JioCinema has been aggressive in the streaming business, the numbers are impressive and the content is free. When it comes to their advertising, how is it growing?
We have done a small study of five key markets in OTT. We found that they have more than one thousand advertisers on board. One major reason, obviously, is that it’s free to all. Hence the kind of users that have come on the platform has seen an uptick. There are obviously going to be a lot of learnings this year. Even JioCinema as a team has received feedback from auditors like TAM. We also work with federations on audit with this event (Indian Premier League). Next year should be slightly better in terms of how things work out.
Sports streaming will not be free forever. Jio has done well this year and it will continue to do so in the next four years.
Kerala & Tamil Nadu are large retail markets. Many linear channels survive on retail, they don’t even get national clients at times. How will it pan out and what other sectors are mainstays?
The South is a large contributor to the retail sector. In 2022 alone, retail has contributed to 57 pc of ad spends. This is going to be bigger in future as it is a sector that grows strongly every year. Property and real estate is another sector that’s coming up in a big way in the South, another will be education. The retail sector growth will rise by 8 to 9 pc y-o-y, which has already happened in the last few years.
Nationally we saw edtech balloon burst. Which are the categories that have gone down in the ad pie and which are rising?
Edtech has gone down after the startup funding has frozen. The number of ads, volume and insertions have gone down by 55 pc in 2022. I don’t think it’s going to recover any time soon till we have any changes in practices being followed. Reduction and increase in category spending is cyclical. However, in the last year we have seen that in FMCG categories like shampoos have come up. There are milk beverages and real estate in certain segments have gone down. While in South we have seen that real estate has come up, aerated soft drink, properties has also witnessed an increase, which are unique to South India. Retail has come up in a very big way, you have clothing, pharma, e-com has also witnessed a growth. These are the categories to watch out for in 2023.
In a nutshell, how should one read your report, understand and make good use of it?
South Side Story essentially was created for the entire media industry. If you are into sales, this essentially will tell you what your competition is doing and the kind of media plans you should create. You can also compare it with external factors on the feedback competitions have received and change your plan. This will give you an overall idea on what your sector is doing to a large extent.
If you are an owner or a senior management person, then the main goal will be to see whether there are any new walk-ins coming in, because that’s your competition for the future. What kind of walk-in advertisers are coming, how strong are they, are there any categories or advertisers that have fallen out of the race, etc. How at an overall level the growth factors are working, based on that your organisation will also change for the next year.
Lastly, for the entire media industry, how these five key markets are working because they are really different from other segments. If you see the North and West markets, they are different from the South. Digital is very strong and the traditional medium takes a back seat there. However, here in the South they are really co-existing.
In terms of ad volume, are there any numbers for the AVOD model?
AVOD is a platform which will come up very nicely in a price sensitive market like India. Even bigger platforms like Prime and Netflix are following this model. We see media reports say they are going to combine free and subscribed content. Even after a few years, they have realised that the subscription model doesn’t work in a price sensitive market like India. AVOD as a platform has grown 29 pc in the last year overall and South will have a bigger pie in this. It is estimated to grow 40 pc in India. AVOD is estimated to do Rs.11,000 crore business this year in India (from a media report).
