ITV

Tag: Varun Narang

  • Hotstar targets Hindi market with free content

    Hotstar targets Hindi market with free content

    MUMBAI: Hotstar has launched a 360-degree marketing campaign, “Hotstar ka vaada, free entertainment sabse zyada”, reaching out to millions of viewers in Hindi-speaking markets who currently have little access to high-quality content for free.

    With more than a 60 per cent share of entertainment consumption in 2019, Tier II and III cities have been fuelling the growth of online video consumption in India. However, a large section of the audience in these cities still does not have access to high-quality entertainment and is limited to watching reruns of outdated content. While some have lost access to paid channels following the TRAI tariff order, others are hampered by infrastructure issues such as frequent power cuts. This issue of access is further exacerbated by a single shared TV screen in large households.

    Hotstar is bridging the accessibility gap for viewers through its campaign, which spreads the word about its vast library of high-quality free content. Hotstar’s free content includes several movies like Chhichhore, Mission Mangal; TV shows from Star Plus like Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hain, Nazar, Kasauti Zindagi Kay and Star Bharat like Savdhaan India along with News.

    Hotstar chief product officer Varun Narang said: “The next wave of growth for OTT platforms will come from smaller cities as adoption picks up. In fact, non-metros today outstrip metros in terms of video consumption. Through this campaign, our endeavour is to engage with our audiences further in Hindi-speaking markets and take digital video consumption to new frontiers.”

    Hotstar EVP and business head Sidharth Shakdher said: “We see a huge opportunity in building awareness and encouraging trial across Tier II and Tier III cities around our vast and high-quality library of free entertainment, and thereby, enabling a behavioural shift towards online video consumption. Hotstar’s free content will unlock a new world of entertainment for this audience which currently has to settle for outdated reruns on a limited set of channels.”

    The campaign aims to make inroads into Tier II and III markets using mass media vehicles such as TV and print, along with on-ground activations. A unique out-of-home initiative will culminate in a billboard spanning 10,000 sq. ft, the longest ever set up in India, which will feature the variety and scale of content available on Hotstar.

    Other high-impact activations include out-of-home billboards and wall paintings across 80 small towns in India along with a branded mobile marketing canter van campaign. This canter will travel across 30 cities for a month, conducting roadshows across 150 congregation points, showcasing Hotstar’s breadth of content. This will be amplified further with unique interventions such as Nukkad Natak and on-the-spot engagement activities.

  • Hotstar clocks 25.3 mn concurrent viewers to set new global record

    Hotstar clocks 25.3 mn concurrent viewers to set new global record

    MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform, continued to raise the bar in live streaming, setting a new global benchmark during the India vs New Zealand semi-final on 10th July 2019. The platform registered an unprecedented 25.3 million concurrent viewers, shattering its own previous world record of 18.6 million set during the VIVO IPL 2019 final. Hotstar also witnessed upwards of 15 million concurrent viewers across multiple matches through the ICC Cricket World Cup.

    Built to handle immense scale, Hotstar had previously crossed the milestone of 100 million daily users during the India vs Pakistan match. Even with the massive cricket consumption, the entertainment consumption on Hotstar remains extremely high. 60% of cricket viewers also consume entertainment content on the platform and the past 12 months have seen a 2X growth in entertainment consumption. The watch time on entertainment content is 1.5 times that of sports content on the platform. These astounding numbers are a resounding testimony to Hotstar’s immense technology prowess, with the platform continuing to be the preferred destination for sports and entertainment for millions of Indians across the country.

    Commenting on the development, Varun Narang, Chief Product Officer, Hotstar, said, “We are thrilled about, once again, re-writing the global record for the highest concurrent video viewership anywhere in the world. 

    Using tech in creating a delightful consumer experience is at the core of what we do. From building scalable services that enable massive concurrency to managing complexities of live streaming from video acquisition to authentication to delivery, we prepare for failure in the system. We load test our infrastructure extensively to identify failure points.

    With a robust technology backbone, and expertise in driving scale by changing behaviour and growing the category, we look forward to setting new benchmarks and delivering unmatched experiences to all our users.”

    Commenting on the record, Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Officer, Mindshare South Asia, said, “Achieving 25.3 million simultaneous viewers in any match is no mean feat. The nail-biting semi-final saw Hotstar’s viewership rise steadily and during the last leg of the game, the viewership increased nearly with every ball! Also, what’s remarkable is the fact that these numbers were attained for a disrupted semi-final played over two days. It’s anyone’s guess what the figures would’ve been had India made it to the finals. Hotstar would’ve definitely surpassed these numbers and set new global standards.” 

    In addition to India, Hotstar brought the ICC Cricket World Cup to consumers in the US and Canada as well, who tuned in to the platform via the app, on the web (us.hotstar.com & ca.hotstar.com), Google play store, app store, as well as on living room devices like Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Android TV, and Samsung Smart TV.

