slaughter on revenue in the broadcast versus pure play game, Kapoor said that different players may have experimented with SVoD and AVoDs, but the industry in India seems to be dominated by a couple of large players. He finds TVoDs to be an exciting challenge. He opined weekly passes or sachet pricing may work, but not AVoD.

    Colaco recommended that one needs to grow its fan base for the sake of content. Since the audience is the young generation, content makers/aggregators too need to evolve constantly. Many a broadcaster, he felt, was not always equipped to evolve constantly. Also, he observed, several content formats were inefficient for mobile platform: “We (NBA) shoot at least seven games a week only for the mobile (landscape) audience.”

    When pointed out that audio too was important for sports content, Colaco agreed, and said that they were actively looking at going regional. “We are already having the audio for 600 games in Chinese,” he stressed, adding in three months, NBA planned to have its games commentary in Hindi as well. Supporting the idea, Subaiah said that Tamil content dubbed in Hindi on Spuul was doing well.

    So who’s going to be ahead in the arms race? The Hooq executive felt that, although Bollywood was important, regional content seemed to be critical too. If one (player) is something in everything, there is an apprehension of being rendered irrelevant, Kapoor said, since the raw material (content) is becoming expensive by the day. And then, there is the new girl in town — originals. “How can we leave her alone?” he asked.

    So, there is original versus ‘freemium’ versus regional content. But, Subaiah believes that content, if not backed with worthwhile distribution and sufficient marketing, is of no use no matter how good it might be. The jury seemed to be out on a blend of original and regional coupled with high-decibel marketing.

    Who cuts the ice for this kind of cocktail? All OTT players in India seem to be testing the market and learning and evolving for the last 24 months. But, for how long? And, is it affordable too?

    Kapoor, having also done a successful stint at Dish TV selling satellite connections, however, did make an apt point on freebies being thrown at consumers. “An e-commerce giant is giving away good content almost free (Amazon), a telco (Reliance Jio) is giving data almost complimentary and a broadcaster (Star) is giving most of the content for free,” Kapoor said throwing up his hands, adding that there was a need to stop with such freebies that don’t make much business sense and “consolidate” as India has seen 17 telcom players playing the game initially, but now reduced to just four or five major and serious players.

    But, the NBA India chief was confident that the India code could be cracked. Pointing out that most MNCs believed in the power of India where 500 million people were under the age of 25, Colaco said as his parting shot, “There is an opportunity to reach out to the millenials. Let’s build on the opportunity — it’s tremendous.”

  • Hooq adds Prestige, Zodiac & Village to its offering

    MUMBAI: The 89 Annual Oscar awards are scheduled to happen later this month on the 24 February. As we gear to watch the awards where films with excellent content are nominated every year, Hooq has added new movie titles to its existing content base. The new titles include renowned names such as The Prestige, Dirty Pretty Things, There will be Blood, Zodiac, Inside Jobs, The Village, The English Patient amongst others.

    Hooq India MD Salil Kapoor said, “Oscars being the most prestigious awards in the history of the film industry automatically becomes a benchmark for the best curated content of all time. As a platform which offers video on demand service, we want to give our customers the best and the most exciting content from across the world and genres. We are very happy to announce the addition of new Oscar titles to our existing base. Hooq has one of the largest number of titles and we are very excited to continuously add more content every month. With varied content on our platform, we aim to offer our audiences different flavors with an uninterrupted viewing experience. To propagate our efforts further, we have multiple partnerships in place, to give a few examples, the Hooq complimentary trials are available for postpaid customers of Airtel, Vodafone and ACT Fiber net. These partnerships will help consumer experience the freedom of viewing content anytime, anywhere with Hooq and give them a window to what we have to offer.”

    The Prestige- is a mystery thriller drama film directed by Christopher Nolan, from a screenplay adapted by Nolan and his brother Jonathan from Christopher Priest’s 1995 World Fantasy Award-winning novel of the same name. The story follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century. Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they engage in competitive one-upmanship with tragic results.The film had 34 nominations and five wins in the Academy Awards.

