Rajshekhar Baddam, who was recently elevated as the Marketing Head of OTT platform aha, spoke on plans to launch non-fiction content and formats, success of Telugu Indian Idol 2 and subscription numbers, in an exclusive chat with MediaNews4U. Excerpts:
Aha is aggressively exploring non-fiction formats in the OTT space. What is the strategy?
Aha aspires to be the entertainment destination of the Telugu audience. We are the only OTT platform offering premium non-fiction content in regional languages. Shows like Indian Idol Telugu and Unstoppable, that we did with legendary actor Nandhamuri Balakrishna, are the subscription driving properties. The popularity of these reality shows contributed immensely towards spike in subscriptions. Unstoppable Season 1 was also a blockbuster season for us with the participation of big stars. With the participation of big names like Pawan Kalyan, Prabash, former AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu (as guest), Unstoppable Season 2 has got us 60 pc more subscribers than season one. Unstoppable (S1 and S2) has clocked 35.76 million unique viewers.
Indian Idol Telugu is the second biggest show from a subscription driving point of view. It has contributed 50 pc additional growth over and above the numbers of Indian Idol Telugu Season 1 even before the streaming of the grand finale.
In addition, we have witnessed overwhelming participation from brands despite the show being on SVOD platform. As many as eight brands onboarded as sponsors. This is due to the popularity of the previous seasons.
Indian Idol format was born on TV. Was there any change in packaging of the format for the OTT audience?
This is the first time the Indian Idol format is being made in South India, that too on OTT. We are fortunate enough to complete two seasons in Telugu with blockbuster success. The entire presentation of the show was very different for the audience and contestants. This is the only singing talent show which makes playback singers – five out of the top six singers of the first season were signed by top music directors. In the second season, few talents were signed by music composers on the podium itself while the show was in progress.
The uniqueness started at the audition stage with talents being shortlisted from different socio-economic backgrounds. We have a BSF Jawan Chakrapani (from Pakistan border) contesting with special permission; Pranathi, a 14-year-old girl has grabbed lots of attention to the extent that actor Chiranjeevi invited her to his house and offered his blessings; Karthikeya, a 16-year-old boy who became a rockstar with appreciation from Devi Sri Prasad; Saujanya, a mother of a two-year-old kid who restarted her singing after few years of break and emerged as a phenomenal performer; a girl from New Jersey who came all the way from the US to participate.
The interest levels of viewers towards Indian Idol Telugu 2 was exceptional. The show generated 400 million viewing minutes with a healthy average viewing of 34 minutes per each 50-minute episode.
Can you take us through the subscription numbers of aha?
We have over 2.7 million paid subscribers. Apart from that we have 12 million monthly active users (MAU) on the platform who visit to consume our free content library. In three years of aha’s journey, we have crossed 32 million app downloads. Out of 2.7 million, 2.4 million are Telugu subscribers.
We were the first mover in Telugu OTT space. Despite the Covid-induced no-content period, we managed to cross one million subscribers in the first year. Subsequently, we have grown to another million in 2022 and this year we have added another seven lakh new subscribers. That includes subscribers from the Tamil market we entered in April 2022. We look forward to grow by another million this year too.
aha has over 2,000 hours of content out of which 350 is premium content that can be accessed by paid subscribers only. The remaining 70 pc content is free for the AVOD universe. The free content library of aha consists of movies from Telugu and Tamil, all movie trailers and first episodes of our fiction originals. We want our audience to sample the first episode of our originals and if s/he likes it, then they can think of paid subscription.
In Telugu, we offer live news channel feeds of TV9 Telugu, 10 TV and V6 News and we will be adding a few more shortly. We also have kids shows and casual games on our platform. We have dubbed the Korean shows in Telugu to attract youth and females. We are working towards adding more formats and mix of genres as part of our effort to cater to viewers from the age of six to 60 years.
What is your strategy to amplify the reach for shows like Indian Idol Telugu?
Since it is a singing reality show, it majorly involves contestants. We create a hero out of the contestant by regionalising and building emotions out of the talents and make them the face of the show throughout the journey.