  • India vs Pakistan: Hotstar clocks highest-ever single day reach of 100 million

    India vs Pakistan: Hotstar clocks highest-ever single day reach of 100 million

    MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform, once again shattered records by hitting an unprecedented daily active user number of 100 million during the India vs. Pakistan match on 16th June, making this the highest-ever single day reach for the platform. Underlining the fact that Hotstar’s viewership continues to grow across the width and breadth of India, 66% of the 100 Mn users came in from towns beyond the big metro cities. The streaming giant also registered record-breaking concurrency of 15.6 million, the highest ever for an ODI match, marking a 1.7x increase in average concurrency compared to any other India match.

    Unmatched in its sheer scale, this season of ICC Cricket World Cup is being streamed across 6 languages – English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Hotstar has also retained its exciting social layer of #KoiYaarNahiFar with the Watch ‘N Play feature successfully creating an unparalleled and engaging cricket-watching experience for all the Hotstar users. Through this feature, Hotstar enables friends coming together irrespective of their location, allowing them to make their voices heard by chatting about the match and their Watch ‘N Play experience, not only with their friends and family, but also with experts and celebrities.

    Commenting on the development, Hotstar chief product officer Varun Narang, said “We are delighted to have been able to deliver an uninterrupted cricket watching experience to such a large audience at once. Having achieved a single day platform reach of 100 million demonstrates the indisputable technology prowess that Hotstar brings to the OTT industry. This remarkable achievement has helped us set a new viewership benchmark.”

    In addition to India, Hotstar is bringing the ICC Cricket World Cup to consumers in the US and Canada as well, who are tuning in to the platform via the app, on the web (us.hotstar.com), Google play store, app store, as well as on living room devices like Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Android TV, and Samsung Smart TV.

    Hotstar’s immense reach and scale has always made it a preferred destination for advertisers across the country. Offering ad targeting for live sports at scale, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 on Hotstar is an exciting affair for all involved, including co-presenting sponsors Dream 11, Uber Eats, Amazon Pay, and Coca Cola, and associate sponsors Royal Challenge, Acko, CEAT, and ICICI Lombard.

  • Hotstar to disrupt online video subscriptions with Hotstar VIP

    Hotstar to disrupt online video subscriptions with Hotstar VIP

    MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s leading video streaming platform, launches ‘Hotstar VIP’ – a subscription that offers audiences the best of content at just INR 365 per year. The new subscription plan gives audiences the choice to watch exclusive new content under the Hotstar Specials label, their favourite Star network serials  before television at 6 a.m., and the best of live sporting action, including VIVO IPL, ICC Cricket World Cup, Premier League and much more.

    Speaking about the launch of ‘Hotstar VIP’, Varun Narang, Chief Product Officer, Hotstar, said, “It is our endeavour at Hotstar to delight customers with content that they resonate with, at the same time give them the power of choice at an affordable cost. Hotstar VIP is aimed at providing users accessibility – be it with the  introductory price or the ability to watch exclusive new shows in multiple regional languages. It is a value proposition built with the Indian audience at the heart of it.”

    A key feature of the Hotstar VIP service is ‘Hotstar Specials’ – a label that will bring bold & authentic stories made by the biggest storytellers of India to crores of consumers across India. The launch of Hotstar VIP coincides with the release of the first Hotstar Special ‘ Roar of the Lion’, a story on Chennai Super Kings amazing comeback under the leadership of M.S.Dhoni. This show will be followed by Criminal Justice, City of Dreams, Hostages and many more shows under the Hotstar Specials label.

    For the first time ever, an OTT platform will allow customers to have a  ‘pay by cash’ option. This is being done as a test initially,  where users can subscribe to enjoy the Hotstar VIP benefits immediately with cash to be collected from their doorstep in the next 48-72 hours. Adding another layer of convenience for customers, the platform will now allow phone number logins.

    Existing subscribers of Hotstar All Annual Sports plan will automatically be upgraded to Hotstar VIP, on a complimentary basis with no additional charge,  and can also enjoy access to Hotstar Specials and Star serials before TV. Hotstar Premium subscribers can avail of the benefits under Hotstar VIP  along with the latest American shows, blockbuster Hollywood movies and award-winning content from International studios.

  • Hotstar targets billion minutes watch time daily

    Hotstar targets billion minutes watch time daily

    MUMBAI: The new mantra at the Twenty First Century Fox-owned Star India subsidiary Novi Digital’s Hotstar is the figure of a billion. Yes, a billion. Not a billion subscribers, but a billion minutes. Speaking at a conference in China yesterday, its senior vice-president and head of product Varun Narang stated that the OTT service’s target is to get to a billion minutes of watch time daily.

    “Once you get to a billion minutes a day, you’re talking about a real, real business,” stated Narang at the conference.

    Narang was roped in to Hotstar from Whipclip last year and has had more than half a decade’s product experience with top-notch services such as Hulu and Amazon in the US. He was recruited to lead the team which is helping build mobile solutions for the app and help innovate content discovery, quality of video playbacks as well as build native advertising platforms for the app.

    Speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media and entertainment conference earlier this month Twenty First Century Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch had stated that Hotstar had gone from streaming 750 million minutes to 2.5 billion minutes between July and August 2016. That means it has some distance to travel before it gets to that billion minutes a day figure.

    Responding to a question from ace analyst Jessica Jean Reif Cohen on the media powerhouse’s plans for India, Lachlan had elaborated that Hotstar is expected “to grow significantly with the launch of Reliance Jio’s mobile 4G service, which Hotstar is the exclusive (sic) program provider for. So, on the Reliance Jio phones — the biggest launch of consumer product in many many years – Hotstar is the exclusive television provider on the platform. And so we think where every single single consumer will have access to Hotstar premium which is a $3 service. And, they’ll have it provided by Reliance for free. So, it’s a very exciting time in India for us. Just to have this in perspective, those streaming numbers for Hotstar is about, if you compare with Netflix in India, Netflix is about six per cent the size of Hotstar”.

    Among the initiatives, Hotstar is looking to scale up the product quickly is rolling it out globally in the near future, targeting the south Asian diaspora, Narang revealed at the conference. This was something that even Star India chairman Uday Shankar had stated at the Ficci Frames conference in Mumbai earlier this year.

    Narang admitted that what was helping Hotstar is the fact that “content rights are a lot easier for us in India than they are in the US.”

    Other things that could aid it get there is its catalogue of around 35,000 hours of entertainment content. At its investor call conference during the announcement of its annual results Twenty First Century Fox CFO John Nallen had pointed out that “in the beginning, we saw pretty severe sort of volatility and spike, largely around sports viewership on the Hotstar platform to when there was a big cricket tournament or something like that. But, gradually over the last year, what’s really built and gotten much more momentum is scripted programming, it’s Indian-scripted programming in multiple languages, and that’s really driving, that’s been the most gratifying and to see more consistent viewership of that and that’s really a big, big part of the volume now, and it’s the fastest way growing part of the volume on a consistent basis, local Indian-scripted programming at very high volumes.”

    Currently, Hotstar has an estimated 72 million downloads with around 50 million active users.

  • Hotstar targets billion minutes watch time daily

    Hotstar targets billion minutes watch time daily

    MUMBAI: The new mantra at the Twenty First Century Fox-owned Star India subsidiary Novi Digital’s Hotstar is the figure of a billion. Yes, a billion. Not a billion subscribers, but a billion minutes. Speaking at a conference in China yesterday, its senior vice-president and head of product Varun Narang stated that the OTT service’s target is to get to a billion minutes of watch time daily.

    “Once you get to a billion minutes a day, you’re talking about a real, real business,” stated Narang at the conference.

    Narang was roped in to Hotstar from Whipclip last year and has had more than half a decade’s product experience with top-notch services such as Hulu and Amazon in the US. He was recruited to lead the team which is helping build mobile solutions for the app and help innovate content discovery, quality of video playbacks as well as build native advertising platforms for the app.

    Speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media and entertainment conference earlier this month Twenty First Century Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch had stated that Hotstar had gone from streaming 750 million minutes to 2.5 billion minutes between July and August 2016. That means it has some distance to travel before it gets to that billion minutes a day figure.

    Responding to a question from ace analyst Jessica Jean Reif Cohen on the media powerhouse’s plans for India, Lachlan had elaborated that Hotstar is expected “to grow significantly with the launch of Reliance Jio’s mobile 4G service, which Hotstar is the exclusive (sic) program provider for. So, on the Reliance Jio phones — the biggest launch of consumer product in many many years – Hotstar is the exclusive television provider on the platform. And so we think where every single single consumer will have access to Hotstar premium which is a $3 service. And, they’ll have it provided by Reliance for free. So, it’s a very exciting time in India for us. Just to have this in perspective, those streaming numbers for Hotstar is about, if you compare with Netflix in India, Netflix is about six per cent the size of Hotstar”.

    Among the initiatives, Hotstar is looking to scale up the product quickly is rolling it out globally in the near future, targeting the south Asian diaspora, Narang revealed at the conference. This was something that even Star India chairman Uday Shankar had stated at the Ficci Frames conference in Mumbai earlier this year.

    Narang admitted that what was helping Hotstar is the fact that “content rights are a lot easier for us in India than they are in the US.”

    Other things that could aid it get there is its catalogue of around 35,000 hours of entertainment content. At its investor call conference during the announcement of its annual results Twenty First Century Fox CFO John Nallen had pointed out that “in the beginning, we saw pretty severe sort of volatility and spike, largely around sports viewership on the Hotstar platform to when there was a big cricket tournament or something like that. But, gradually over the last year, what’s really built and gotten much more momentum is scripted programming, it’s Indian-scripted programming in multiple languages, and that’s really driving, that’s been the most gratifying and to see more consistent viewership of that and that’s really a big, big part of the volume now, and it’s the fastest way growing part of the volume on a consistent basis, local Indian-scripted programming at very high volumes.”

    Currently, Hotstar has an estimated 72 million downloads with around 50 million active users.