Evolution of OTT Services in India.

1. An Introduction of Home-Entertainment Industry

The Doordarshan – Indian’s Government Channel introduced Television channel way back in the year 1950.

A Journey of Thousand Miles began with that single step!

The journey of Digital Media is stupendous with an organic growth for 4 and odd decades since then which caused the digital media to sky-rocket.

In India, the Television Industry began with one channel with a duration of three hours. The point to ponder is no one would have thought that we could talk about today’s paradigm shift scenario.

The entertainment industry to home is phenomenally grown particularly in the last 20 years.

1. 60,000 cable operators

2. 6000 Multi-System-Operators

3. 6 heavyduty DTH (Direct-To-Home) operators

All the above is just a glimpse of that extraordinary growth in digital media.

2. A Paradigm Shift of Entertainment-Media – OTT (Over-The-Top)

Though there are many factors which could have attributed to this growth of digital entertainment media, the two most primary reasons are smartphones and internet feasibility.

The journey did not stop at 1000 miles. The journey by road took-off to aerial route with the introduction of OTT (Over-The-Top) services.

Just under 13 years before Reliance Entertainment introduced first OTT service under the brand BIGFlix.

Now India has around 40 OTT providers.

The on-demand content is an excellent make-shift to traditional television and DTH (Direct-To-Home) services.

The marketing slogan of “We Don’t Sell What We Have – But We Provide What You Want” is truly a paradigm shift of this innovative technology driven industry.

Just two years later of BIGFlix, in the year 2010, Digivive launched a mobile application called nexGTv, first of its kind. This App provided access to both live Television programmes and on-demand-content of what the users want – right on palm-top. The entertainment, movies, news, sports all in one based on users’ choice.

However, OTT gained notable momentum in India in the year 2013, when Ditto TV (Subsidiary of ZEE Entertainment) and Sony Live were launched in India.

After 2013, it is truly an astounding growth of OTT market segment.

Disney-Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon-Prime are the most sought-after OTT players in India.

Disney Hotsar, a Star-India Subsidiary, has around 300 million active users’ community subscribed under his belt. Hotstar claims that more than 95% of watch-time on its platform are from videos longer than 20 minutes.

Netflix has around 20million active users.

Amazon Prime has around 18 million active users . These three are the top-notch OTT players in India.

3. OTT Growth Rate

According to KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2018, the OTT market in India is expected to grow 45 percent to reach INR. 138 billion by the end of fiscal year 2023.

And E&Y (Ernst & Young) reported that OTT users India will reach half-a-billion by 2021. This would make India second-biggest market for OTT, the first being America.

4. Few of the facts and figures – India’s Digital Media

1. India is the fastest growing cellular market in the globe.

2. Out of 560 million active internet users, nearly 510 million access internet using their cellular network; furthermore almost 60% have accessed the internet for the “FIRST-TIME” on their hand-smart-phones; This is the core highlight of internet smart-users in India. In Very many countries majority of internet users use desktop and laptop computers.

3. The turning point towards data-users over mobile network on 4th Generation services is after the Reliance Jio network launch in the year 2016 and it was then the other established service providers like Airtel etc. Reliance Jio led from the front and created a positive disruption in the internet-data-cellular network which enabled a quick surge from other telecom players.

4. This internet-data-cellular-network had cascading effect on content consumption for OTT, in particular, from small-pockets to mass content. The sports, particularly cricket and in particular IPL (Indian Prudential League) has emerged as a focus area for OTT service providers.

5. It is to be noted that gone are the days when voice was primarily used over telephone lines. In the next Generation, data was used in conjunction with voice. Then came video streaming over telephone lines. And Now Video is driving the data traffic. It is truly an astonishing fact that the average consumer spends around 2 to 4 hours of consuming media per day; 30% is spent on digital media over cellular network.

5. The Road-Path for OTT in India

1. The offline mode, which in other words could be referred to Television usage and the online mode which in other words internet usage have distinct space in India.

2. OTT players could make the offline mode users to switch to online mode by few marketing strategies – namely rich in content of a various genre based on demography, geography and socio-economic models. The contents must be of different languages of users’ choice.

3. The user-based preference needs to be gathered with AI (Artificial Intelligence) framework which could recommend every user based on the individual’s choice and interests. The role of AI must be made integral part of OTT infrastructure framework.

4. The UI/UX (user interface/user experience) must be made more impressive with users’ choice of preference and search engines must have more intelligence to throw the apt content.

5. The pricing model must also be changed with “Sachet-Pricing” like daily/weekly pricing model.

6. Conclusion

The perception towards OTT in India is the trend-setter and more and more users are getting attracted. The offline mode users, who are wed-locked with television network, are also changing to OTT network as OTT has started to provide them with TV channel programmes too based on users’ choice and preference. The internet is going to be the key factor and the gadgets like smartphones with 4th generation and subsequent 5thgeneration with high-speed network will facilitate people to have the complete platter solution on their palm-top with on-the-go access.

The security will become the key at a later time which needs to be focussed on by all stakeholders – Internet service providers, OTT network model, mobile phone manufacturers and also by the end-users who must use it with absolute care and due-diligence.

Every coin has two sides and every solution has its own pros and cons. Once it is clearly distinguished and understood by the users - there Is no stop for tomorrow’s innovation.