With more and more companies promoting work from home culture due to the rapid spread of coronavirus, a 20% increase in the overall viewership across several over the top platforms has been observed.
A senior official of one of the major OTT platforms said,” As people spend more time at home due to social distancing, they spend more time watching video content online. The usual watch time in the mornings used to be while traveling and on phones, now we have seen more content being watched on televisions and laptops.”
Throwing some more light on the same, other recent reports suggest that listeners spend at least 65 minutes on various platforms.
Platforms like Zee5 Global have seen a surge of 60% in new subscriptions globally, in the month of March which has also led to a spike in viewership. A senior officer from the company said that there has been a surge of 15%-18% in overall OTT viewership across all content categories.
In view of this, Neeraj Roy, founder of Hungama Digital Media quoted that they observed a hike of 20% in the streaming numbers. Apart from this, there has been an increase in watch time as well.
Interestingly with such hikes, a number of global players are also experimenting with India specific special subscription plans.
For instance, in 2018 Amazon Prime Video launched a subscription plan at Rs. 129 in India along with a lot of other services. Netflix also introduced an exclusive India-only mobile plan for Rs. 199.
Apple-TV being a new entrant in the market, recently announced a subscription rate of Rs. 99 per month and you might be eligible for a free subscription for one year if you bought any apple device recently. Perhaps viewers will now experience multiple buying options too.
OTT industry is one of the few industries at the boom in the current situation, whereas all other industries are seen falling apart.
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