MUMBAI: Direct subscriber base will be a big revenue contributor for the over the top (OTT) video platforms in the future. According to the KPMG report on the media and entertainment sector, the direct subscriber base is expected to rise to 55-65 million by FY24.

This growth in direct subscriber base will be driven by the availability of high-quality content curated for different audiences; and continued growth in the digital infrastructure and the digital payments landscape in the country, it stated.

The report stated that direct subscriptions contributed around 65-70% of the OTT video revenue in FY19 and the rest were realisations from telco partnerships. The OTT video subscription revenues have registered a nearly 3x increase in FY19, totalling Rs 1200 crore, with contributions from both direct subscription revenues of OTT platforms, as well as those from the telco partnerships.

KPMG’s industry discussions indicate that there could be close to 11-14 million direct paid subscriptions in FY19, including Amazon Prime subscriptions.

Owing to the relatively higher price points and the wider e-commerce appeal associated with Netflix and Amazon Prime respectively, these two platforms accounted for a bulk of the direct subscription revenues, it added.

Hotstar also contributed significantly to the overall direct subscription revenues of the industry in FY19 owing to a robust slate of live sports, the international library and live TV content.

While direct subscriber base is crucial, the telco partnerships will remain important. The report noted that telco partnerships have also emerged as an important source of subscription/syndication revenue for the OTT platforms, with a significant 30-35 contribution to the overall subscription revenues in FY19.

It stated that platforms like ALT Balaji and Eros Now are examples of players who have substantial revenue contribution coming from telco distribution.

The global cinema advertising market is expected to be worth $4.6bn this year, a 6.8% rise from 2018. This is ahead of international marketing intelligence service WARC’s all-media growth forecast of 4.6% for 2019 (to $624.9bn), and places cinema as the second-fastest growing ad medium this year, behind internet as a whole.

Cinema's share of global adspend is holding steady

Small cinema's 0.7% share of global adspend is expected to hold steady in 2019, making it the only medium other than internet not to lose share. Figures from WARC's Adspend Database show cinema's share of global adspend dipped only twice since 1980 (1994 and 2013) and growth in cinema ad investment generally tracked ahead of other traditional media since 1981 and consistently so since 2014.

In Europe, advertisers spend 1.6 times more on cinema per admission than in the US. The UK leads the way, with spend per admission rising from £0.18 in 1980 to £1.43 last year, when 177m admissions were recorded — the highest on record. This despite 46% of UK consumers stating that Netflix is their first choice for watching movies, according to GlobalWebIndex.

Resulticks ensures data safety & creates customised experiences.

MUMBAI: Started in 2004 as an advertising agency, Resulticks today has evolved into a full-fledged omnichannel marketing-automation company that offers truly integrated real-time conversation cloud-enabled by the world’s first marketing data block-chain. After starting its data-driven automation platform in 2012, the company is now working towards revamping the marketing campaign globally using data as its prime weapon.

Resulticks CEO and co-founder Redickaa Subrammanian, in an exclusive conversation with Indiantelevision.com, shared, “We (Resulticks), today, are sitting at the centre of an enterprise, where the whole data-either internal or third-party-is. We are helping clients to derive complete value from this data to orchestrate real-time conversations with their consumers, and contextually deliver personalised solutions to them.”

She added that this approach makes Resulticks more than just an ad agency whose prime responsibility is to take a brief from the client and deliver on that. “We are no longer taking briefs but are working on omnichannel solutions for our clients.”

Handling data operations at a time when data security breaches are becoming headlines more than often is a tough job and Subrammanian agrees to that. On being asked how Resulticks ensures data safety for its clients and their consumers, she said that the platform ensures the data on its channels is fully encrypted and minimum people have access to it preceded by an authorisation process.

She mentioned, “Today, data is at the core of every business and enterprise. But thanks to scandals like that of Cambridge Analytica, consumers are very scared about their data safety. They are trying to be careful about their data. At Resulticks, we, therefore, are very careful about the data. Here, the data belongs to the enterprise and not to us that means whole data is coming from their own properties and databases.”

DTV has dismissed the allegations stating that they are ‘malicious’ and ‘fabricated’.

MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked promoters of news channel NDTV, Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, former CEO and director Vikram Chandra and some Income Tax officials on charges of conspiracy, cheating and corruption. They are being accused of allegedly violating FDI rules between 2004 and 2010.

As per a report by Hindustan Times, NDTV has dismissed the allegations stating that they are ‘malicious’ and ‘fabricated’ so as to ‘silence free and fair reportage’.

The CBI is alleging that NDTV colluded with IT officials to bring tainted money into the system through a web of complex transactions through FDI. This was done by floating 32 subsidiaries in various tax havens across the world such as Mauritius, Netherlands, Dubai, UK and Malaysia. The CBI states that NDTV’s London company raised funds worth $120 million from two companies while the Netherlands company raised $150 million from NBCUniversal, which was at the time a subsidiary of General Electric Inc. The money was then routed to different NDTV Group subsidiaries such as NDTV Imagine Ltd, NDTV Life Style Ltd, NDTV Emerging Market BV, NDTV Convergence Ltd and NDTV Labs Ltd.

NDTV, in a written response, said, “As part of the continued persecution of free press, a new CBI case has been filed about a $150 million investment in NDTV’s non-news business by NBCU, then owned by General Electric, a massive American conglomerate. The case makes the ludicrous charge that the transaction, declared to all relevant authorities in the US and India, laundered money for unknown public servants.”

“Attempts to silence free and fair reportage through malicious and fabricated charges will not succeed. This is not about a company or individuals but about a larger battle to maintain the freedom of the press, something which India has always been renowned for,” the statement added.

MUMBAI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new tariff order (NTO) has spelled doom for the English channels. According to a KPMG report, the English pay-TV channels are expecting a drop of 25-30% in their revenues post the NTO.

It further stated that only the channels that are available in distribution platform operator (DPO) packs are likely to find decent pick-up.

The report titled ‘India’s Digital Future: Mass of Niches’ noted that the English language channels on TV have been struggling to gather any momentum over the past couple of years, with most of them forming a part of the long tail of TV channels present in India, and the market for English channels seeing a de-growth in FY19.

“In addition, the introduction of the new regulatory order in the last quarter of FY19 has added to the challenges with the uptake of English pay-TV channels taking a hit and channels expecting a drop of 25-30% in their revenues post the NTO. Only the channels/broadcasters who have been able to place themselves i.e. the English cluster in sufficient number of DPO packs are likely to find decent pick-up,” the report said.

The report also pointed out that the emergence of over the top (OTT) platforms offering English content has been one of the key factors in the dipping popularity of English TV channels. It also stated that English channels don’t lend themselves to family viewing.

“While the English watching audience is relatively smaller in India, the widespread availability of English (entertainment and movie) content on OTT platforms, that offer a personalised, convenient, appointment-free viewing experience, has been one of the key factors for a shift in consumption from TV to digital for English content. Further, the nature of select English (entertainment and movies) content does not lend itself well for family viewing, especially in a market like India,” the report noted.

“This further pushes these consumers to move away from TV based subscription/viewing to consumption on OTT platforms for English content. As a result of the prevailing conditions, in times to come English TV channels will need to be creative in positioning themselves and experiment with different business models in order to sustain and thrive as TV channels.”

MUMBAI: The pricing of cable & satellite (C&S) rights for movies is expected to undergo adjustment due to the impact of over the top (OTT) platforms, said KPMG in its report on the country’s Media and Entertainment (M&E) sector titled ‘India’s Digital Future: Mass of Niches’.

The report further stated that C&S rights and music rights are expected to grow at a muted rate. It also noted that the digital rights pricing for movies is likely to continue to see an upswing as OTT platforms further penetrate the India audience and scale up their film library.

In FY19, C&S rights showed an improvement and grew by 11.8 on the back of strong demand for some of the larger projects (both in Hindi and regional languages) coupled with box office successes of a number of mid-budget movies.

News channel Aaj Tak has broken its own record by crossing the 20-million subscribers mark on YouTube. In the month of January this year, Aaj Tak was bestowed with the ‘Diamond Play Button’ by YouTube for crossing the 10-million subscriber mark in September’18. Aaj Tak has taken just 11 more months to whiz past double the count to 20 million.

