ITV

Tag: VIDNET 2017

  • We are seeing consumption in languages & low-connectivity areas, says Facebook India’s Saurabh Doshi

    With millennials increasingly consuming video online and on their handsets on Youtube and on VOD services, Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, has also rushed in to provide users with their unique experience. And while it has been a little late getting to the party with video, the Mark Zuckerburg led firm has been pretty clear about its intentions to own this space as well.

    With more than two billion monthly active users, and 100 million daily  actives, Facebook could cause unimaginable disruption with its video strategy.  While that might happen online on some connected devices, in India it is going to be on mobile, thanks to its vast mobile population of close to a billion.

    Facebook India head-media partnerships Saurabh Doshi echoed that sentiment as well at indiantelevsion.com’s OTT summit VIDNET 2017 in Mumbai two weeks ago. He stated that almost 95 per cent of the Indian population logs on to the social media network on their mobiles. He was on stage having a fireside chat with well-known Youtube creator and comedian Saurabh Pant.  Excerpts from the conversation.

    Can you quickly start with what is currently happening in India and what is the trend going on on Facebook?

    We get over 184 million active users monthly out of which 178 million come from mobile phones, so almost 95 per cent of the population in India is using Facebook on their mobile. Close to 100 million visit the platform everyday. On Whatsapp, we have around 200 million monthly active users.

    The interesting thing is that Facebook also deals with multiple formats, considering use of videos. As a creator myself, I have noticed that it has exploded over the last year and seeing far more traction. So can you tell us something about the multiple formats and how best to use them.

    We started with being a text platform. Over a period of time, the journey moved to photos after which we saw a big consumer shift happening towards videos like the Ice bucket challenge kicked off its whole journey on Facebook. So it is generally from videos to live, 360 degree, and VR which is an extension of different platforms. Recently, we launched camera effects through which the creators can create filters, masks, emoji’s.

    With Instagram, what’s happening is like put up the story and you get an immediate click on it.

    Yes, Instagram is also doing great in India, its growing relatively very fast, we see a lot of youth coming on the platform. Around 200 million people across the globe are using Instagram stories.

    At a session here, Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami gave Facebook a very happy endorsement where he said he prefers Facebook over Twitter because of a lack of anonymity. What is your take on that?

    Real people on the platform have always been our USP. When you have real people and real conversations happening on real time basis, it has been carried to other platforms as well. We have a community business team across the world working 24X7 to pull out fake pages and accounts.

    As I said Facebook videos have exploded from last year, my Facebook and Youtube views are almost even and sometimes views on Facebook were far more. So is there any trend you are noticing with regards to content creation and what works and what does not, from a video point of view?

    First of all I want to elaborate a bit. Facebook started up being a friend and family network and is still that. In fact, that is the core DNA. Secondly, there is need to either have a conversation as to what is happening in your personal life and also what is happening in your surroundings like breaking news or a movie trailer etc. – the ability to give an environment where anyone can comment, chat, share.

    I have been using Facebook Live very  consistently over a period of six to eight months and I have noticed that some of the live videos hit higher numbers than the stand-up. The new Facebook layout has a separate tab for videos, where you can see videos all across the platform.

    At various points of time we keep on experimenting with lots of products, the behaviour of a user to pull out a phone, watch some videos, and look at some text. People come to the platform not only because of the news feed but also a place where the creators’ content can be curated so that people can follow those creatives.

    What kind of content do you like to watch on Facebook: is there any particular channel or creative that you find exciting? Going forward, what do you think are some of the trends you see with regards to Facebook videos?

    Personally, I am a strong consumer of news, I discover all my news through Facebook, as Satya (Raghavan fro YouTube) mentioned, we see a growth around the languages, regional content and local content. So we focus on supporting creators and organisations in some of those areas. People with low-end devices in poor connectivity areas also browse Facebook. We are seeing the consumption all across and thanks to Reliance Jio for all the efforts on the infrastructure side.

    The most crucial question, what are the plans for monetisation rollout?

