Happy Krishna Janmashtami

Broadcasters want to shift the TV viewing audience to video streaming platforms. In order to achieve this, they would first put their popular programme on OTT channel, and later on TV. Voot will video stream Big Boss hosted by Karan Johar six weeks ahead of the TV show on Colors hosted by Salman Khan.

It is in a sense a TV-OTT integration. It aims at introducing a new cohort of consumers into the OTT fold. It makes the audience wider. So far only youngsters who loved the edgy content on OTT channels patronised them. TV was skewed towards the family audience. There could be a shift of older demographic audience to OTTs. It is an attempt of audience expansion.

TV builds an audience of fans. OTT channels can inherit this audience of fans and build upon it. OTT channels could show spin-offs of TV shows. And there is more room on OTT channels for experimentation. There is also an attempt to offer premium content at a price. In OTT channels, the premium content is put behind paywalls.

OTT channels are working on expanding their inventory of the original content. They will have to invest more in content. Viewers will pay for exclusive content, rather than the content that is put first on OTT channel. It is also a question of pricing the content appropriately.