In India, VoD is available by three routes. First, through broadcasters such as Star or Zee. These have captive audience and therefore setting an online platform is easier, both contentwise and marketingwise. It is, however, moot whether audiences will come to them beyond catch-up TV or live events. Second,there are aggregators ( Spuul or Viu ). They are tech-savvy outfits who know how to package video and tag it best. As they lack the ready audiences, their marketing costs are higher. Third, there are players such as Eros, Netflix, Balaji or Amazon who focus on creating content. They have the confidence to replicate this capability for online content. Some start with an existing base, and some anew.

In VoD market, though content is important, packaging it correctly is more important. For instance, some iconic scenes in movies will do better online than the entire movies. There are chances of regional content doing well.

Voot, Viacom 18’s video app launches in March, 2016. It is described as a TV station for the future.

All metrics are growing — device penetration, bandwidth consumption and advertising. The growth is 35-40 per cent. So investors do rush in. India is still underpenetrated, single-TV-home market. The younger generation is moving away from TV. The net is about youth or an urban mass.