ALTBalaji to focus on next billion internet users from ‘Hindi heartlands’: COO

By Siddhi Jain

New Delhi, March 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) Homegrown OTT platform ALTBalaji, known for its Hindi originals, which has sold over 16 lakh subscriptions in the third quarter, said that their focus in the coming time is going to be the "electrifying market" of next billion internet users hailing from the Hindi heartlands across the Tier 2, 3, and 4 cities.

IANSlife spoke to Nachiket Pantvaidya, Group COO, Balaji Telefilms and CEO, ALTBalaji to know about their digital presence and expansion.

Excerpts:

Q. 2020 was the OTT boom, for India and the rest of the world, how did your platform catch and utilise this wave?

Pantvaidya: ALTBalaji's content line-up for the year is geared for the Bharat audience, who comprise 59 percent of the viewership on the app. The platform continues to see very strong engagement metrics that include watch time that remains close to an hour-a-day mark, despite the plethora of competing content. As per the Q3 FY21 results, ALTBalaji is adding over 20,000 to 22,000 subscriptions a day in this extremely thriving OTT business. We sold 1.6 Mn+ subscriptions in the third quarter on the back of a super-strong content lineup, and a strategic increase in marketing spend. The OTT platform also saw multiple new shows being added, taking the total number of shows on their platform to 77, which makes it one of the most diverse OTT platforms with content catering across demographics as per the viewers' choice.

Q. What are some top OTT trends/viewer preferences you have witnessed over the past year?

Pantvaidya: OTT platforms have started experimenting with varied genres of content, which has led to the growth and expansion of web business. OTT has gained significant momentum, the credit for which to an extent goes to digitization, affordable internet plans, rise in smartphone consumption patterns, among other factors. India is not only one of the fastest-growing media and entertainment markets globally but is also well poised to keep this momentum ablaze. It will make India and the globe at large, more digital-savvy; creating a larger sample size of the audience for the content, whether originals, movies, news, music, or sports, available on OTT platforms.

Q. What are ALTBalaji's content production and curation strategy? Where does the focus lie and why?

Pantvaidya: With the next billion internet users hailing from the Hindi heartlands across the Tier 2, 3, and 4 cities, we are focusing on this electrifying market. Showcasing a high sense of pro-activeness in the situation, we were able to do many marketing innovations over the past few months. This has helped us curate more digital touchpoints that help us reach out to our viewers in a host of interactive and engaging ways and uplift their viewing experience.

There is a huge churn issue in the OTT industry. What works optimally for us is to focus on consumer segmentation, mapping audience behaviour, focused customer retention, optimizing customer life cycle, and progressive strategies for onboarding new consumer segments; who are new to the internet or women in smaller markets, etc.

Our content strategy has always been aimed at mass India across segments of the audience and continues to do so, however, our content today allows people to do family viewing as well as individual viewing as per each individual's taste & preference. With a strategy to focus on youth programming for the country, ALTBalaji's offerings include premium, disruptive content, and original series across genres. With originality, courage, and relentlessness at its core, ALTBalaji's range, stands out for being avant-garde, non-conformist, inclusive, effervescent, and has something for everyone.

Q. The market now has many big and small players vying for consumer attention. What do you think is the future of OTT in India?

Pantvaidya: As per a report by PwC on Global Entertainment & Media Outlook: 2020-2024, India is the fastest-growing OTT market at 28.6 percent CAGR; to become the sixth-largest market in 2024. At ALTBalaji, we intend to be the dominant player catering to this market especially tier II, tier III towns, and hinterlands at price points that reflect affordability desired by them and testified basis our consumption data from these markets for 77 shows over the last three years.

In the upcoming quarter, we will focus on building a content bouquet that serves inclusive and individualistic viewing, for which, we have ramped our production machinery to be able to create at least 40 shows a year targeted at these markets. We have also created an efficient model to manage costs at less than one-third of what the market spends today while continuing to reign as a leader in the number of original show launches. We believe that we can target growth in the youth segment in mass India over and above male and female target audience aged between 20-40 and intend to double our direct subscriptions to double-digit figures in the coming year.

While the pandemic year 2020 redefined how content will be consumed - the year 2021 will chart new business alliances and revenue models for platforms to acquire direct subscriptions. Due to the Covid-19 impact, new consumers are coming from the heartland and we are riding that wave. The report from FICCI and E&Y has predicted 30-35 million paying subscribers on OTT platforms alone in the year 2021, and we are excited about carving a substantial pie out of the same.

2020 has also played a catalytic process in putting us on track to become the first profitable OTT platform, and we seek to break even and become an Rs 150 crore entity with at least 100 original shows by 2021. To further penetrate the Hindi heartlands, we will work on simplifying our UI/UX further, by bringing in voice search, one button click registration, as well as easy payment modules in retail and digital.

Q. The Indian diaspora makes for a significant chunk of your viewers. Does that influence your approach?

Pantvaidya: At ALTBalaji, we have always focused on massification and dominating the Hindi-speaking markets. Our goal to curate clutter-breaking and relatable content has been consistent right from the very beginning, and we shall continue to massify our content across urban and rural India. 59% of our consumers are from the non-metro and tier 2/tier 3 towns and cities, and this rise in viewership over the past few months is only going to see us work towards entertaining the Bharat audience with new exciting offerings in the months to come.

We have always believed in creating diverse shows with stories that are unique, untold, and undiscovered. Over the past couple of years, we have taken narratives on the screen that no one would dare explore. Providing a healthy mix of genres to the viewer, each of our shows has been made keeping in mind their interests, amongst other crucial parameters.

Q. What's next for ALTBalaji?

Pantvaidya: ALTBalaji has been working towards its goals and is the first OTT platform already on the road to profitability. With our costs getting controlled and the loss margin further reducing at the end of the current fiscal, we are aiming to break even soon.

Our shows, which even launched 3 years ago, are still popular amongst audiences and relevant even in today's date. In addition to that, we cater to a diverse set of audiences across the length and breadth of the country. A host of our Hindi offerings have also been dubbed in Indian and International languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bhasa, Arabic, etc. amongst others. We shall continue to focus on expanding our language content library in the coming years. For the upcoming year, ALTBalaji has an exciting pipeline, consisting of multiple shows such as The Married Woman, Apharan 2, Broken But Beautiful 3, The Test Case 2, PuncchBeat Season 2, Hum se Humsafar, Cartel, His Storyy, and many more.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)

Source: IANS