People engage with the entertainment and media world at varying levels through various sectors such as television, film, out of home (OOH), radio, animation and visual effects (VFX), music, gaming, digital advertising, live events, filmed entertainment and print. This connection of people through these mediums accelerates the development of entertainment and media industry. According to the Invest India website,
India’s media and entertainment industry is estimated to reach $35.4 billion by 2025.
Digital media segment to reach $6.9 billion in 2022 with a growth of 30 percent. It is the second largest segment of the country’s media and entertainment industry.
Online gaming grew by 34 percent to reach $1.6 billion and is expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2025.
– An increase of 85 percent was recorded in the filmed entertainment segment in 2022. In the year 2022, more than 1600 films were released, generating theatrical revenue of $ 1.2 billion.
Animation and VFX segment grew by 29 percent to reach $1.3 billion and is expected to reach $2.3 billion by 2025.
Traditional media contributes 58 percent to the total media and entertainment revenue.
Digital media has a share of 27 percent in the total revenue of media and entertainment.
India ranks 4th in the export of ICT services (Information and Communication Technology).
The Indian media and entertainment industry is expected to reach $55 to $70 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 10-12 percent. With the growing use of OTT, gaming and animation and VFX
93 percent of YouTube viewers watch content in Hindi or other regional languages.
– Indians have spent more than 1.9 billion hours on online sports.
Share of regional language content consumption on TV and OTT to reach 50 percent by 2022.
Digital advertising to reach $6.1 billion in 2022 with an increase of 30 percent, which is almost half of the total spending on advertising.
Digital advertising is estimated to reach $12.2 billion by 2027-28.
25 percent of India’s online gamers are paid gamers.
There has been a huge demand for animation segment on OTT platforms and children’s channels in the past year.
India is spending 82 percent of its time on mobile phone apps related to media and entertainment. India is the largest market in terms of hours spent on video streaming apps (194 billion hours).
This habit is becoming a challenge for OTT
After enjoying an edge over the past few years, the over 60 OTT platforms in India are now facing a challenge. The challenge is how to grow their expensive content business in the Indian market. It is true that Indians are crazy about entertainment, but they are price conscious. They either prefer to watch content including advertisements without paying or prefer to pay a small amount for it.
According to Media Partners Asia estimates, Indians have spent 6.1 trillion minutes or more than 11 million years watching videos between January 2022 and March 2023 (a span of 15 months). During this, it was found that people here also like to watch free content. During this period, the people of the country spent 88 percent of their time on YouTube, while the rest of the time was spent on OTT video streaming apps.
Talking about revenue models, the revenue model in the video OTT segment is divided into Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD) and Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD). According to Market Watch, the AVOD model accounted for about 63 per cent of the total market revenue for video OTT players in the country in 2021, which is expected to remain the dominant segment in terms of revenue till 2026. However, the SVOD model is also growing rapidly and is expected to contribute more to the total video OTT revenue.
If we look at OTT platforms on the basis of market share of major apps, then Hotstar has the highest share in the video OTT market and Gaana has the highest share in the audio OTT market. So the platforms which are not able to add more viewers or listeners despite providing expensive content, it is becoming difficult for them to survive in the OTT market.
Some Famous OTT Platforms in India
YouTube, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Zee5, Voot, Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Gaana, Wynk, Viacom 18, Discovery +, Disney, Jio TV, Jio Cinema, Max Player, Sony Liv, Ulu, Jio Saavn, Spotify etc.
There are 424 million OTT users in India, of which 49 million watch SVOD, according to December 2022 data from Omaxe Media.
Action will be taken on OTT for violation of rules
Last week, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur held a high-level meeting with the officials of OTT platforms. The Union Minister expressed concern over the increasing obscenity, violence, unnecessary content, prejudice and negative portrayal of Indian religions and traditions on OTT. He said that if any OTT platform serves content that insults the country’s culture or religion, then strict action will be taken against it.
He stressed on content regulation and asked OTT platforms to be cautious about the web series and films being shown on their app. The minister has asked the OTT officials to bring solutions on two main points within 15 days. Firstly, in the name of creative freedom, you cannot put obscenity. Second, there is no need for propaganda and ideological bias through OTT.
Over the Top journey in India started with Bigflix
India’s first OTT platform was Bigflix, which was launched by Reliance Entertainment in 2008. In 2010, DigiVive launched India’s first OTT mobile app, ‘nexGTV’, which provided both Live TV and On Demand content. It was the first app that streamed IPL live on a smartphone.
But after the launch of Ditto TV (Zee) and Sony Liv around 2013, OTT platforms started gaining popularity in the country. In the year 2015, Disney Hotstar was launched in the country and its viewership kept on increasing day by day. In January 2016), Netflix started its operations in India.
Types of OTT Platforms
OTT platform can be divided into two parts – Audio OTT and Video OTT. When we listen to a song, story, bhajan ghazal etc. on the OTT platform, then all this content is called audio OTT. In this you can see the image or photo, but not the video. This platform is called AOD ie Audio on Demand. Whereas in video OTT, apart from audios, there is also video, through which we can watch the content along with listening to the voice. This video is called VOD, ie Video on Demand.
Audio OTT :
It is of two types which can be called free or paid. Free audio is called AAOD, ie Ad Based Audio on Demand and paid audio is called SAOD, ie Subscription Audio on Demand. You don’t have to pay any fee for listening to music or whatever content on AAOD, but you have to keep watching advertisements in between. SOAD is a paid platform. Here you have to take a subscription by paying a fixed fee to listen to audio content. There is no compulsion to watch advertisements here.
Video OTT:
There are three types of video platforms – AVOD ie Ad Based Video on Demand, SVOD ie Subscription Based Video on Demand and TVOD ie Transactional Video on Demand. AVOD provides free videos and has to watch advertisements in between videos. In SVOD, you can buy a subscription to the app for a fixed time by taking a fixed amount and watch your favorite movie, series or shows. TVOD is a video platform where you can watch any digital content only once by paying a one time fee.