As the Indian streaming industry continues to explode with an ever-increasing number of platforms, audiences and content, it's becoming that much more difficult to navigate and keep track of. Enter media consulting firm Ormax Media which has issued its annual OTT Audience Report: 2019 which looks to 'demystify the Indian OTT space'. In what they claim to be India's largest OTT audience research exercise, the 2019 report consists of findings gathered from 10,000 people across 73 Indian cities. Through a series of interviews and surveys, the report offers key findings about the Indian OTT space, the platforms and how audiences are consuming and engaging with streaming services and digital content.
Ormax Media gave Film Companion access to a summary of the report. A selection of key findings are below:
– By the report's estimations, the size of the Indian streaming audience (defined as the number of people in urban India above the age of 15 who watch online videos for at least two hours a week and use at least one OTT platform) stands at 76.5 million – less than 10% of the country's population.
– As with most things in India, the findings suggest that streaming audiences in the country are predominantly male (66%) and that the majority (59%) of streaming audiences are under the age of 30.
– As per the report, solo consumption (82%) far exceeds any sort of co-viewing and mobile phones remain the dominant medium of streaming with laptop, TV and tablet lagging far behind.
– Arguably the most standout finding from the study are the language observations. In an assessment of the most preferred language of consuming digital content, English makes up for a mere 22% while Hindi remains the dominant force by a wide margin at 62%, with Tamil (4%), Telugu (5%) and others (7%) remaining far smaller in comparison.
– In terms of the market share of the various streaming platforms, the report refers to Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube as 'the big 4' as they're almost neck-to-neck in Unaided Awareness (the percentage of the audience who named the platform when asked to name as many OTT platforms as they can) with all other players having far smaller recall value.
– Along with being rated the favourite platform, YouTube leads the pack in a number of measures including the number of people who have watched content on a platform at least once in the last month. Not far off is Netflix which has the highest Net Promoter Score (number of people most likely to recommend the platform), however, it is TVF which emerges the surprise in this measure as the platform which comes closest to the big four.
– As to why people subscribe to platforms and what they're looking for, Original Series and Movies are the leading reasons, followed by comedy videos and songs. Amongst the lowest on the list are News and Documentaries. In terms of the preferred genre of web series, Suspense/ Thriller takes the top position, followed closely by Comedy with Fashion and Celebrity Chat Show at the very bottom of the list.