Understanding The Rise Of Ott In India

OTT platforms in India have taken a sudden rise in the wake of the pandemic that struck us and took over our lives for the last 2 years. This period shifted many metrics in every niche and business. An exponential rise concluded the success of this entertainment terrain and it has only been growing since then, especially in a country like ours.

So how have OTT platforms managed to capture us all?

What makes OTT the Premium Choice?

OTT has been in India for a long time but without much success. With the pandemic, everything flipped 180 and took great turns for OTT platforms, which provided a wide variety of entertainment, with a pocket-friendly budget and high-quality viewing.

In a time when every person has a smart phone in his/her hand, it is easy to access your favorite type of content anytime and anywhere without much hassle. Traditional TV has taken a back seat a long time back, and OTT is here with its fresh content once in a while, making consumers' personalized choices its top priority.

Apps like Netflix, Disney+Hotstar, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and many more regional channels have been operating very engagingly with their user base to bring the best of cinema and original content to its users.

Let's take a glance at some numbers indicating how OTT platforms have been growing their roots in India.

Viewership Numbers: The Real Deal

With an average age group of 15-30, most young Indians are actively consuming content on OTT platforms. Although other age groups are also actively involved, the youngsters again take the most positive stance regarding a change in the entertainment world.

Currently, USD 1 Billion is being pumped into the OTT industry to boost national and regional level content to generate more viewers. Currently, around 350 million users are registered on OTT platforms, which are expected to increase to about 500 million by the advent of the next financial year- and that's a lot of people!

Coming to gross collections on OTT platforms, in 2017 alone the OTT giants made about 2019 crores, and this is expected to reach 5595 crores by the end of 2022.

In gender metrics, it has been observed that there is a 2 fold increase in the male audience in the last 2 years itself. It is a peculiar observation but quite describes the audience being catered to through the new content.

Efforts from the OTT Giants

Many OTT giants have taken a very head-on approach to increase their viewership rates and creating competitive content. Let's take a look-

• The market remains quite focused on AVOD (Ad based model) to promote its consumers to subscribe to premium content, but SVOD (subscription-based model) also continues to grow at a fast pace.
• Traditional OTT platforms like Zee5, Voot, Viu, Alt Balaji and Eros Now are now heavily investing in producing original content to draw regional audiences, which form the majority of Indian culture.
• Most of the OTT platforms have introduced competitive packages to enhance their viewership, and recently the same was done by Netflix by providing Rupees. 199 package to its viewers in the wake of a declining audience. In the case of Amazon Prime Video, the subscription comes with an added advantage in the Amazon app, giving customers to attain an added advantage and gravitating toward them.
• In-app interactive strategies also enhance viewership rates, as adapted by Disney+Hotstar during IPL season, where winners got attractive prizes for correctly guessing the score in ongoing matches.

With many unique strategies, OTT platforms have tried to outdo themselves too in this competitive market. They are still coming up with different tactics, but the winner will always be the content. The more authentic, refreshing, and connecting it will be, it will resonate with the audience on an exponential scale.

Conclusion

There are a lot of factors contributing to the rise of OTT platforms in India, and as a country with a growing population and a wide variety of content consumers, it certainly becomes a task to grab the attention of a particular population too. Grabbing them as a whole has worked, but the creators have now found growth opportunities in regional content, giving another dimension to the rise of the popularity of OTT in India. Combined with extraordinary efforts, the OTT platforms are set on a bright path to capture the entertainment industry.