    We clearly understand the need for providing the tool through which creators can make money. Premium content obviously kicks in a lot of resources, efforts. We need to have the model where the creators should be able to make money out of Facebook. Having said that, we have experimented in the past, and there are more experiments going on. Last year, we rolled out suggested  video, this year some time early in US we rolled out ad rates inside the videos where the creator could actually put an ad and make money out of it including live.

  • Synergy between quality content & branding workable in digital space, feel industry experts

    MUMBAI: Providing young ‘jobbers’ in India with new, engaging and emotionally-connecting original OTT content that may be closer to their life, family or work situations with or without subtle brand integration would eventually lead to a pay-model (SVoD). And, that seemed to the underlying theme of ‘Expanding the content creator value chain’ session at the recent Vidnet 2017 organised by Indiantelevision.com in Mumbai.

    Moderator Sidharth Jain opened the discussion with four interesting models of the evolving OTT content some of which, as claimed, got 100 million views. One was the self-funded yet reasonably successful model of a Bollywood struggler, Navjyot Gulati’s short film ‘Best Girlfriend’. The second was Jyoti Kapur-Das’ Royal Stag branded ‘The Chutney’. The third experiment was YouTube-discovered Tamil director, who used his film proceeds to part-fund an original episodic series on Hotstar, and the fourth was the recent Amazon Prime-commissioned ‘Inside Edge’ model, which is loosely based on IPL and its evolution.

    Given this context, especially in the last two years, where did the panelists think the opportunities for content creators were? How could one use these learning to draw up strategies? Who is creating value and opportunities for creators? These were some of the posers by Jain to panelists, which included Reliance Broadcast Network Limited CEO Tarun Katial, Still and Still Media Collective founder Amritpal Singh Bindra, Monozygotic’s Raghu Ram, Viacom18 Digital Ventures head of content Monika Shergill and Perform Group director, content sales, India, Subhayu Roy.

    “Independent content creators getting some 100 million views underlines my impression that platforms (films, television or digital) dictate the kind of entertainment that will be produced let alone what will work and what won’t,” said Ram, adding that he believed television was for group viewing and mobile for individual viewing, which made all the difference.

    Monozygotic’s ‘Aisha My Virtual Girlfriend’ pocketed several international awards. “A lot of unconventional people who have been struggling in films and television,” Ram felt, “will find their voice on digital.”

    However, the nascent OTT industry is still experimenting, it seems. “Honestly, I feel, we have just begun. And, those who claim they know it all or have figured it out, are talking through their hat,” said Voot’s Monika Shergill. Though, she added that digital was an exciting and formula-breaking medium where people were “judging you all the time.”

    Referring to `It’s Not That Simple’ (Swara Bhaskar’s six-episode web series launched in October 2016), Shergill said that nobody was programming for women at that point in time and most shows were being made for “young, urban boys”. But, Voot chose to a show a disruptive subject for a mature female audience. “It was narrated and depicted tastefully and thought provokingly done,” she explained, highlighting serious subjects too could work brilliantly on a digital platform.

    Dwelling on demographics and experimenting with originals going forward, Shergill said Voot’s core TG was 18-30 years. “There is a misconception that we (OTT players) are catering to a very young or college-going audience,” she said, “But, in fact, we are targeting around 10 million first-jobbers who may have moved away from television and actively looking for stories that talk to them.”

    Rejecting a recently-coined phrase that OTT viewers and content lie “between Narcos and Naagin” as a headline-catching phrase, Shergill was of the opinion a large part of the Indian audience, however, was looking for good stories (and) not necessarily emotionally connecting with those (international) characters. “They (the audience) are looking for answers — life’s answers, which are closer to family and work situations,” she justified her stand on audience’s need.

    However, not everybody seems to have a definite handle on the kind of content that really worked. “Whether it is 10, 12 or 25-minute-series, nobody can guarantee the viewer’s attention as analytics may have found out,” Amritpal Singh said, admitting that a good story couldn’t be “supplemented, complemented or replaced” for sure. Singh has worked on all three formats of films, television and digital.

