As per a Boston Consulting Group report, the Indian OTT market, which is currently valued at $500 million, is expected to reach an astounding $5 billion by 2023. This comes to me as no surprise as part of an engaged audience rapidly consuming OTT content, just about having finished watching reruns of White Collar on Hotstar, and Bones on Netflix, as a result of which I am in a seemingly long-distance relationship with my Television.

Competing with the 5 C’s -Convenience, Control, Choice, Content, Cost effectiveness –
Shift from Appointment viewing to Anytime viewing:
The ‘good old’ television today is competing with the 5c’s OTT has to offer Convenience, control, choice, content and cost. Whether it is catching your favorite sporting event while you are travelling, from Formula 1 to IPL, football, hockey and more. Fixed time slots and appointment watching for your favourite sporting events is now a thing of the past, bringing the power of choice and control into the viewer’s hands.

Content defines rules, engagement and gets you real time feedback – High cost budget content does not necessarily define the success, it is how engaging the quality of storytelling is. What’s more content creators no longer need to wait till ratings indicate viewership, the success or failure of the show is indicated via social media, which is a fair dipstick to gauge engagement with viewers and sometime scan even provide qualitative feedback on shows.

Convenience at a less cost – Whether it is on your commute to work, or just a relaxed weekend at home, OTT platforms are your constant companions via your smartphone. While you have to choose and pay for your channels on TV, most OTT platforms will give you access to all their content on subscription, however some have now gotten into premium subscription et..al but bulk of the content remains available on subscription itself, making it a more cost-effective alternative.

45% of time spent on Digital is spent on the entertainment category-
According to a recent Kantar Internet usage report, around 45% of the time spent on digital is spent on the entertainment category, thus leading

to growth of OTT players, viewership is further estimated to grow annually by 32 percent through 2020. This is reiterated with the increase in the number of OTT Platforms in the country and the undeniable change in consumption patterns, from appointment viewing to On-Demand Web- Video Shows and Internet-First Shows Optimized for Mobile that OTT offers.

OTT… but what more?
Leveraging OTT education - Though entertainment currently makes up for a lion’s share of the OTT pie if leveraged well, OTT platforms have the potential to make education even more accessible to people from smaller cities. The idea of the world being one classroom can be made a reality for those in small towns getting access to world class professors, content and lectures through the power of OTT.

Mobile has become the primary device for accessing Internet


Content first; Platforms are secondary –
Given the current scenario, and the expected advent of 5G which will only further boost and internet availability, we are all set to see a rise in OTT players. However, as we are already witnessing viewers are increasingly platform agnostic, to take an example of Sacred Games again if it was airing on any other popular platform, the consumer will watch it there. Consumers are loyal to content not platforms, thus making it incumbent on the platform to build its unique Content USP, for instance ZEE5 is known for its original content, Hotstar for sports content, Netflix for its International content, Voot for its USP in Kids content so on and so forth.



Depending on their ‘go to market strategy’, the platform stakeholders have to make the integral decision of which route to take for content creation, whether the platform is going to produce its own content or acquire rights for few marquee shows, and have a mix bag of content, and partly produce content and partly acquire rights to some prime shows similar to the model a few players are using, MX player one of the platforms who has been creating a fair amount of buzz in the last year has for instance tied-up with The Viral Fever to produce content.

Role of OTT in our lives today....
Today the consumer/ viewer is spoilt for choice and creating meaningful content becomes a primary focus.

Today all of us, as keen producers as well as avid consumers of content need to take a step back and consider, ponder and delve into what role do OTT platforms play in our lives today?

Content powered by ‘media that matters’ is eventually going to determine the ethos of consumer consumption in times to come.