Mumbai: There are several monetisation opportunities on digital. AVOD is a large opportunity. SVOD is also an opportunity but it needs to be relevant to consumers everyday in the same way that television is. There is also scope for the transaction model but it has to be done right. Discoverability itself is a big challenge for the transaction model to work.
These remarks were made by JioCinema business head Ferzad Palia at a panel discussion during FICCI Frames 2024. The session was called ‘The Next Frontier Of Media: Content, Consumption and Experience’. When asked about monetisation of digital content he noted that in AVOD with each model there are things that have to be gotten right. There is an evolution on the content creator, platform and advertiser side in the case of AVOD. How much do you pay? What is my value? How much benefit do you get out of it?
“The subscription business is a huge opportunity staring this country in the face. It is a different thing that over the last few years people have played the game a bit differently but if you look at it India already has around 120 million subscribers who pay for entertainment on TV. The question to ask is, if it is such a profitable business then why has on the digital side the deep penetration and retention not happened? That is because you have not been able to create a habit just yet for the user. The minute you do that the Indian consumer is extremely happy to pay and progressively as we go along be even more happier to pay for a value for money proposition.”
But he added that value for money does not only mean discounting your price and someone will buy. “You need to be relevant to them everyday in the same way that television is. Subscription is a large opportunity if cracked right and the industry is working towards making that happen.”
Product Market Fit Key For The Transaction Model: On the transaction side, there has been growth in digital payments and microtransactions. At the same time, the truth is when you have 100000+ creators which may become 1 million+ creators – consumers will decide what they want to watch, where they want to watch, when they want to watch and how much they will pay. However, you cannot expect creators to create content in the manner that it is traditionally being created which is weekly or daily. The creator’s spirit will get killed.
He went on to add that if there is a product market fit for an offering it will create a transaction that has not been seen in the past. “It will become almost like an impulse purchase and not a planned purchase. For that, you have to be at that counter and therefore discoverability itself is the big challenge for the model to work. We need to open our minds to how we try it, and what is put out. It is about what is put out, the pricing that it is put out at, and the frequency that it is being put out at. Finally, it is about making it relevant to a larger base of people so that they are willing to pay for it.”
He noted that the last 12-24 months have seen various kinds of content explode. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In 24 months the digital entertainment space will not look like what it is today. Three to five years back there were about 100 content creators which were large studios, and large production houses. Now there are over 100,000 creators and these individuals are married to various platforms. Each platform has 400-500 creators from 20 creators earlier and this has essentially spun the game on its head.
He added that there is a scenario where the cost of content has become rationalised. This has happened for sustainability. The mentality of growth at any cost has changed. He said that things have changed in terms of things being in front of a paywall which you thought would be behind a paywall and vice versa. This is what creators are benefitting from.
Maturity Has Come In: SonyLIV content head Saugata Mukherjea agreed that there is maturity and rationalisation that has come into the content cost structure. There is talk of profitability now. Earlier the talk was about how expensive content would bring in the next few million subscribers on a platform. It was a subscriber at any cost but now it is about profitability. Companies have become more consumer-focused and that consumer has become much, much more larger. Programming for Sony’s platforms and channels is geared towards serving that consumer.
SonyLIV has content like Scam, and Rocket Boys which led the way for it to be where it is today. But it knows that there is a large consumer base that is not being served. It has to reach them and so a lot of habit-forming TV lite content is coming in.
Going Pan India: Right now it is not about one content against another. A consumer can choose from where they want. It could be TV, a streaming platform, or social media. “You are constantly trying to fight many battles.” What has happened he explains is that a new breed of content creators have come in. What was not being streamed a few quarters back has now become mainstream. Hence you find those makers find a sort of network platform to show their content. A reorder has happened in terms of business and perception. Also at Sony, it has inordinately invested in making it much more pan-India. It has created, and curated content outside of HSM.
More of this will happen going forward as we enter the new financial year. Various monetising models have happened and he agreed with Palia about things that one thought would be free that are behind the paywall and vice versa. Media is dynamic Nothing is constant he warned and one has to pivot every couple of quarters if not every quarter.
Digital takes Indian Content Abroad: PTC Network MD, president Rabindra Narayan said that regional content is experimenting, expanding and crossing boundaries. The main viewership on digital on his platform is Canada, then Pakistan, the US, Europe. 65 per cent of digital revenue comes from there. So it is no longer only about being present in Punjab. Earlier it was a battle with ad agencies. Then digital opened up and you can also reach places like Spain. The result has been that the company is now focussing on creating cross platform content.