    While admitting that people learnt new tricks everyday in the digital space RBNL’s Katial felt like the cinema audience changed from single screen theatres to that of a multiplex with everybody becoming a multiplex audience eventually, the digital audience also is changing evolving. “Crucial changes took place (in the audience profile) after the arrival of Reliance Jio…the profile of the video viewer changed completely,” he asserted, explaining that digital has opened up a new class of viewers.

    “Although, on the digital platform one gets the time and space to do newer stuff and feel satisfied, I don’t think anybody is going to make path-breaking shows such as `Narcos’ for sometime (in India) until the audience evolves and stabilizes,” Katial said, adding, however, the journey would be “enriching” — there would be actually opportunities to do many different things.

    Does one needs to look at segmentation such as regional content, low cost or premium content, regional or pan-India market? It could work sometime. Katial highlighted the case of a Hispanic series with English sub titles, a take-off on Narcos, which did well on Netflix, connecting with the audience.

    “This average underdog story with greed, love and lust has reached somewhere, but it may not seem to do well on traditional television in India. But, we have an audience which is willing to experiment,” Katial remarked, adding that though in India there is also a segment of audience that is more confortable with content in their regional language.
    But speaking on segmentation, Katial also said there existed a section of ‘free audience’ on OTT such as FTA in the television space. “The SVoD audience is different from the AVoD audience. The former loves quality content, “he added.

    However, OTT or digital space is not about just fiction — of good quality or otherwise. Sports globally not only are a big attraction, but also revenue earners. And, India too is following that trend, albeit slowly.

    UK-based Perform Group’s Subhayu Roy said it was important to offer content that resonates with the audience. In the west, sports broadcasters did a magazine-kind programming before or after a game giving audiences options such as highlights, best shots at the goal, for example and analysis.

    “One could experiment with that magazine programming thought process in India. With that, one could manage to have a fresh set of audience and break the formula to content creation,” Roy argued.

    Talking about the fiction versus non-fiction, Ram said that they were yet to come up with something that was native to digital, while Shergill felt “non-fiction originals” on OTT had a limited shelf life —like a bursting of a big cracker. But, both of them agreed engagement with the audience was important. `MTV Roadies`’ consumption numbers (on digital) paralleled television and `Big Boss’ too had similar numbers, it was claimed.

    Do digital audiences seek free content or support from brands is critical? While agreeing that brand integration was important, Shergill said, “One needs a revenue model with brand support for the kind of stories that you want to tell. But we have not limited ourselves to that. We have gone ahead and invested in quality content. We did several shows last year and invested in originals pipeline. Now, we are ready with our next slate of shows. If a brand comes on board, it will be good, but quality hasn’t been compromised on.”

    The audience is more open to the idea of subliminal kind of branding as compared to the ‘Paas Paas’’ in-the-face branding, Bindra felt.

    Panelists also agreed that Indians generally struggle with the concept of paying for good — especially original and quality content. “Indians have traditionally struggled with the idea of paying for content. It does not come to them naturally. But, it will eventually happen. One needs to create the kind of content that justifies the kind of subscription they pay,” Bindra explained.

  • Just 11% video viewership is on OTT: Akamai’s Reddy

    MUMBAI: Video viewership is growing at about eight and a half hours a month at present, and is expected to double or triple over the next year. However, 89 per cent of video viewership is on YouTube and Facebook, and only 11 per cent is shared among OTT players in India, according to Akamai Technologies country sales manager Sandeep Reddy.

    Reddy was the keynote speaker at the Vidnet 2017 meet organised by indiantelevision.com. The theme of Vidnet 2017 was: Will Indian OTT/SVOD live up to its promise?

    Revealing more inputs, Reddy said there are 150 million estimated online viewers at a time when the country ‘is in the middle of this revolution’ and this is bound to grow. The current estimate is that 60 to 65 per cent viewers watch online video in 28 Tier-III cities, and deployment is improving but not at the level of Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore. “There is a challenge of reach,” he said.

