In the battle of the OTTs, who is winning the Indian leg of the race?

Digital channels of every hue, language and content type dominate our watching habits today, leaving the Indian viewer spoilt for choice

It’s a typical evening at the Bhat household. A nuclear family of four, the Bhats live in an upmarket gated community in Goregaon, Mumbai and are gearing up for the next day, but only after getting some precious downtime in. “I have to watch an episode or two or three of something engrossing to keep my mind off the long day looming ahead,” says Maleeka Bhat, 39, a corporate lawyer who is hooked onto Guilty Minds on Amazon Prime Video. Her husband Shashi, 45, a self-employed businessman and “enthusiastic foodie,” prefers watching reruns of Chef’s Table on Netflix and is just catching up on Rudra on Disney+ Hotstar while their two young daughters Pia, 17 and Suhani, 15 are torn between watching Ted Lasso on Apple TV and Miss Marvel on Disney+Hotstar. These are distinctly different choices for four different people.

Gone are the days when middle-class Indians would gather around the television together at home to watch English shows on Star World or Zee Cafe or even the blockbuster Hindi film on Star TV or Colors that would make its appearance a few weeks after its theatrical release. “In India, the OTT market has been growing at a steady pace over the years—from April 2020 to April 2022 was 15 per cent growth,” says Dhanya Purushothaman, Client Insights Partner, Comscore in the report titled Booming OTT Market & New Players Seeking a Slice of the Pie.

Today, smartphones, tablets and the presence of more than one television set in the home keeps the Bhat family—happy and less inclined to quarrel over the remote. A rueful Maleeka tells The Established, “I do miss watching something fun together. But the four of us watch a horror film or two over the weekend and it kind of makes up for it. This way is better, no one is squabbling over the remotes and we all get some alone time, too.”

The Indian OTT pie in the sky

The Bhat family is just a microcosmic example of the way media consumption has evolved in the country. Today, in addition to the top favourites—Netflix, Disney+Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video, the space is seeing good shows and a loyal viewership emerging from local and regional OTT players like SonyLiv, Voot, Zee5, MX Player, Eros Now, AltBalaji, AHA and Hoichoi.

Just like there are many OTT channels out there, there are several studies now about the potential of the Indian market. A more recent one from Media Asia Partners says, “India’s streaming OTT video market is in its second growth phase with total revenues of US$3 billion in 2022 expected to more than double to almost US$7 billion by 2027. Competitive intensity is set to grow between global giants and newly capitalised local players. Five leading platforms—YouTube, Meta, Disney+Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix–will account for a combined 82 per cent of the total online video revenues in 2022.”

The last two years have shown a robust growth in programming and subscription, largely owing to the fact that people have been working from home during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. An ex-employee from Disney+Hotstar, who wished to stay anonymous, says, “This boom in good quality shows and subsequent programming makes me wish that I had stayed on with them.” When we check with him about the numbers from a January 2022 news report that said the OTT platform's income in 2020 was around ₹16 billion with 29 per cent of the market share, he says, “It’s probably close to that, am sure. What will be interesting to track is how [Disney+Hotstar] will do post the IPL [digital] rights going to Viacom18 and the re-entry of Uday Shankar.”

The importance of cricket

The media rights to the cricket extravaganza better known as the Indian Premier League (IPL) were auctioned in June this year, in a closely watched competition. A month before the IPL media rights e-auction, Reliance Industries signed on the dotted line with Bodhi Tree Systems, an investment company jointly set up by former Star/Disney India head honcho Uday Shankar and James Murdoch.

Shankar, well versed with the lure of cricket, had built Star Sports and Hotstar’s businesses with the sports pipelines that banked on live sports. “Everyone is now expecting the same rate of success for Viacom18,” says a market analyst. The IPL media rights for 2023-2027 were bagged at a whopping ₹48,400 crore (US$6.2 billion). While Disney (Star) retained the TV rights at ₹ 23,575 crore, it was expectedly Viacom18 that made a huge digital push, bagging this at ₹20,500 crore. “Internally, there is a great deal of excitement at Viacom18 and Voot as well within the larger media circles about what will unfold now that Shankar is in the picture,” says the analyst.