The next thing being experimented on is VR. This includes Gurbani from the Golden Temple. You feel that you are actually in the scene. This year a VR fiction series is being launched. He however disagreed with Palia about things being different in two years. “Two years is a long time. Who knows what will happen in six months? Who would have thought that cricket would become free? Content consumption patterns and content creation are changing. That is the biggest revolution that has happened.”
Another thing that PTC is focussing on is local content. 30 per cent of content on the Canada feed is being produced there. He said that he is the only Indian channel to have a journalist in the White House. A lot of experimentation, crossing boundaries and breaking mindsets is happening. 10 years ago one would never have thought that one can do this. But it is making money and is becoming self-sustainable.
The UGC Scene: Hoichoi TV co-founder Vishnu Mohta said that everyone is fighting for a time from people and eyeballs whether it is UGC, long-form, or short-form content. What has changed is that UGC content is now occupying a lot of time spent by people. The definition of entertainment has changed and has democratised.
Anyone he points out can start a video channel. Will the next creator come from UGC content? They could create something that is long-form in nature if given the opportunity. They have insights into what people want to watch. The fight is to constantly understand what people want to watch and how patterns are changing. This is something that long-form content creators were never thinking about. People might spend two hours watching videos that are 20-30 seconds in length.
Personalisation: The session also pointed out that advertising was innovating before content creators. For quite a while people have been seeing something at home and then seeing contextual ads on their social media feeds. Content creators somehow never tried it and the future will be personalisation where everything will be hyper-focused. A series will see different endings. That is going to come.
AI-generated contextual content will come. Tech has made it easy and more economical to experiment and now the content creators will catch up with the advertisers. The future is AI-driven and it will be interesting to see where we go from here. Generative AI will allow for dubbing in many languages with lip-synching in the same actor’s voice. It will happen in six months.
CTV: Mukherjee noted that while we talk about personalisation and hyper-personalisation we also talk about the family coming together and watching content. CTV is becoming important. While content is created for exclusive individual viewing a lot of content will be watched together. The mode of distribution has shifted but both individual and family viewing will co-exist. So we need wholesome experiential content to view. While the philosophy of Go Solo (a campaign done by Hotstar years ago) is relevant family viewing is also present. Different worlds overlap.
Palia agreed about the importance of CTV and pointed out that three years back 20 per cent of Smart TVs were CTVs. Now only 10 per cent of Smart TVs connect only once and that is when they are bought at the time of installation. Everyone else is connecting. While Smart TV penetration is on the rise and is replacing what one refers to as Dabba TVs there will be a sudden inflection point coming a lot sooner. This he explains is where in one fine swoop fixed wireless access explodes across the country. There are 38-39 million broadband connections which is probably more like 55-60 million because a lot happens in the last mile which doesn’t make it in the reports. Then there is hotspot and tethering but this isn’t frequent consumption. It is one-off consumption.
Cautiously yet optimistically he said that in the next 18-24 months the CTV homes could be 120-130 million because in one swoop the broadband that is required for that kind of high-quality consumption will suddenly see an inflection point through things like Jio AirFiber. But we can’t ignore that the reason we used to consume TV easily and frequently is the experience. Simultaneously every TV manufacturer focuses on creating TVs that can be used not as a linear device but as a genuinely Smart device. As that plus the penetration of broadband comes together with every household having access to it at an affordable price I sense that the future of a large part of entertainment is on a living room device and pan India. This cuts across languages, and age groups from a child to a 70-year-old.
“It cuts across genres of content. What we watch today as TV channels will probably be watched via streaming. This is the same content but on a different platform.”
The Importance Of The Cloud: Everything will be played on the Cloud. The distribution system is being shaken up. Naryan pointed out that representations have been made to the I&B Ministry to change the uplink and downlink policy from satellite. A satellite has limitations. You depend on US, European satellites and so foreign exchange goes out. Also only one beam goes across the footprint. One can play out from the Cloud today as tech has changed.
A Jalandhar beam will have Jalandhar content and the ad breaks will differ. What is being seen in FAST and CTV will also be able to be done by Linear TV. Also, the quality of the broadcast will improve. No longer will you be forced to broadcast in SD as satellite bandwidth is so expensive for HD.
Once you broadcast from the Cloud you can go HD 4K. 4K channels and HD channels will come. The ad market will see tremendous growth. The tech exists as of today. The policy just has to be changed to allow going through the Cloud or P2P fibre. The ad, content market will see a tremendous revolution.
