The key to attracting new audiences to the OTT platform is to go regional!

India's Over the Top (OTT) Entertainment industry is expanding into a multi-million & billion-dollar industry, despite the stronghold of traditional television, radio and cinema auditorium. The size of the OTT market in FY2020-2021 stood in the range of $1.7 billion in both the Video and Audio segments. It is expected to grow to be a $15 billion industry over the next 9-10 years.

Along with the growth of mainline OTT players, the next wave of growth in the OTT landscape is coming from the Tier 2, 3, 4 cities and the regional markets.

According to a recent FICCI EY report, the share of regional content in the overall OTT Platform is expected to increase almost double 54% in the next 3 to 5 years as compared to 27% in 2021

Commenting on the changes in the regional OTT viewership over the years, Kowshik Komandur, Associate Vice-President with one of the leading mobile entertainment companies, emphasized that besides pricing and packaging, the Key to attracting new audiences to the OTT platform is to go regional. Besides, experimental content and short films are going to see more takers.

All platforms have understood and recognized that if they need to be relevant across India, they must create or acquire original content for regional markets. Kartika Kanishka Sharma, president-partnerships and trading at a media agency, said.

Commenting on the changes in the regional OTT viewership over the last few years, Kowshik Komandur, who advises start-ups, said, "Regional content viewership has shown a steep increase, especially in Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil. The subject, content and infrastructure have allured audiences from the national spectrum. Another interesting aspect is the shift of viewer interest from a single category (crime) to other genres with inspiring life stories."

Another trend common to regional as much as all other languages across the country is the growth of biographies, highlighted by Sameer Dixit, Promoter, Pickle Entertainment & Media Pvt Ltd.

This is an exciting time for content in any language to be successful anywhere. However, this increased demand for content across languages drives pricing throughout the value chain, including for writers, filmmakers, actors and crew. Most good technicians are as busy as actors and writers these days, so it's a challenge to keep costs down", Jaideep Dhagat, CEO of Jams Jaguar Media, pointed out.

Poonam Mahajan, Director & CEO, Apexx Media, informed, "Although, many big-ticket theatrical films had to take the streaming route due to the pandemic, and they went on to generate sizable viewership numbers for the platforms. Theatrical films got the older thirty-plus age group and small-town audiences on board. Thus, the platforms must expand regional film libraries to attract an audience and increase their subscription base.