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Tag: Streaming Services

  • Discovery+ introduces India-special original shows

    Discovery+ introduces India-special original shows

    KOLKATA: Launched earlier this year, Discovery+ is all set to up the ante by foraying into original programming for the India market.

    With an eye on audience demand, Discovery+ has planned a slew of original shows starting from 9 December, which includes Mission Frontline, featuring movie star Rana Daggubati; Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil, narrated in Hindi by actor Randeep Hooda; and Secrets of Sinauli: Discovery of the Century, which will be presented by acclaimed Indian Film director Neeraj Pandey along with National Award-winning actor Manoj Bajpayee as the host.

    A new original content slate

    Since debuting in the Indian OTT space in March 2020, Discovery+ has added over 600 marquee shows across 60 different sub-genres including survival, sports, biopics, mystery, lifestyle, nature, science, military, crime, investigation, adventure, food, travel, to name just a few.

    Within the first half of 2021, Discovery+ will have the largest-ever content offering in the real-life entertainment and learning space with a wide range of more than 200 new and exclusive (local and global) titles to further strengthen its content offerings. Along with India produced originals, Discovery+ will also be launching other Indian titles including shows such as Amma & Appa, The Indian Dream Hotel, The Ganges with Sue Perkins, Aerial India as well as exclusive premieres like A Perfect Planet featuring Sir David Attenborough, The End of The Storm, The Impossible Row and the latest seasons of Top Gear and Gold Rush among many more.

    ‘For those who want to be entertained & informed’

    Discovery South Asia MD Megha Tata said, “We’re only a few months old but Discovery+ has exceeded our expectations of user adoption. The traction that the product has seen demonstrates the immense appetite Indian consumers have for real-life entertainment and learning space. With Discovery+, we are seizing a global opportunity with a single aggregated product. No other media company is better positioned to do this.”

    Discovery APAC direct-to-consumer head Issac John added that the platform’s Indian originals have been specially produced for heartland audiences who love real-life entertainment and learning. “These shows reflect the particular needs of our consumers – who seek to be both entertained and informed. They will provide our viewers unprecedented access to real-life stories that have never been told before. We’re delighted to launch Discovery+ Originals with such a varied and differentiated slate of shows.”

    New features on the app

    Furthermore, subscribers of the app will also be able to relish 12 live feeds from the Discovery bouquet from varied genres and channels including Dkids, HGTV, Eurosport India HD, Food Network HD, Travel Channel HD, DMAX HD along with Discovery HD, Animal Planet HD, TLC HD, Investigation Discovery HD, Discovery Science and Discovery Turbo, starting 15 December.

    To commemorate the global launch of Discovery+, the India-based app is also rebranding itself, unveiling a brand-new logo keeping in line with the global rollout of the offering across 25 international markets.

  • New Telugu OTT platform Aha bullish on its growth and expansion

    New Telugu OTT platform Aha bullish on its growth and expansion

    KOLKATA: In the sea of moody blues and ebony blacks, the orange OTT platform Aha stands out – but that alone is not enough for the fledgling brand. It is gearing up to win over audiences that are already spoiled for choice in a market saturated with streaming services. With its sights set on the Telugu regional space for now, Aha’s promoters are very bullish on its expansion plans and promise to offer local yet premium content.

    The platform entered the market in early 2020 but due to unprecedented Covid2019 crisis it had to push back some of its plans. With production resuming in September, Aha is back on track to lure one of the largest entertainment markets in India. From the beginning, it has opted for a subscription plan priced at Rs 365 per year. While the company has no plans to make the streaming service ad-based in near future, it might not overlook advertising revenue from other sources like branded content.

    It is not easy to sustain in a cash-burning business that demands huge investment but does not offer immediate profit. However, Aha management has emphasised that they will not compromise on content quality and user experience. Although the production cost may not reach the level of Hindi shows, the company claimed it is pumping money into the venture, without divulging any number.

    The market for the newly launched platform is as big as 50 million Telugu speaking internet users who are already consuming online videos, shared Aha promoter Ramu Rao Jupally. As for paying propensity, CEO Ajit Thakur said that they believe this entire market will be ready to pay in future, but 25 per cent – that’s around 12 million users – are already willing to shell out cash for premium content. Aha is owned by Arha Media & Broadcasting Private Ltd, a joint venture by Geetha Arts and My Home Group.

