Cord Cutting and India – The rise of OTT viewing

Like a few other words in the English Lexicon, Over the Top (OTT) has got acceptance as the name for TV viewing outside of cable or satellite. That leaves the Internet and even though with the pace of technology this needs no box on top of the TV- the term OTT has stuck.

We carried out a survey recently across 1200 respondents across India, seeking their views on the permanent changes expected post the pandemic. We were not surprised to note that “cord cutting” has reached India as well. This US origin word refers to the intense competition between the cable/satellite and the OTT providers for the share of media pie. Over the years, in the US, OTT has made gained a fair share of the pie.

Our survey revealed that a fair 20% of the current cable/satellite viewers intend to switch over to OTT. The reasons are quite simple:

  1. Costs of OTT services are far less than cable/satellite.
  2. The bundling of services with mobile is a major attraction. Netflix can be watched on mobile as well as OTT platforms.
  3. The target audience is increasingly choosy- children, young adults, mothers, fathers and grandparents have differing choices. OTT provides this categorization and multiple devices watching with one account.
  4. ..Yes and there is the ever ready Alexa available on OTT!

These are indeed challenging times for the cable TV players and one need to watch out for their move to this elephant in the room – it is no longer a threat but a reality.

 

Amlin Roche

(The Sapience survey findings are available free. Please email us on business@sapience.co.in)

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