India’s entertainment industry is evolving with the rise of OTT platform which are significantly shaping the way audiences consume content. While we all know about the streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar, it’s time to shift focus towards the regional OTT platforms which are carving a space for themselves.
These regional OTT platforms have immense potential for revenue generation by catering to both local and global audiences. Moreover, there are multiple strategies these platforms can adopt to unlock much greater revenue streams.
Raghav Anand, Partner at EY-Parthenon rightly pointed out that India’s smart TV universe is currently at 22 million and is set to rise to 70-80 million in next three years. This will not only boost the internet TV but also OTT platforms. This also serves as a ripe opportunity for regional OTT platforms to capitalize on.
Mainstream platforms are not much focused on India’s regional audience in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and that leaves a large untapped market that could drive substantial growth for regional OTTs who can step in and take advantage of this opportunity. Moreover, regional OTTs have great demand overseas, such as Punjabi and Telugu content is highly sought after in Canada and USA. This diaspora market, coupled with localized pricing models tailored for tier 2 and 3 cities, offers immense revenue potential for these regional platforms.
The question remains how will these regional OTT platforms attract and retain loyal customers? For that they need to differentiate themselves through distinctive content and also offer optimised pricing for regional audiences and that should typically be more affordable than mainstream OTTs.
But this alone isn’t going to be enough and to become more attractive, regional platforms will have to adapt various other tactics as well. These includes capitalising on ad-supported content (AVOD) because Indian users still prefer free content, and regional platforms can tap into this by offering high-quality, ad-supported shows. Also, these hyper-targeted ads will further aid in increasing revenue.
Other significant strategies that the regional OTTs can follow is offering personalised user experience and bundling with mobile plans. Additionally, learning from bigger global players like Prime Video and Netflix, they should also provide personalised content recommendations that will further help retain audience.
There’s a lot of potential for regional Indian OTTs, both locally and globally and there growth is inevitable. While localised pricing, unique content, as-supported streaming and personalised experience is the way ahead for regional OTTs, they also need to invest in technology and user experience in order to thrive in the evolving digital landscape.
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