Smart changes in media

With the rise of shared devices, smartphones are becoming the poor man's TV while smart TVs are becoming the rich man's smartphone in India

Is the smartphone becoming the poor man’s TV? And is the smart TV becoming the rich man’s smartphone? Much of the research on content consumption, device penetration, and even anecdotal evidence suggests that some fundamental shifts are happening.

For example, one of the most startling findings of Nielsen’s second India Internet Report 2023 is the multiplication of audience due to shared devices. About 85 million users (39 per cent) in rural India watch videos or attend online classes with others — and more women than men do this.

In the 1990s, every copy of an Indian language paper was shared by anywhere from 4-11 readers. As per capita incomes rose, sharing became almost negligible. It seems that a similar trend is happening with smartphones. Nielsen does not capture the number of people sharing a smartphone, but confirms that it is higher amongst lower-price band handset owners and less affluent homes. While overall smartphone sharing is 36 per cent, among owners of handsets costing Rs 10,000 or less, it is 44 per cent.

This reaffirms a trend this newspaper reported on earlier this year. India has more than 837 million internet users — 800 million of which use broadband. Out of these, 600-630 million or just under 80 per cent use smartphones. For millions of Indians, a smartphone is the first port of entry into the internet. These are phones capable of processing bandwidth that allows you to watch a movie, listen to music, or have a meeting online. As smartphone prices hit the roof, its adoption at the middle and lower end stalled and, therefore, the internet’s growth slowed too in 2021 and most of 2022. Clearly, those left out of the march of the internet are now joining in through shared devices. That explains why usage or time spent continues to grow, according to Comscore data.

The implications of these trends go far beyond just expanding the reach of devices. For some years now, the whole thinking and approach in digital has been based on the assumption that the smartphone is a personal device. That is no longer the case. The first flush of growth in urban and well-off India is over. In this next round, platforms, content creators and device makers might have to approach things the way linear TV did.

The same people who make programming for TV and films, make it for OTT. One of the big reasons TV programming never made the leap to the quality that you see on OTT today is because more than 97 per cent TV homes in India have a single TV. Even affluent Indian households believe that TV-watching is a family activity. TV watching never became a private activity in the way that mobile phone use became in urban India. Willy-nilly that is what is happening to the smartphone. It is becoming the linear TV of the poor.

This, even as DD Freedish, a free, linear, and state-controlled DTH operator, makes inroads into the same audience. DD Freedish reaches a mammoth 58 million homes, or about 278 million people. That is just over a fourth of all TV homes and a third or all TV audiences in India. It now drives close to  Rs 3,000 crore worth of advertising to the 70-odd private channels, such as Dangal, The Q, and Shemaroo TV, which use its platform. Again, note that the growth here is from small towns and rural India, largely in the Hindi-speaking belt, where DD Freedish is strongest. This growth in the free programming ecosystem is arguably the second biggest shift in the Rs 1.61-trillion Indian media and entertainment business. That a state-controlled DTH operator is, along with YouTube, at the centre of this ecosystem is startling.

YouTube reaches over 462 million people every month. That is over 90 per cent of all the people who use the internet regularly for news, entertainment, or information, going by Comscore data. And if you think the two are not comparable, think again. In a long chat recently with Ishan Chatterjee, YouTube India managing director, one thing stood out. He said that while watching YouTube on TV screens in December 2022, Indian viewers watched videos that were on average over 250 per cent longer than the average of those viewed on mobile and desktop. And the average session was over 400 per cent longer. He doesn’t say it, but clearly YouTube is for many smart TV owners the default option when they can’t figure out what to watch on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or other OTTs. 

What this implies is that the lines between devices, content consumption and even content creation are blurring.

The Q is a linear channel on DD Freedish that uses successful YouTube creators to put together shows like Bak Bak Baklol that are unique to it. More than 40 per cent of what is consumed on OTT is content that was aired on and consumed on linear. The average viewer does not care whether he watches The Kapil Sharma Show on Sony TV or SonyLIV. Linear broadcasters such as Sony or Disney, which are finally free of price regulation and the single TV syndrome, have some of the most successful streaming video brands in India — SonyLIV and Disney+Hotstar.

Like all shifting markets, this one is full of both disruption and the possibilities it brings.

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