    Dirty Pretty Things- is a British drama film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Steven Knight, a drama about two immigrants in London. The film had 19 nominations and 5 wins in the Academy Awards 2004.

    There Will Be Blood- is a American epic historical drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. The film was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman (Day-Lewis) on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California’s oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The film had around 80 nominations with 70 wins out of them.

    Zodiac- is an American mystery-thriller film directed by David Fincher. Zodiac tells the story of the manhunt for a notorious serial killer who called himself the “Zodiac” and killed in and around the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with letters, blood stained clothing, and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The cases remain one of Northern California’s most infamous unsolved crimes. The film had 30 nominations with 10 wins out of them.

    Inside Job- is a documentary film, directed by Charles H. Ferguson, about the late-2000s financial crisis. The film is about “the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption”. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.Inside Job was acclaimed by film critics, who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material. The film was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May and won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

    The Village- is an American psychological thriller film, written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, and starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is about a village whose inhabitants live in fear of creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it. Like other films written and directed by Shyamalan from the same time period, The Village has a twist ending.The film received mixed reviews, with critics especially divided about the plausibility and payoff of the ending. The film gave composer James Newton Howard his fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. The film had 11 nominations with 5 wins out of them.

    The English Patient is a British-American romantic drama film directed by Anthony Minghella from his own script based on the novel of the same name by Michael Ondaatje and produced by Saul Zaentz. In the final days of the Italian Campaign of World War II, Hana, a French-Canadian nurse working and living in a bombed-out Italian monastery, looks after a critically burned man who speaks English but cannot remember his name. They are joined by Kip, a Sikhsapper in the British Army who defuses bombs and has a love affair with Hana before leaving. The film was released to critical acclaim, and received 12 nominations at the 69th Academy Awards, eventually winning nine, including Best Picture, Best Director for Minghella and Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche.

  • HOOQ videos for Hyderabadis through ACT Fibernet

    HOOQ videos for Hyderabadis through ACT Fibernet

    MUMBAI: Singapore based video-on-demand service, HOOQ, has joined hands with Bengaluru’s ACT Fibernet. With this strategic partnership, ACT customers of Hyderabad will be able to avail a month’s free subscription of the service.

    The partnership is being piloted in Hyderabad, and will later be taken to other ACT markets such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi.

    “Under this partnership, ACT customers will be able to avail one month of free HOOQ subscription that translates into a window to unlimited streaming of over 10,000 Hollywood, Bollywood and local movies along with drama titles available on HOOQ,” said HOOQ India MD Salil Kapoor.

    Through this, the viewers can view HOOQ’s exclusives and television shows like Flash, Arrow, Gotham, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, etc. Further, the viewers could download the content for viewing at leisure, he explained.

    ACT Group CEO Bala Malladi added, “Hyderabad is one of the highest internet penetrated markets.”

    Furthermore, as earlier reported by Indiantelevision.com, the VOD service plans to invest $ 2 million in original Indian content. This is a part of its APAC strategy to start sourcing local original content in Asian countries.

    HOOQ, a joint venture of SingTel, Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros., entered the Indian market in May this year with a catalogue of over 10,000 movies and TV series.

  • HOOQ videos for Hyderabadis through ACT Fibernet

    HOOQ videos for Hyderabadis through ACT Fibernet

    MUMBAI: Singapore based video-on-demand service, HOOQ, has joined hands with Bengaluru’s ACT Fibernet. With this strategic partnership, ACT customers of Hyderabad will be able to avail a month’s free subscription of the service.

    The partnership is being piloted in Hyderabad, and will later be taken to other ACT markets such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi.