    The management is excited with the initial growth –  Aha has garnered five million downloads and 18 million unique visitors within a few months of the launch. Moreover, the platform has already clocked 2X subscribers compared to the target set initially.

    But in the end, content is king. Rao stated that they already have 52 shows lined up for the next one year. They plan to release five shows during the Diwali season. While production was halted during the Covid2019 crisis, the platform still offered one fresh show every week to prevent subscriber churn. Initially, they had opted for acquisition aggressively, but going forward the ratio of original and acquired will be 70:30.

    At the moment, major international and domestic players are gradually increasing investment in the regional markets which could increase the competition for the new entrant. However, Thakur appeared confident while delineating Aha’s frequency, volume of content, sharply curated content including films, best creative minds working for the platform would talk in their favour.

    “On the distribution strategy, we have been a bit conservative. We have positioned ourselves wherever the audience has touch points like LG, Sony, Roku, Firestick, Samsung. But we have not pursued aggressive partnerships with other aggregators yet. Once we do that, our organic growth will get affected. We want to test the potential of how far we can get an audience on our own. So we are available across all platforms but we have not really pursued aggregators’ strategy.”

    As for tie-ups with broadband providers, Aha has sealed the deal with ACR Fibernet only, “because we were able to do it on equal terms,” added Thakur.

    The road to profitability is a long and winding one for an OTT platform due to the high cost required for content, marketing, and product. However, Rao is optimistic Aha would be able to break even within three-four years post debut, though it’s still early days to make a definite projection.

  • Netflix plans to give free access for a weekend in India

    Netflix plans to give free access for a weekend in India

    KOLKATA: Netflix has been constantly innovating its marketing and promotion strategy in India to get more users to sign up. Now, it plans to give free access to the Indian audience for a weekend.

    “We think that giving everyone in a country to access Netflix for free for a weekend could be a great idea to expose a bunch of new people to the amazing stories we have and hopefully get a bunch of them to sign up. We will try that in India and we will see how that goes,” Netflix COO and chief products officer Greg Peters said in an earnings call after q3 results.

    Read more news on Netflix

    It is not easy to make a strong subscription base in India for Netflix. The competition is here not only with two-three services like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar but with a number of homegrown services like SonyLIV, ZEE5, MX Player. Most of them offer their premium content at a much lower rate compared to Netflix. The service also started a mobile-only plan at Rs 199 last year to beat the odds which worked well for it.

    “We're constantly assessing and testing and trying to understand what's working, what's working best, how do we improve. And we do that with our marketing and promotion tactics as well. One of the most effective ways to introduce Netflix to people in different countries around the world, and based on that testing and that actual performance, we've shifted those tactics, as you note, in many, many countries, including the United States. But we also seek to innovate and come up with what are new ways that we can use to introduce Netflix to new members,” Peters also added.

    In a letter to shareholders, the service also acknowledged that it has much work to do in India to replicate the success in other APAC countries Japan and South Korea. Considerably, APAC has contributed mostly to the q3 growth of Netflix.

  • The Walt Disney Co restructures media & entertainment business globally

    The Walt Disney Co restructures media & entertainment business globally

    MUMBAI: The last two weeks have seen a spate of departures at Disney Star India. It began with the announcement of chairman India and APAC president Uday Shankar exiting the company by end this year. Star Sports boss Gautam Thakar followed quickly, along with another three executives at senior levels. Uday said the entrepreneurial bug had bit him, and Gautam too might go the same way. Disney Star India CEO K. Madhavan quickly found in Sanjog Gupta a replacement for Gautam, but could the departures have something to do with the reorganisation that was announced yesterday by The Walt Disney Co CEO Bob Chapek is a question that needs to be asked.

    Chapek said that Disney’s media and entertainment businesses are being restructured.

    Under the new organisation, Disney’s world-class creative engines will focus on developing and producing original content for the company’s streaming services, as well as for legacy platforms, while distribution and commercialization activities will be centralized into a single, global media and entertainment distribution organisation.

    The new media and entertainment distribution group will be responsible for all monetisation of content—both distribution and ad sales—and will oversee operations ofDisney’s streaming services. It will also have sole P&L accountability for Disney’s media and entertainment businesses.

    The creation of content will be managed in three distinct groups—studios, general entertainment, and sports—headed by current leaders Alan F. Horn and Alan Bergman, Peter Rice, and James Pitaro.

