 "OTT players fighting on two fronts: Finding viable business and combating piracy")
With close to 33 over-the-top (OTT) video-streaming platforms (apps) in the country, the question is no longer about whether they are the future of entertainment, but how the ecosystem and its players can sustain themselves.
The quest for a sustainable business model is on, and just like the digital world, it seems that models need to be agile and ever-evolving.
Read more from our special coverage on "FICCI FRAMES"
Currently, most Indian OTT players are operating on an advertising-driven model, offering content to users for free. Some of the players are using the freemium model for operations where part of the content is available for free while some of it is behind a paywall. None of the existing players is working on a completely subscription-driven model.
American firm Netflix, which entered India in January, does offer an exclusively-paid OTT service and Balaji’s Alt Digital is expected to go the same way at a launch later in the year. All the major broadcast networks have their own platforms and are beaming content free.
Experts gathered at Day Three of Ficci Frames, an annual media and entertainment conference in Mumbai, concurred that instilling the paying habit in consumers will become essential. Now data charges are high but once they come down, it will be possible to tap into consumers’ wallets and command a share for content consumption.
“Even as we use the freemium model, what we use the free content for is important. If we look at the free content on the platforms as an ad-revenue driver, then we may find it difficult to sustain. However, if the free content is used to acquire consumers and get them hooked to the content and the interface, it will be easier to push transactions in the future,” said Nickhil Jakatdar, chief executive, Vuclip, a digital content platform.
He gives an example of the company’s operations in Malayasia, where Korean content is consumed avidly. While the old episodes are available for free, Vuclip has put the new ones aired behind a paywall, commanding a premium for the fresh content.
Similarly, ErosNow has some of the newer titles from its vast cinema library behind a paywall while a lot of the older content can be accessed for free. Karan Bedi, chief operating officer, ErosNow, feels the entry point into paid subscriptions also needs to be looked at and a viable price point needs to be applied.
Jakatdar adds that one way of getting people to pay online is through micro-payment, a strategy that proved successful for telecom. Eklavya Bhattacharya, chief strategy officer, Alt Entertainment (part of Balaji Telefilms), points out that having exclusive content will also help drive payment. “If someone can access the same content as my platform elsewhere for free, why would he pay me? Exclusive premium content and convenience will help evolve the consumer’s payment habit,” he said.
Bedi points out that the biggest challenge will come in the form of piracy as pirate sites become more active with uploading content. All the experts present on the forum agreed that piracy was going to be a factor and one of the ways to combat it was to raise the game in terms of quality of video, voice and subtitles.
Piracy was discussed in detail as David Clark, detective chief superintendent, head of economic crime and fraud, City of London police, explained the measures taken by his department in collaboration with the Intellectual Property Office to crack down on sites that provided content for download and/or streaming through illegal means. With the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), it has been able to get 8,500 websites suspended since 2014.
In India, the battle against digital piracy of films took its first steps in the form of the Telengana Intellectual Property Crime Unit (TIPCU) which has started some work.
The sector members said that one of the most important changes in policy required was to make digital piracy punishable as a criminal offence.