    “Under this partnership, ACT customers will be able to avail one month of free HOOQ subscription that translates into a window to unlimited streaming of over 10,000 Hollywood, Bollywood and local movies along with drama titles available on HOOQ,” said HOOQ India MD Salil Kapoor.

    Through this, the viewers can view HOOQ’s exclusives and television shows like Flash, Arrow, Gotham, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, etc. Further, the viewers could download the content for viewing at leisure, he explained.

    ACT Group CEO Bala Malladi added, “Hyderabad is one of the highest internet penetrated markets.”

    Furthermore, as earlier reported by Indiantelevision.com, the VOD service plans to invest $ 2 million in original Indian content. This is a part of its APAC strategy to start sourcing local original content in Asian countries.

    HOOQ, a joint venture of SingTel, Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros., entered the Indian market in May this year with a catalogue of over 10,000 movies and TV series.

  • Hooq plans to invest $2 million on original Indian content

    Hooq plans to invest $2 million on original Indian content

    MUMBAI: Hooq plans to invest $ 2 million in Indian original content in India. This is part of its APAC strategy to start sourcing local original content in Asian countries.

    A joint venture of SingTel, Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros., Hooq entered the Indian market back in May this year with a catalogue of over 10,000 movies and TV series.

    “We are in talks with a few other (production) studios in India but nothing finalised yet. As we are still in an observation phase, we are seeing a gap in local language content available on broadcasters’ apps. Such content or programming is not available on other neutral platforms too. That is the gap we are looking (at filling),” said Hooq India managing director Salil Kapoor.

    Though Kapoor refused to comment on investment plans, entertainment industry sources indicated that in the first phase Hooq is likely to spend up to $ 2 million in Indian original content, a plan that’s similar to what the company proposes to do in some other Asian countries too.

    Apart from Hollywood content, Hooq has presently sourced Indian films and shows from studios like Rajshri Productions, Reliance Entertainment, Shemaroo Entertainment, Balaji Telefilms and Whacked Out Studios. With the cost of making original English language shows high, the platform is considering Hindi and other Indian language content.

    For the OTT platform, consumption of its service in the four south Indian states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is high and an area of focus in terms of content and expanding subscriber base.

    Though the Indian OTT market is still in an early stage in terms of revenue generation and subscriber base, Hooq has priced its monthly subscription at Rs 199 in a price sensitive market where high data charges and indifferent bandwidth are also major challenges for an OTT player. New subscribers are offered a seven-day trial package for free.

    Interestingly, all the investors of Hooq have other investments too in India. SingTel is a major investor in telco Bharti Airtel, while both Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros. have separate businesses running in India. Hooq presently operates in the Philippines, Thailand and India with a population footprint of over 1.4 billion people.

    India, which as per a Media Partners Asia report could gain in APAC online video segment owing to China’s restrictive policies, has seen some global digital players setting up shop with significant initial investments in the OTT/VOD eco-system.

    Netflix, for example, has earmarked $5 billion for content creation and acquisition for 2016 calendar period. Chinese Internet conglomerate LeEco is likely to invest nearly $1.5 billion in media-entertainment industry for content aggregation. Amazon Prime, according to media reports, plans to invest $300 million in funding movies and television series in India and is in talks with Bollywood studios.

    Apart from global players, local players too have lined up significant investments in content for online video services. This includes Star India, Viacom18, Sony India, Savvn, Zee, Times of India group and Arre. Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries has plans to pump in $17 billion in the Reliance Jio eco-system to build a platform that is aimed at taking Indians to live the digital life with cutting-edge services and quality content.

  • Hooq plans to invest $2 million on original Indian content

    Hooq plans to invest $2 million on original Indian content

    MUMBAI: Hooq plans to invest $ 2 million in Indian original content in India. This is part of its APAC strategy to start sourcing local original content in Asian countries.

    A joint venture of SingTel, Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros., Hooq entered the Indian market back in May this year with a catalogue of over 10,000 movies and TV series.

