Category: Media

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.

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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.

There was a case against the new IT Rules pertaining to the code of ethics for publishers of online content. The Bombay HC stayed Rule 9(1) and Rule 9(3) of the IT (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Rule 9(1) says a publisher shall observe and adhere to the code of ethics and norms of conduct for journalists under the Press Council guidelines and Cable TV Code.

Rule 9(3) sets out a 3-tier structure to deal with complaints against publishers. First tier is self-regulation by publishers. Second tier is by self-regulation through a body of publishers. Third tier is an oversight mechanism by Centre.

The HC is of the opinion that such compulsory adherence to code of ethics is in the breach of the right to free speech guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution.

As such, the HC says further, clause 9 goes beyond the scope of the IT Act itself.

The Court allowed clause 14 and 16 of the IT Rules that deal with the formation of an Interministerial Committee and blocking of content in certain situations.

The HC has not stayed Rule 9(2) which says the publishers who contravene or violate any other law can be proceeded against under the law.

Two Massachusetts companies propose a class-action suit against Google for entering into an agreement with Facebook to drive ads to them and hinder competition, thus violating anti-trust law.

In online advertising, Google has retained its dominance by this deal with the Facebook. There are virtual auctions that determine whose ads appear where in programmatic buying. There is a header bidding system devised in 2014. It enables publishers to direct a user’s browser to solicit real-time bids from multiple exchanges. Such bids should not be restricted to Google’s exchange. Facebook adopted this system, but in 2018, it entered into a deal with Google. It agreed to limit its programme in return for preferential treatment in Google’s ad business. Google has thus restrained the competition through an agreement with Facebook.

The two companies claim that Google is responsible for all the damages advertisers suffer.

Digital news and current affairs publishers question why in the new IT Rules, they are treated on par with the social media and OTT platforms. The constitutionality of these rules have been challenged. As it is there was lack of consultation between the government and the news media, before these rules were made.

Unlike social media, news media are already regulated by the Press Council the Cable and TV Networks (Regulation) Act and the NBSA. Therefore, it was not necessary to frame the additional rules.

In fact, the IT Act dealing with the digital intermediaries, does not apply to news publishers. It deals with content regulation to the limited extent — say child pornography, obscenity, sexually explicit material and cyberterrorism. These do not apply to the news media.

The criticism is also levelled against the rules going beyond the scope of the parent act. The three-tier mechanism ultimately leads to empower the government to hold media to a ‘code of ethics’.

There are ambiguous notions of half-truths, good taste and decency. These tend to intimidate the news media into a kind of self-censorship. It vests the government with an overreaching power over news content.