Netflix and chill, after price cuts

Netflix came to Indian shores in January 2016, with great expectations of swooping down on the Indian viewer. Though what unfolded in the last six years was acknowledged by company co-founder Reed Hastings, who “expressed frustration” at not being able to crack the 1.3 billion population India market in January this year, soon after the company revised its pricing strategy.

Although Netflix is typically secretive about their numbers, research indicates that it has around 5.5 million subscribers in India with its competitors, Amazon Prime and Hotstar, way ahead with 22 million and 46 million subscribers respectively. And two years after it was relaunched, SonyLIV has clocked 18.2 million subscribers, making it India’s second largest subscription-driven video-on-demand or SVoD service after Disney+Hotstar and about three times the size of Netflix. Original shows like Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, Rocket Boys, Tabbar, Gullak, Your Honour and Undekhi have pushed Sony’s position upwards, making it a serious contender for a top slot in the OTT space in the country.

Globally, though, Netflix still rules the streaming world, with approximately 220.67 million subscribers worldwide as of the second quarter of 2022. But the competition is right around the corner; Disney+ which launched in late 2019 already has more than 135 million global subscribers.

Hastings’ statement came after Netflix finally noted the price-sensitive Indian consumer, slashing prices across its four subscription tiers, cutting its popular ‘Basic’ plan by a whopping 60 per cent, reducing it from ₹499 a month to ₹199. Six months after the price cut, Netflix India’s Vice President of Content, Monika Shergill, in an interview with Deadlinesaid the price cut is, “working very well for us, and it’s brought in a whole new set of audiences.”

Bolstered by the new figures, Netflix has also begun ramping its original and licensing programming slate. Their upcoming slate includes the returning seasons of series Delhi Crime, Mismatched, Jamtara: Sabka Number Ayega, Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and Indian Matchmaking. Their soon-to-be launched shows include Heeramandi, Social Currency, IRL: In Real Love, Choona, Guns and Gulaabs, Scoop, Soup, while some upcoming films are Khufiya, Plan A Plan B, Qala, Monica, O My Darling, The Archies and the just released Darlings, produced by and starring India’s sweetheart, Alia Bhatt.

Television still dominates

In the midst of all the OTT content, is anyone watching regular television anymore? Yes, apparently 878 million Indians are, which is nearly twice the number watching online videos. The pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns inevitably led to the growth in the number of TV viewers too. Senior media journalist and Business Standard columnist, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, has said, “It is television that is fuelling the growth of online videos in India—on YouTube, short video apps, and all other distribution formats that power video consumption.” She points out that it's the rise in Internet tech that is responsible for the latest distribution for TV content. Indian television channels actually comprise 45 per cent of media revenue, making ₹72,000 crore a year in advertising and pay revenues ensuring their place in the media eco-system for a long time.

The EY FICCI M&E report that was released in March 2022 stated that ‘connected TV’ has crossed 10 million households today, on the back of the growth in wired broadband and technologies like Chromecast and Firestick. This, in turn, has opened a huge opportunity for content creators to reach top-end audiences who have moved viewing time from traditional TV—by providing non-traditional content and experiential products—bypassing broadcasters entirely.

Quality, regional programming matters too

The rollout of the reality show Big Boss into regional languages like Kannada and an exclusive OTT version, in addition to a TV version on Colors, has seen success for the channel. “From what I understand, Voot has experienced an upswing in audience numbers for a few of its international shows and thumping success with its Kannada programming. They have realised the importance of quality regional programming. Their pandemic babies have reaped dividends,” says a media analyst. In their Hindi programming, shows like Apharan, Code M and Asur have scored big for the OTT channel.

India has 22 official languages and more than 800 TV channels, with multiple film industries, all of which are reflected in OTT programming. Reports and analysts have predicted that the demand for original content will increase from 2,500 hours in 2021 to over 4,000 hours by 2024. Regional programming will increase to 54 per cent of total content produced as regional OTTs will scale up, leading to better budgets for original programming in languages other than Hindi and English. And all of this only means that the families like the Bhats will be the ultimate winners.

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