An exciting year for OTT players, cable TV networks

The increased consumption of content on cellphone is challenging the entire dynamics of business and not just the marketers and advertisers.  

In the Indian context, the media and the entertainment sectors have always been the harbinger of growth, a situation that holds true even in the digital era.

The steady rise of homegrown live streaming and over-the-top (OTT) platforms, the presence of global companies, increased content curation and changing consumption patterns are all indicators that OTT is here to stay, with some consolidation on its way by 2020.

A recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report suggests that about 75 per cent of content will be consumed on OTT platforms by 2021, predicting the OTT market would touch the $5- billion mark by 2023.

However, the noteworthy shift to be factored in by marketers and advertisers will be the sharp rise in demand and consumption of voice searches and commands, in addition to vernacular and localised content.  

As per a January 2019 Global Web Index finding (Q4 2018), a survey of internet users aged 16 to 64 revealed that India leads in the category — Use of Voice Search and Voice Commands — with 51 per cent, followed by China and Indonesia (percentage of Internet users in top economies, who report using voice-controlled functionality).   

This is corroborated by a study, India Mobile Broadband Index Report, conducted by Nokia, which suggests a 270 per cent growth in voice searches across India.

Increasingly, businesses are making services available on voice-activated assistants. Ernst & Young’s report, Re-imagining India’s M&E sector, estimates that the total number of video consumers in the country could go up to around 500 million by 2020.

With more and more smartphones making their way into the hands of the semi-urban and rural population, coupled with fiercely affordable data costs and expansive reach of Internet, India will witness a  kind of boom that has never been seen before in the demand for entertainment and information-driven video-on-demand (VOD) and live streaming content. This will include content in regional languages, coupled with increased use of voice offerings. With this, digital advertising will become more and more oriented towards mobile. According to the Mobile Marketing Ecosystem Report 2018 by MMA and GroupM, the global growth of the media ad spends industry in 2017 was 3 per cent. However, India saw a 13 per cent growth in FY 2018 and 70 per cent of the Indian digital ad spends on mobile.    As per statista.com, mobile advertising accounted for roughly 27 per cent of digital advertising spending in India in 2016 and is projected to be close to 62 per cent by 2021.    

With an estimated 72 per cent of Indian digital shoppers being millennials, consuming more than 100 minutes of streaming entertainment (music+video) every day, there is an increased focus on original and platform-exclusive content and internet offerings to drive more subscribers by the OTT players (even by the original equipment manufacturers or OEMs).

This is being driven with the support of a programmatic ecosystem and the use of data science that helps companies analyse consumption data trends of their subscribers and accordingly develop content.

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) will undoubtedly assist business heads and marketers in strategising their marketing plan. AI will certainly come handy in acquiring and managing customers.

To a certain extent, it would also help in addressing the issue of advertisement frauds. All in all, 2019 will be an exciting year for both OTT players and traditional cable TV networks. Technology and customisation will take centre stage, making ‘digital’ and ‘mobile’ very significant parts of an advertiser’s media mix.  

However, the challenge will be to ensure profitability, which even at the best of times is a very tall order.

Author is founder and CEO, MoMagic Technologies