One of the most comprehensive surveys conducted into India’s streaming habits by media analytics firm, Ormax Media, has thrown up interesting results. The Coronavirus shutdown in the entertainment industry has affected India’s TV content consumption habits in surprising ways. Read on to find out –
1. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a shut down in the production of conventional TV shows. Thus, traditional TV audiences had nothing to watch on TV except reruns of old shows. The same wasn’t the case with streaming platforms though. All leading OTTs had ample content to stream on their platforms. This shutdown drove 12.21 Million new users to streaming platforms. These 12.21 Million people (all of them were traditional TV viewers) watched original content on OTT for the first time ever during the shutdown!
2. Despite this, there are still 61% Indian TV viewers who have never watched any original content on streaming even till now, after a six-month lockdown. They are happy watching reruns of Ramayana, Mahabharata, and other popular shows.
3. Out of the 12.21 Million people who watched OTT content for the first time, 55% were women, with a median age of 32 years.
4. 59% of these women were initiated into watching OTT content by a male member of the family. The median age of the male initiators was found to be 24 years.
5. Finally, the most watched ‘first’ show/movie by these 12.21 first-time viewers of OTT content was Asur on Voot Select, and Sushant Singh Rajput’s last film, Dil Bechara on Disney Plus Hotstar.
Suffice to say that the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has definitely caused a shakeup in the entertainment consumption habits of Indians. Additionally, once initiated into the world of streaming, these first-time viewers are certainly sticking around for good.
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