The record set by Aaj Tak, surpasses its competitors such as BBC News, CNN, ABC News etc., at a global level.
Kalli Purie, Vice-Chairperson, India Today Group, said, “It is not just a number, but the faith shown by 20 million subscribers in Aaj Tak. It is the unshakeable commitment to always be 'Sabse Tez'that helps Aaj Tak wins hearts and respect across platforms and audiences."

Viewership of both Hindi and English news channels soared on August 5 and during the entire week (Week 32 of 2019, BARC India data).

India remained hooked to television news channels on August 5, 2019, as the Modi government ended the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and split the state into two union territories. People continued to stick to their television sets for the next few days as they anxiously watched the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

As a result, the viewership of both Hindi and English news channels soared on August 5 and during the entire week (Week 32 of 2019, BARC India data).

Among Hindi news viewers, Aaj Tak was the first choice. The channel garnered 50.8 mn Impressions and 1.5 bn viewing minutes, 75% more than the No. 2 channel Zee News and almost double than the average of next four channels.

Viewership of Hindi news genre & top 5 channels on August 5, 2019 (full day)

In the wake of the subdued first quarter for television, BestMediaInfo.com explores the impact of NTO on ad volumes for major Hindi GECs. As per BARC data, ad insertion on HD channels drops by almost 40% but growth in SD channels ranges from 1% to 35% on Hindi GECs.

After the new regulatory framework for broadcasting and cable services was introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the distribution ecosystem of television has witnessed an adverse impact.

The new tariff order (NTO) changed the way broadcasters and distributors charged consumers for watching TV as it gave viewers the option of paying only for those channels they wished to watch. The new system is one of the primary factors behind the subdued growth of ad revenue on television in the first quarter of 2019.

Under the new regime, distributors had to offer a minimum of 100 free-to-air channels for a fixed price of Rs 130 per month. Broadcasters and distributors created different bouquets to attract viewers and earn profits. According to the KPMG report 2019, the modified bouquets offered by major broadcasters and distributors have attracted high demand from the consumers as opposed to the a la carte or standalone channels.

One of the major differentiators for broadcasters were the HD channels, as they had divided their packs into two categories — HD and SD — followed by the additional premium packs in each category.

But if we look at the 12-week data comparison between pre- and post-NTO shared by BARC India, it seems ad insertions have grown on SD channels but sharply declined on HD channels post-NTO.

India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) believes the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) tariff and interconnection regulations will require six to eight more months for effective implementation due to challenges related to revenue sharing between multiple system operators (MSOs) and local cable operators (LCOs); treatment of long-term packs already sold by direct-to-home (DTH) players and repricing of channel bouquets.

However, Ind-Ra opines that the tariff order is likely to de-risk the business model of MSOs and LCOs as their revenue stream will contain fixed network capacity charge (NCC) from subscribers and content commission from broadcasters (BC), thereby effectively passing through content cost.

DTH players, on the other hand, could see their profitability being impacted in the next six to twelve months, since they have already sold long-term plans till end of 2018 and DTH companies won’t be allowed to withdraw or reprice a plan that’s already in use plan.

Post TRAI’s removal of the 15% discount cap on bouquet price versus à la carte channel pricing, broadcasters have started offering bouquet of channels, at 20%-60% discount to the à la carte channel pricing, presumably to avoid any hike in final consumer price. However, despite similar costs, consumers will have access to fewer channels compared to the previous tariff regime.

Ind-Ra believes broadcasters’ business model will change from B2B (selling content to distributors) to B2C (selling content to consumers) as broadcasters will now market their channel bouquet to end customers rather than rely on MSOs. Broadcasters with strong set of anchor channels across genres will benefit, as they will be able to create a comprehensive bundled offering and generate customer pull.

Ind-Ra’s view on TRAI’s Consultation Paper: TRAI’s consultation paper, released on 16 August 2019, primarily focused on making the existing order more end-user friendly. Ind-Ra believes that certain aspects in the consultation paper such as reinstating cap on discount provided on bouquet pricing, moderating/regulating the number of bouquets, as well as number of channels, may face operational and legal challenges during execution. Allowing a fixed discount on total prices of selected à la carte channels would empower end-customers to choose their preferred channels (even across broadcasters) and also reduce their monthly payouts, opines Ind-Ra.