We had star faces like music composer Thaman, singer Karthik and others to set the base but once the shortlisting of 12 contestants is done, then they are the real heroes who will engage the audience. So we pivot from judges to contestants and their story that appeals to the audience.
Being an internet company, we can’t ignore digital marketing as our mandate is to target a consumer who has a mobile phone and internet connection. Beyond that we focus on activation. We travel to educate our audiences in tier 2 and tier 3 towns and the category itself needs to be built.
The Telugu OTT market has only 4.5 million paid subscribers that is being shared between all the streaming platforms. For us to expand beyond, it can happen only through category expansion by activating the audience. For Indian Idol Telugu 2, we did a show in Nellore on 25th February 2023 with our judges and others performing before the gathering of over 5000 people. In Hyderabad, performances in clubs are a major activity. The top five contestants frequent all leading clubs to perform in the live bands. We compose and release songs with our top talents. Brands also engage with our contestants by involving them in promotional activities. In our recent association with Bingo Mad Angles, we did a song for the brand that will be released soon. We have roped in Radio Mirchi as our radio partner to promote the show through their FM and digital radio network. We also do our conventional marketing campaigns on television and outdoor mediums.
Can you give us a percentage ratio of your multimedia marketing spend?
On an average we spend around 30 pc on digital marketing. In order to expand our reach for shows like Indian Idol, we spent around 40 pc of our budget on a bigger universe like television. The original format is a bit urban and Tier 1 focused. We tweaked it a bit to appeal to the family audience. Hence, TV became essential for us and it delivered the desired results too. And we spent around 10 pc on activation and 20 pc on print and outdoor.
What is the customer retention ratio of aha in SVOD?
We are doing significantly great with 60 to 70 pc month on month retention against the market average of 50 pc. This is due to the exclusive Telugu entertainment content offered by us. While other OTTs offer movies, we curate content with a mix of genres catering to different sections of audience with a new release every Friday. All these factors help us to maintain better retention figures.
We are present in over 190 countries and in fact the US is our biggest paid subscription market after India. Hyderabad is our top subscription destination, followed by Bengaluru, USA, Chennai, Vizag and Vijayawada. The working population of Telugu states and diaspora settlement in neighbouring states who are tech savvy and their ability to pay is the reason why Chennai and Bengaluru are featuring in the top destination list.
Can you brief us on market shares in the Telugu OTT Space?
The total size of OTT subscriptions in Telugu states of Andhra and Telangana including three lakh Telugu families in US is 12 million that are divided between all the OTTs. This number comes from 4.5 million paying Telugu subscribers who subscribe to two or three SVOD platforms on an average.
aha is pretty much the undisputed leader in the Telugu OTT space, while occasionally we share the number one spot with Prime Video based on new releases. Ormax has rated aha as the preferred brand (top the mind). It also revealed that 3.6 out of 4.5 million paid subscribers in Telugu OTT space had subscribed aha once. According to available data, Prime Video has around 2.2 million Telugu subscribers.
Seventy percent of our money goes towards producing originals while around 30 pc of the budget is being utilised towards acquiring theatrical movies.
Demography of audience in aha – any interesting data on Male vs Female ratio?
Like any other OTT platform, the major demographic of audience in aha belongs to the age group 18 to 35 years that accounts to 50 to 60 pc as they are the early adopters of the technology with high spending capacity with an urge to consume content on the move ditching the appointment viewing culture. They are also willing to explore new content beyond theatre and TV.
When it comes to male vs female ratio, we have 30 pc of female subscribers against 70 pc of male subscribers based on the subscription records available. However, due to the male dominance in payment gateway related aspects, it is understood that a considerable portion of the female content consumers are depending on males to make payment for the renewal of their subscriptions. Hence, the ideal ratio would be 40 pc female subscribers against 60 pc males.
What is your take on the government mandating statutory warning on usage of tobacco?
We welcome the move mandated by the government as anything that is harmful to the human race needs maximum awareness. We are waiting for the orders to reach us. Upon receiving the same, we will start working towards implementing the statutory warning on tobacco usage in all our content.
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