    “We are in talks with a few other (production) studios in India but nothing finalised yet. As we are still in an observation phase, we are seeing a gap in local language content available on broadcasters’ apps. Such content or programming is not available on other neutral platforms too. That is the gap we are looking (at filling),” said Hooq India managing director Salil Kapoor.

    Though Kapoor refused to comment on investment plans, entertainment industry sources indicated that in the first phase Hooq is likely to spend up to $ 2 million in Indian original content, a plan that’s similar to what the company proposes to do in some other Asian countries too.

    Apart from Hollywood content, Hooq has presently sourced Indian films and shows from studios like Rajshri Productions, Reliance Entertainment, Shemaroo Entertainment, Balaji Telefilms and Whacked Out Studios. With the cost of making original English language shows high, the platform is considering Hindi and other Indian language content.

    For the OTT platform, consumption of its service in the four south Indian states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is high and an area of focus in terms of content and expanding subscriber base.

    Though the Indian OTT market is still in an early stage in terms of revenue generation and subscriber base, Hooq has priced its monthly subscription at Rs 199 in a price sensitive market where high data charges and indifferent bandwidth are also major challenges for an OTT player. New subscribers are offered a seven-day trial package for free.

    Interestingly, all the investors of Hooq have other investments too in India. SingTel is a major investor in telco Bharti Airtel, while both Sony Pictures TV and Warner Bros. have separate businesses running in India. Hooq presently operates in the Philippines, Thailand and India with a population footprint of over 1.4 billion people.

    India, which as per a Media Partners Asia report could gain in APAC online video segment owing to China’s restrictive policies, has seen some global digital players setting up shop with significant initial investments in the OTT/VOD eco-system.

    Netflix, for example, has earmarked $5 billion for content creation and acquisition for 2016 calendar period. Chinese Internet conglomerate LeEco is likely to invest nearly $1.5 billion in media-entertainment industry for content aggregation. Amazon Prime, according to media reports, plans to invest $300 million in funding movies and television series in India and is in talks with Bollywood studios.

    Apart from global players, local players too have lined up significant investments in content for online video services. This includes Star India, Viacom18, Sony India, Savvn, Zee, Times of India group and Arre. Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries has plans to pump in $17 billion in the Reliance Jio eco-system to build a platform that is aimed at taking Indians to live the digital life with cutting-edge services and quality content.

  • Digital success via differentiated content, good story-telling, partnerships

    Digital success via differentiated content, good story-telling, partnerships

    MUMBAI: Bollywood, Hollywood and sports content will certainly get you traction, but ultimately well thought out differentiated content, partnerships with platforms and targeted audience will not only get the eyeballs, but also return on investment for content creators on OTT platforms.

    This was the over-arching message from content creators and OTT platform operators at the session on content paradigm at Indiantelevision.com-organised conference related to OTT here yesterday, aptly themed Vidnet 2016.

    The panel included Abhimanyu Singh, CEO, Contiloe Entertainment, Mahesh Narayanan, MD, Saavn, Salil Kapoor, MD, HOOQ India, Uday Sodhi, EVP and Head Digital Business, Sony Pictures India, Varun Mathur, Co-Founder and Director VEQTA, Viviek Bhargava, MD and CEO iProspect and Yash Patnaik, Founder, Beyond Dreams Entertainment.

    The session’s basic underlying theme, highlighted by moderator Anil Wanvari, Founder and Editor-in Chief, Indiantelevision.com, revolved around the type of content that could work in the digital world while keeping in mind the needs of advertisers, agencies and investments.

    The variety of online content is vast, Sony’s Sodhi said, adding since the ecosystem is fairly new, consumption is from television content catch up. “There is a fair demand for movie viewing, including short films,” according to him as he pointed out sports too is majorly consumed by OTT subscribers.

    However, Sodhi was candid enough to admit that presently in an evolving eco-system it cannot be said with guarantee what works and what does not.