    The media and entertainment distribution group will be headed by Kareem Daniel, formerly president, consumer products, games and publishing. All five leaders will report directly to CEO Bob Chapek. Disney parks, experiences and products will continue to operate under its existing structure, led by chairman Josh D’Amaro, who continues have Chapek as his immediate boss. 

    The reshuffling has led to the direct to consumer business division no longer being managed on a combined basis. Rebecca Campbell, who chairs that as well as the international business, will report to Chapek for the latter piece, while having Daniel as her reporting superior for Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+.

    Creative structure of content groups

    Under the new structure, Disney’s  three content groups will be responsible and accountable for producing and delivering content for theatrical, linear and streaming, with the primary focus being its  streaming services:

    Studios: Horn and Bergman will serve as chairmen, studios content, which will focus on creating branded theatrical and episodic content based on Disney’s powerhouse franchises for theatrical exhibition, Disney+ and its  other streaming services. The group will include the content engines of The Walt Disney Studios, including Disney live action and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.

    General Entertainment: Rice will serve as chairman, general entertainment content, which will focus on creating general entertainment episodic and original long-form content for Disney’s streaming platforms and its cable and broadcast networks. The group will include the content engines of 20th Television, ABC Signature and Touchstone Television; ABC News; Disney Channels; Freeform; FX; and National Geographic.

    Sports: Pitaro will serve as chairman, ESPN and sports content, which will focus on ESPN’s live sports programming, as well as sports news and original and non-scripted sports-related content, for the cable channels, ESPN+, and ABC.

    The Distribution group

    The media and entertainment distribution group, led by Daniel, will be responsible for the P&L management and all distribution, operations, sales, advertising, data and technology functions worldwide for Disney’s content engines, and it will also manage its streaming services and domestic television networks’ operations The group will work in close collaboration with the content creation teams on programming and marketing.

    The new structure is effective immediately, and Disney expects to transition to financial reporting under it in the first quarter of fiscal 2021.

    Its virtual investor day is scheduled for 10 December, where it will present further details of its direct-to-consumer strategies.

  • Amazon Prime Video unveils trailer for Mirzapur season two

    Amazon Prime Video unveils trailer for Mirzapur season two

    KOLKATA: Guddu Bhaiya, Munna Bhaiya and Kaleen Bhaiya, the much-loved characters of Amazon Prime Video's Mirzapur are back.   

    The streaming platform has unveiled the trailer for its much-awaited second season of Amazon Original Series Mirzapur. It will start streaming from 23 October 2020. The show produced and created by Excel Media and Entertainment has gained popularity not only in India, but outside the country as well.

    According to a SEMrush study published in July, Mirzapur was the second most-searched show in January-December 2019. Among other Indian content churned out by Amazon Prime Video, this show is undoubtedly the most discussed one also.

    The 10-part new season of the hinterland crime drama, where power and revenge are the means to maintain order, will reveal what happened  to the infamous residents of Mirzapur, following the aftermath of a shocking season one finale. The new storyline dives deeper into the murky and rustic world of guns, drugs and lawlessness and traverses through myriad layers of vengeance, conspiracies, romance, drama and the formidable women power in the terrains of Mirzapur.

    “At Amazon, we do everything keeping our customers in mind. Their incessant demand for Season 2 of Mirzapur is a testament to the fact that we have spearheaded our efforts in the right direction,” Amazon Prime Video India originals head Aparna Purohit said.

    “The fandom that has built for the world of Mirzapur over the last two years has been phenomenal; viewers have expressed their love and appreciation for the show and are highly engaged and immersed in the lives of the characters. It’s characters have become a part of the popular culture. We have had a wonderful collaboration with Excel Media and Entertainment over many years and we are thrilled to join forces again for yet another gripping season. We are delighted to bring the highly-anticipated new season of the captivating and gritty crime drama, Mirzapur,” Purohit added.

    The streaming service has constantly kept its fans engaged with various marketing initiatives around its tentpole show. Recently, it uploaded the entire first season of Mirzapur on its official YouTube channel to gear up the audience up ahead of the second season hitting the platform.

    “For the last two years, our phones have been constantly ringing with fans waiting eagerly to watch Mirzapur Season 2. We are happy to put an end to the wait and present an all-new season to them.” Excel Entertainment producer Ritesh Sadhwani said.

