What about monetisation, everyone's bugbear?įor now, Zee is using a hybrid model, much like most broadcasters.
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Therefore, unlike Zee's earlier digital attempts with Ditto TV or Ozee, the timing looks good. That explains why 35 OTT apps - from broadcasters, telcos and tech majors - are fighting it out in India. It seems small compared to the Rs 74,000-crore TV market, but India is one of the fastest growing online video markets in the world.
This has translated into a Rs 4,000-crore market in advertising and subscription revenues. India's 480 million broadband users watch an average of 50 minutes of video a day. "Every new platform in the last two to three years has had higher, faster acquisition numbers because the internet numbers are much higher," points out Kedar Gavane, vice president, sales and partners, comScore. The second reason Zee5 seems to be working is more generic. Roughly 3-4 per cent of its digital spends go to OTT platforms. "Zee5 has a very strong regional reach, which is a strength for them," reckons Dinesh Menon, chief marketing officer for the State Bank of India. The result is that today more than 60 per cent of its total reach is from non-Hindi languages and only 40 per cent comes from the top six metros. Zee5 came bang in the middle of this national spreading of the internet to do what it does best - lots of content in lots of Indian languages. "You don't have to be a particular psychographic or demographic to consume the internet," points out Katial. There is an audience of 500 million for languages beyond Hindi. "Till then it was largely English consumers and audiences. This, in turn, "led to the Indianisation and democratisation of the internet. This changed after Jio's launch in 2016, which helped accelerate the spread of the internet and broadband through tier II and III India. He points out that when the first OTT rush began in 2014, connectivity and data were issues. "However, it makes it that much harder to get into the consideration set," he adds. "What worked for us was coming late - therefore, you learn more. "We have tried to keep the platform as broad-based as possible," says Katial. Most start with film or drama in one language and then move to others. It has leveraged online the diversity that Zee offers on its linear broadcast business to go national in a way most OTTs haven't. That is the first reason why Zee's fourth attempt at digital seems to be paying off. It has since its launch in February 2018 commissioned more than 200 hours of original content each in eight of the 12 Indian languages it offers. Then, there is the huge flow coming in from other languages.įor instance, Sembaruthi, a Tamil show on Zee5 "has bigger volumes than all Hindi shows," says Katial.
Some of it is the sheer buoyancy it has had on the back of Hindi shows such as Karenjit Kaur or Rangbaaz. Zee5, then, is setting pretty ambitious targets for itself. IMAGE: A still from Karenjit Kaur: The Untold Story of Sunny Leone.