Digital entertainment or over the top (OT T) is the biggest success story in Indian entertaiment industry, according to a study released on Tuesday by the industry body Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce (FICCI).
FICCI's report on India's media and entertainment field titled 'A Billion Screens of Opportunity', prepared in association with Ernst & Young, points out how OTT, the term given to online streaming services like Hotstar, Netflix, etc, had exponential growth through 2018 and points to the future direction of media and entertainment in India. OTT services are accessible over the internet on devices like smart TV (or a regular TV attached to an enabler like Amazon's Fire stick) or computers, though in India they are mostly consumed via mobile phones.
While cinema and TV segments grew by 12 per cent over the previous year, OTT usage increased by almost 42 per cent in 2018. The only other mode of entertainment having a bigger growth was online gaming, at 59 per cent.
Thanks to improved broadband speeds and slashing of data prices, India had an internet entertainment boom of sorts last year. This helped multiplayer gaming as well as accessing major video content providers. OTT platforms like Hotstar rode the popularity of IPL which it streamed live to millions of devices, while others like Hoichoi (Bengali entertainment), Zee5 (the late-to-begin online platform of the Zee network) and not to forget, the global leader which is almost generic to this segment, Netflix all capitalised on an increasingly aspirational user base which wanted better quality programming at their convenience, and without the bother (mostly) of ad-breaks.
While conventional TV still had a robust growth, it is interesting to note that the report attributes this more to the growth of regional channels and programming, live sporting events (Football World Cup was a big draw last year) as well as impact properties.
Digital subscription actually grew by a whopping 262 per cent, with users paying as much as a cumulative Rs 4 billion for video content. While many telecom operators bundling OTT services was key in helping this growth, there were still users who readily parted with lot more money than for conventional TV services like cable and DTH in 2018, the report puts their number at anywhere up to 15 million, up from 7.5 million in 2017.