    Building a brand, partnership, reach, scale, and economy are the quintessential parameters to make a successful OTT.

    Speaking on OTT and deployment of connectivity, Reddy who has been with Akamai for eleven years, shared his experiences noting that there was deployment only in 25 centres over 15 years.

    While referring to the limitations of traditional broadcasting in TV, he said the turning point would be in 2020 when there would be more online viewership than on traditional broadcast TV. Broadcast TV was headed towards online viewership, he said.

    The rise of affordable Chinese smartphones in India led to cheaper data plans and reduced the entry barrier, he said, and added: “we are talking about buying smartphones and seeing telecommunication providers increasing their deployments. We are observing huge connectivity, huge deployment, and we are seeing the race going up for the state of internet according to the report what we have published. The speed of the internet is about 2 Mbps in India. We are still lagging behind globally but it is growing and there are 40 per cent viewers over 4 Mbps and that is a sweet spot where you can deliver reasonable video and that’s why people are watching for longer hours”, he said. In this context, he referred to the example of Jio which came with low rate data plans.

    Because the number of users was growing, he said there was better connectivity and there were likes of Alt Balaji and Netflix using content specifically made for this audience, resulting in more and more users and that was the opportunity for broadcasters.
    With respect to OTT players, he said there were some key success facts for those sitting on the fence. Referring to a previos speaker who had spoken of how Indians will pay, he said they will pay if the content is appealing and engaging. The Indian population/users was ready to pay and that had been seen from the growth of TV, cable TV, and DTH where the subscription is Rs 600 to Rs 700 per month. “One can watch television when a show is being aired but the internet costs much less and one still gets all the content”, he added.

    There was a lot of scope to make a good business model here, he said, as with traditional broadcast one did not really know, did not really connect, and used it directly. ”When you are online you have the players that are tracking your every activity, you know which videos are being viewed, you know where exactly the users are stopping, you know exactly how to monetize, where to place your ads. So fabulous monetization models are available’, he told broadcasters and distributors.

    Making a point on scale and quality, Reddy said, “We are talking about competing with broadcast television where you have a signal from a tower beaming signal to millions of users. There are no issues, satellites are not strained, but on the internet single user places a load on his system. When you talk about prime time audiences you are talking about India vs Pakistan match at 7pm on Internet. The whole nation is tuned in and so that is a load on the system and there is a challenge one has to deal. Similarly you can offset the system as VOD users are watching at their convenience”.

    When competing with TV broadcasters, “Internet works just on the box, the video is clear, it plays perfectly well and it is not so simple as you cannot click on a video, and it needs to play perfectly otherwise it is going to lose the user”. He added that In the United States, “we are seeing about less than 1 second startup time of the video and the estimate is that if the startup time is 3 seconds you are going to lose the audience and we want to be sure that startup time is good. In India we are lagging behind America and Europe. We have got less than 4-5 per cent rebuffer or more than five per cent for our views delivered. So quality, reach, and economy are the factors impacting the success in OTT.”

    Hotstar is leading the revolution, he said. They took the plunge and they invested the big bucks, they went out and bought rights for undisclosed amount. The streaming content provider ALT produces its own shows. Sun TV launched its ‘SunNxt’ app a month ago growing some phenomenal numbers,

    “The message I want you to leave with is content, which needs to be unique and engaging. Content is king is a cliché but it is true. It is about the brand right now. Anybody in the screen, anybody in the train can watch and their choice is Hotstar. That is the brand proposition they have built.”

  • VIDNET 2017: MINING THE BURGEONING OTT/VOD SECTOR

    MUMBAI: Leaders of India’s OTT, live streaming and video on demand ecosystem will be congregating at the Hotel Westin in Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb to participate in the second edition of indiantelevision.com’s industry confab VIDNET 2017- Content on the Go.