    “We created the first season with the intent to ‘get our hands dirty’ with a pure hinterland drama; what really surprised us was the worldwide love that’s grown for our local show,” creator Puneet Krishna commented.

     “The success of the first season has set a benchmark and encouraged us to take the new season several notches higher. Viewers will be in for an immersive experience through the plot twists, character developments and captivating storyline in Season 2,” he added further.

  • 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.

  • 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. 

  • SonyLIV and Lionsgate sign IAMAI’s self regulation code

    SonyLIV and Lionsgate sign IAMAI’s self regulation code

    KOLKATA: The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) today announced SonyLIV and Lionsgate as the latest leading online curated content providers in India to sign the Universal Self-Regulation Code.

    The code has already garnered wide support from the industry and has onboarded 15 of the leading Online Curated Content Providers in India like ZEE5, Viacom 18, Disney Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, MX Player, Jio Cinema, Eros Now, Alt Balaji, Arre, HoiChoi, Hungama, Shemaroo, Discovery Plus, Flickstree.

    Read more coverage on self-regulation code 

    IAMAI digital entertainment committee chairman Tarun Katial said, “I am overwhelmed with the support received on the code and delighted to welcome SonyLIV and Lionsgate as the 16 and 17 leading OCC providers in India to sign the ‘Universal Self-Regulation Code’. We already have India’s leading OTT providers as the signatories and expect more players to join the initiative in the coming weeks.”

    Sony Pictures Networks India general counsel Ashok Nambissan said, “We are delighted to join the league of signatories of the Universal Self-Regulation Code. We look to working closely with the IAMAI and other OTT players to get broader acceptance for the Code as well as the Government’s support for the industry’s efforts at self-regulation.”

    Read more coverage on IAMAI

    The Code is effective from 15 August 2020 and allows OCCPs to comply with all the guidelines in a timebound manner. Each signatory to the code has agreed to appoint an external advisor as part of the grievance redressal mechanism within 60 days from the launch of the code i.e. 4 September 2020.

  • Netflix celebrates storytelling with its new campaign

    Netflix celebrates storytelling with its new campaign

    KOLKATA: The streaming giant Netflix has launched a new global campaign One Story Away. that focuses on the power of stories. The campaign running in 27 markets, which includes the Indian market also. The campaign is titled as Just a Story Away in the Indian market.

    Netflix in a statement, which appears to be the message of the campaign, says, “People have very different tastes and moods. But no matter who you are or where you are,  we’re all only just a story away from seeing, feeling and connecting more,”  

    While it is running across TV, radio, print, digital and out-of-home in some markets, the media mix is different in India. However, the Indian version of the campaign is running on digital platforms. 

    “Marketing, in general, would be about flat this year, which is still about $2 billion of spend, which is a tremendous amount of spend across our marketing channels. But it does look like it will be lower because of some of those things we're seeing in this kind of new world in terms of more virtual junkets and PR and actually not doing as much awards, marketing and those sorts of things. Now some of that is temporary in nature. Some of that is permanent learnings as to how we can be more effective going forward,” Netflix CFO Spencer Adam Neumann said in an earnings call earlier. 

    The Crown reminded us that all families are the same. Guilty told us about the good that can happen when you stop caring about what the world thinks of you and instead focus on what you believe in. 

    Sacred Games was a window into a world we knew so little of, and brought us closer to understanding some people’s need for power. We wanted to be a little bit more like Chris Hemsworth in Extraction and that probably motivated some of us to workout. The list is endless.

    This is the premise behind the new campaign.

    The streaming giant has been strategically spending its marketing dollars in India. They have always spent heavily to promote big launches such as Sacred Games, Ghoul, Selection Day and its subscription plans, especially the mobile only plan priced at Rs 199. The brand has extensively use outdoor media such as metro trains, hoardings and others to create a high recall for its lineup.

  • Netflix offers free content sampling to viewers without signing up

    Netflix offers free content sampling to viewers without signing up

    KOLKATA: Netflix takes a new route to bring more consumers to the platform. It will now let viewers sample some of the most popular content without an account. It has launched a page dedicated to Netflix's original movies and TV shows that are free to watch globally. 

    It is offering the first episodes of popular episodic originals like Stranger Things, Our Planet, Boss Baby: Back in Business, When They See Us, Love is Blind, Elite, and Grace and Frankie. Films like Bird Box, Murder Mystery, The Two Popes.