siliconindia | | March 20209Content powered by `media that matters' is eventually going to determine the ethos of consumer consumption in times to comesmartphone. While you have to choose and pay for your channels on TV, most OTT platforms will give you access to all their content on sub-scription. However, some have now gotten into premium subscription, but bulk of the content remains avail-able on subscription itself, making it a more cost-effective alternative. According to a recent Kantar In-ternet usage report, around 45 per-cent of the time spent on digital is spent on the entertainment category, thus leading to growth of OTT play-ers. Viewership is further estimat-ed to grow annually by 32 percent through 2020. This is reiterated with the increase in the number of OTT platforms in the country and the un-deniable change in consumption pat-terns, from appointment viewing to On-Demand Web-Video shows and Internet-First shows optimized for Mobile that OTT offers. Leveraging OTT Education: Though entertainment currently makes-up for a lion's share of the OTT pie, if leveraged well, OTT platforms have the potential to make education even more accessible to people from smaller cities. The idea of the world being one classroom can be made a reality for those in small towns getting access to world class professors, content and lectures through the power of OTT. Content First; Platforms are Secondary: Given the current sce-nario, and the expected advent of 5G which will only further boost and internet availability, we are all set to see a rise in OTT players. However, as we are already witnessing, view-ers are increasingly platform ag-nostic, to take an example of Sacred Games again, if it was airing on any other popular platform, the consum-er will watch it there. Consumers are loyal to content, not platforms, thus making it incumbent on the platform to build its unique Content USP. For instance, ZEE5 is known for its original content, Hotstar for sports content, Netflix for its Internation-al content, Voot for its USP in Kids content, so on and so forth. Depending on their `go to market strategy', the platform stakeholders have to make the integral decision of which route to take for content cre-ation, whether the platform is going to produce its own content or ac-quire rights for few marquee shows, and have a mix bag of content, and partly produce content and partly acquire rights to some prime shows similar to the model a few players are using, MX player, one of the plat-forms which has been creating a fair amount of buzz in the last year, has for instance tied-up with The Viral Fever to produce content. Role of OTT in Our Lives TodayToday, the consumer/viewer is spoilt for choice, and creating meaningful content becomes a primary focus. Today, all of us, as keen producers as well as avid consumers of content, need to take a step back and consid-er, ponder and delve into what role do OTT platforms play in our lives today? Content powered by `media that matters' is eventually going to determine the ethos of consumer consumption in times to come.
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