    Heads of Hotstar, DittoTV, Voot, SonyLiv, YuppTV and Viu, BARC’s planned digital measurement offering and the entertainment and media partnership heads of YouTube India and Facebook India will be highlighting the progress that their platforms have made and the way forward for video on demand and streaming services which are in their relative infancy but have seen tremendous traction over the past year or so..

    “2016-17 has been a year of an explosion in video consumption for the plethora of VOD and streaming service providers who have popped up in India,” says Indiantelevision.com group founder, CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari. “This is thanks to dropping bandwidth prices, the Reliance Jio effect of free data. Humungous investments are being poured into original content by Netflix, and Amazon, even as others are either investing in movies, sports, or kids content. This at a time when they are grappling with the business model: go pay or free or a mix of both. Our estimate is that around Rs 1,500-1,700 crore has already been invested by the various players. Thus, VIDNET 2017 is happening at an apt time. It will help foster discussions, relationships, deals between the various players and possibly allow for new ideas to flow in. A stellar lineup of speakers makes VIDNET, the industry’s leading VOD thought gathering.”

    VIDNET 2017 is slated to feature panel discussions on whether OTT/VOD/digital video is a sound investment proposition, its attractiveness to advertisers, the need for deeper distribution for the platforms, and who should be commissioned to produce the content, Bollywood biggies or smaller independents.

    Among the speakers who will be sharing their views at VIDNET include:

    Arre co-founder & CEO Ajay Chacko,

    Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan,

    Still and Still Media collective founder

    Amritpal Singh Bindra,

    Indiantelevision.com group founder, CEO & editor in chief Anil Wanvari,

    Pocket Aces founder Anirudh Pandita,

    Z5 Business EVP & head of digital India Archana Anand,

    Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami,

    VideoTap founder & CEO Dilip Venkatraman,

    Viacom18 digital ventures Voot COO Gaurav Gandhi,

    VideoconD2h COO Himanshu Patil,

    Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd director Jai Maroo,

    BARC India digital business head Jamie Kenney,

    Aisa TV Forum and Market Reed Exhibitions executive producer & editorial director Lunita S V Mendoza,

    Asia TV Forum & Market – Reed Exhibitions business development manager Meen Yi Phua,

    Media Partners Asia vice president Mihir Shah,

    Viacom18 Digital Ventures content head Monika Shergill,

    Cheetah Mobile India director of brand solutions Neel Sapre,

    Principal Provocateur Advisory Paritosh Joshi,

    Monozygotic co-founder & chief creative officer Raghu Ram,

    WATConsult founder & CEO Rajiv Dingra,

    Prime Focus technologies founder & CEO Ramki Sankaranarayanan,

    Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sameer Nair,

    Akamai Technologies country sales manager, media Sandeep Reddy,

    Youtube entertainment partnership head Satya Raghavan,

    Facebook India media partnership head Saurabh Doshi,

    Swastik Productions, One Life studios founder & creative director Siddharth Kumar Tewary,

    Viu India marketing head Shantanu Gangane,

    Producer Siddharth Jain,

    Den Networks Ltd CEO S N Sharma,

    Amagi Media labs co – founder Srinivasan KA,

    Sourabh Pant,

    Perform group director content sales India Subhayu Roy,

    RBNL CEO TaruN Katial,

    Yupp TV founder & CEO Uday Reddy,

    SonyLIV EVP & digital head Uday Sodhi,

    Viu country head India Vishal Kumar Maheshwari,

    Emerald Media executive director & investment head Vivek Raicha

    Castle Media Pvt Ltd executive director Vynsley Fernandes.

    An initiative by Indiantelevision.com, Vident 2017 is powered by Viu. The summit partners for the event are Hotstar and Voot. Prime Focus Technologies, Sony Liv and Perform group is associate partners. Akamai is OTT partner. Animationxpress.com, Tellychakkar.com and Radioandmusic.com are online partners. The event is executed by ITV 2.0 productions.

    VIDNET 2017 will also be honoring key pioneers and movers and shakers of the industry with a plaque for their contribution to rapidly emerging digital video ecosystem.