    As SonyLiv depends a lot on streaming of sports content on the platform, a question was raised whether programming differentiation on major OTT platforms was needed and also whether a global player like Netflix, focused on fictional series and movies, needs to re-strategize in India.

    Pointing out that OTT platforms ultimately will come out with their strengths, Sodhi said, “We come with a huge legacy of sports. We believe it works well for us and gives us an automatic connect between our users on TV and digital (platform), acting as an entry point for consumers.”

    While Sony Liv is banking on sports, HOOQ is finalising plans to launch in India as a VOD platform.

    Educating the uninitiated that HOOQ is a joint venture amongst Sony Pictures TV, SingTel and Warner Bros., HOOQ India chief Kapoor was of the opinion that the new digital evolution is about “pull and not push” and, therefore, “good content will get pulled (by consumers).”

    “All sorts of stories and entertainment can co exist in this (digital) space,” Kapoor said, adding that the criteria for success in the digital world were quality of content as people appreciate good content on every format.

    As per HOOQ, the criteria to measure the success of engagement is not downloads (of an app), but continuous engagement and number of active users.

    However, the experts on the panel did agree that since there is more television content, `catch up’ is a big issue presently. The next step ought to be and should be engagement of consumers with original content and the players are experimenting with that as to what’s relevant to digital natives.

    For example, Saavn, the music streaming app, has its own formula to engage audiences. The strategy for audio players is to package their content differently to provide a unique experience.

    Sharing the company’s varied ways of consumer engagement, Saavn’s Narayanan said an interesting property the company created was Saavn Live where live gigs happen on a stage in the company office with artistes performing at a pre-set time that goes live on Facebook.

    Saavn counts on social media to push its content and offers unplugged version of songs.

    The mechanism of how digital content is working has a big influence on advertising sector as well. iProspect’s Bhargava pointed out while previously brands found advertising cheaper than creating content, digital content creation has minimised cost encouraging brands to produce their own content.
    According to Bhargava, this gives brands an opportunity to engage consumers on their own platforms through licensed content and brand communication becomes easier.

    A digital advertising expert, Bhargava also felt that a shift in advertising pattern has happened past 2-3 years where a large chunk of a client’s budget has been dedicated to digital advertising. “This has given brands an opportunity to reduce advertising costs through content. Digital provides same amount of engagement in less money,” he added.

    But the question remains as to which content works and gives the correct RoI. The content creators on the panel were of the opinion that platforms and advertisers can only succeed with the right shows when a good story is created and told well. The message from the content creators was clear: better storytelling does work wonders.

    Contiloe’s Singh pointed out that television has witnessed a downfall in viewership as there was a “disengagement” with “discerning” viewers/consumers. “Platforms and (content) makers will have to shift to making differentiated content,” he explained, adding not only the plot, but storytelling method has to go undergo a change too.

    “There is a severe need to reinvent the way audiences are engaged with plots and characters,” Singh said, adding that the good news is India has a rich tradition of story-telling and an equally rich bank of tales.

    Though in today’s world there is palpable excitement about the digital eco-system, Patnaik from Beyond Dreams expanded the perspective highlighting that television, cinema and digital are separate platforms catering to the same audience and, hence, “viewership will fluctuate” according to quality of content.

    With the kind of buzz digital space is witnessing, brands, production houses and channels are launching their own platforms or attempting to. Could this clutter the digital space?

    Hinting that existing OTT platforms like Sony Liv could be used by content owners and creators, Sony’s Singh said not everyone needs to have their own platforms and, instead, they need to collaborate to create content.

    Yes, collaboration between content creators and platform operators did resonate with the panellists with most having their own perspectives.

    While Contiloe’s Singh supported the collaboration angle as a way forward, HOOQ’s Kapoor said that instead of everybody trying to do everything, partnerships should be explored.

    VEQTA’s Mathur added that sports as a segment is an under-served one in India and more variety in this space would add to the spice.