Missing 2.5 on OTT !

I just wanted to put forth my perspective on why I feel (as a passionate OTT consumer) video streaming platforms are losing out on views/streams of lot of old classics or 80's/90's/early 2000's movies or content due to non availability of yearwise/decadewise option on home screens and due to lack of awareness of the platform's catalog to their viewers.

The 2.5 decades (1980 to 2005) were probably what I feel as the golden era of cinema. Maybe movies didn't make 100's of crores that time (if you ignore time value of money) but they surely gave us melodious music, landmark films and directors, some great actors & villians along with superlative performances coupled with a social message at times.

Going to the single screens for catching the latest blockbuster was nothing less than a picnic and was an eagerly awaited event in addition to the movies broadcast every Sunday on DD. I still recall the feel of the colored pink, yellow, blue and green paper tickets which were available at the booking window and had the seat number handwritten on the ticket and the counterfoil stub. One part was taken away by the ticket checker and the other part was to be retained. Technologies like Dolby, DTS, Surround Sound were not yet available in India and 'Chota Chetan' and 'Shiva ka Insaf' were the first 3D movies to be shown in theatres, if you speak of innovation. Popcorn, sandwiches and samosas were affordable and accessible to all.

Somehow, that whole movie going experience in those 25 years holds a special place in my heart and mind ! I can never get back that experience ever, but the closest I can get is if I can get to watch most of the content of those decades (if I can search them effectively on OTT) and relive those moments.

It all depends on the priority of the OTT players. Is it showcasing new and popular movies to all or catering to different cohorts based on age, favorite actor, musician, director, year etc. But, the recommendations I get at times are quite irrelevant and not even close to what I would normally watch.

Search functionality is something which is all players are continously trying to improve but but a lot depends on Product priorities and target audiences (I strongly believe that for a music and a video platform, there can never be a fixed target audience because user tastes and preferences keep changing and hence is dynamic). Many may disagree.

Endless hours and streams of (valuable) content is currently hidden behind home screens and unlimited scrolls in most of the OTT apps I think. Perhaps, what could help would be a dedicated decade-wise/ 5 year-wise showcase or a group/category (single year-wise would take up too much space) on the app which would make it easier to access the content.

One other question is if there is a way to view the entire catalog of any app or platform. I've seen web pages which have genre-wise links to the search results. But, does a user be satisfied with what is showcased on the homepage, what if you want to see content over more languages, actors, musicians, directors, villians and so on. While it may be difficult to show the links on the app, web could be a good option to show the links to searches apart from the ones which are genre based.

I've tried searching for '80s movies' or '90s movies' on a couple of platforms, the result is a mixture of movies from 70's to 2000's. Could probably be an issue with meta-data or wrong tagging.

Users would generally subscribe to a OTT service for new movies, originals, regional content and international TV shows (which are not available on satellite or available there at a later date). I'm sure OTT firms pay for acquiring rights of the older movies I spoke of, at a considerably cheaper price than the newer ones (apart from the older blockbusters, of course).

The question is are the OTT players satisfied with the number of streams being generated for those titles, are they significant in their overall plan considering the amount they have paid for their acquisition, are those titles properly searchable or being adequately showcased, is there a catalog which lists them somewhere on the app or web for all to see ?

If number of streams is one of the important metric of the OTT industry, then this will probably contribute to increasing the same, if not as much as the newer ones and be a huge satisfaction for people like me who would want to relive the movies from their single screen experiences !