One has seen a massive rise in the viewership of OTT platforms in recent times with the reduction of internet costs and the lockdown playing a significant role in it. While the bigs guns like Amazon Prime and Netflix are considered one of the pioneers of this field where everybody else is merely copying them, Hotstar has taken a slightly different approach to the Indian market.
One can argue that Hotstar was one of the earlier players in the market, which is why it could establish an individual brand image better than most of these recently formed platforms. Still, one must also realize that Netflix and Amazon have spent truckloads of money (or maybe even more than that) to capture the market which has made it difficult for almost all the other players.
The pricing aspect is something vital in the world of OTT. Here you can get a year’s worth of content on Hotstar VIP for just Rs 399 (Earlier 365), and if you want international shows, it costs you Rs 1499 (Earlier Rs 999). They realized the fact that no matter how great your content or the kind of stellar movie list you have Indians will still hesitate to splash close to 1000 a year.
So they came up with a unique plan where you can get content that caters to the Indian audience and way cheaper than what any of the others were offering and well if you want international content you can upgrade to a higher plan.
When it comes to content available on their platform it was always bound to succeed as it is tried and tested and the market for it is already huge, so you don’t have to spend a lot on marketing to create special awareness around it.
The Hotstar VIP allows you to stream the premier league and the IPL which has automatically attracted the young sports loving generation of India and they also have telly channels like star plus which are generally preferred by the elderly. It’s a win-win for all.
Apart from this tried and tested formula they have also come up with critically acclaimed originals from time to time such as Hostages, Criminal Justice and Special ops which have a plethora of amazing actors.
They even managed to secure the rights of the need I mention the very popular ‘Game of Thrones’ in India. The hype surrounding that was unreal!
Credit where credit is due. Hotstar has managed to create a winning formula upon which they can easily build and though they may not be known as pioneers or path-breakers they have been successful in securing a big chunk of the eyeballs in India.
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