OTT apps began mainly as online destinations for catch-up TV. These days they desire to upgrade themselves to super apps that combine entertainment of all kinds on one platform. The core offering of these video streaming platforms were originals, TV shows and movies. They have now introduced gaming to their platforms. It’s a bouquet of HTML5 hyper-causal games. Hotstar has WatchNPlay to accompany cricket enabling viewers to predict the result of every ball and win rewards with the right answers. Voot has brought educational content to the platform. They may introduce hyper-short form of user generated content and hyper-local news too. They may introduce health and wellness-related content too.

Big Boss is popular reality show on TV. However, it has a good digital fan base too. Many consume it on OTT channel. Voot will screen it this season (2021) before it gets screened on Colors. It will be six weeks ahead of the TV broadcast. It will not be a 1-hour episode. It will be screened as curated clips, live and fully interactive. These will be screened round the clock. These will be fully interactive, and will influence the decisions in the house.

India has a good potentia for TV. Here the future of TV is TV, at least for the next five years. There are no chances of cannibalisation of the programmes. Thus India offers an opportunity to create content that is screen-agnostic.

The trend is to be digital first. The lines between digital and TV are blurring. The aim is to deliver entertainment.

A new age quiz show is planned. It will be suitable for TV, social media and OTT. Thus for some programmes, there will be integration. For some programmes, there are going to be spin-offs of the TV programmes.

Digital content is created specially for young viewers, e.g. Myntra Fashion Superstar. The team had experience of creating content TV. They had to curate a programme that could be viewed and then acted upon within the app ecosystem. Reality content for digital has to be curated differently from TV reality shows. People do not want to watch a digital show that looks like the TV show recreated for digital.

Digital viewers want bold, edgy, youthful and trendy content. They look for engagement and interactivity.

Unscripted shows for digital is a growing trend. There is massive opportunity for non-fiction content for digital platforms.

There is demand for both scripted and unscripted content.

The cost of a TV show which on average runs for 25-30 episodes per season cannot be compared to an OTT show which has fewer episodes, say 8-10. An OTT show’s cost per episode is higher. It could be 2-3 times more than that of a TV episode.

India happens to be the fastest growing OTT market. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates it to reach $5 billion by 2023. Video-on-Demand is a boon. India was so far denied the global best content. VoD is an answer. Traditional TV is passe.

OTT platforms are successful in putting their act together. OTT, to begin with, was a niche player, offering live sport to the younger segment which otherwise was not available on TV. It has a massive reach now. It has witnessed 15 per cent growth year-on-year. The growth could reach 21 per cent. The OTT players now touch diverse genres. Is this just a flash in the plan or is it going to stay? OTT viewing is both individual and group-led. Streaming is much more than live sports today. It has entered all geographies of India. There is pay-per-view model. There is download to rent model (DTR). There is electronic sell through (EST) model.

So much of cinema content was diverted to OTT. It gave it a big fillip.

These platforms are here to stay.

Content creation is not easy. Creating content that connects is more difficult. Content that inspires is rare. Your content must establish relationship with the audience.

Most content struggles to engage the audience. Being mediocre, it is lost. Content generators may not be creative geniuses. They should understand human behaviour. They should understand motivation. This should be the foundation of content. We must focus on key insights. We must know what a customer responds to. HDFC Life Insurance has successfully used meaningful conversations with its audience segments. It allows people to share their stories — stories of loss of the loved ones. Audience is allowed genuine conversation by interactivity.

Content must tell a story. Story could be a grandma story or a meme or a video. What matters is the quality of the story and its narration.

There is so much going on in the field of creating digital content. We have already studied influencer marketing. A lot of companies do the brand promotion through digital content.

Social media keeps on adding features to lure the content creators. Exciting new features which are lucrative are being added.

Facebook, Instagram and YouTube facilitate digital content.

The five main purposes of digital content are to generate ad revenue, to do brand placement and-or sponsorships, do affiliate marketing and do merchandise and crowdfunding.

In India, 70-80 per cent of all data is on video.There is widespread consumption of online video. The short form content has huge demand, e.g. Reels.

Instagram has recently launched Reels to allow people to mix in other people’s Reels in their original posts.

Content could pertain to entertainment, food, beauty, comedy, lifestyle, technology, vocational skills, gaming, education and learning, business and communication. It is interesting to note that first of all those who created comedy tasted success.

Social media pay to content creators by counting number of times ads are shown or on the basis of number of clicks. It may not depend on the number of followers.

There are a number of revenue sources for content creators. There are brand collaborations, paid partnerships and through the channels, say YouTube pays creators after they qualify certain number of watch hours and subscriber counts.

Instagram does not pay the content creators directly. Revenue comes from branded endorsements and sponsored posts. Facebook pays in a similar manner. TikTok creators with 1 lac followers are paid per 1000 views through Creator Fund.

YouTube’s first Me at the Zoo video was produced in 2005 by its founder Javed Karim. It registered 171 million views.

Ten years, later, say in 2014, there were 16 YouTube channels which had crossed the million subscriber mark.

Currently in 2021, there are 2500 channels on YouTube with one million plus subscribers.

Indian music labels, such as T series have 187 million subscribers.

In the top viewed 20 channels in the world, top five are from India.

Of course, there is constant pressure on creators to create new content. Many a time, the content could show obscenity, racial slurs and could lead to gaming addiction.