Manasi Agarwal

The worldwide lockdown last year due to Corona-19 pandemic changed people’s perspective towards entertainment. With all the outdoor activities coming to a grinding halt, people were forced to remain inside the four walls of their home for months together. The theaters, cinema halls, multiplexes and sporting activities everything was closed, which provided an opportunity to the Over the Top (OTT) platforms to enter into the homes. Slowly and steadily people’s viewing choices changed, and they started enjoying watching shows and movies in the close confines of their respective homes without any restriction and without any hustle and bustle of the outdoors. There is an old saying that, “Whenever all the doors are shut, an opening comes in from a new door”, which aptly suited to these OTT platforms to penetrate into homes. Netflix, Hot star, Amazon, Sony, MX Player and all such other platforms started streaming popular web-series, television shows and films. It was a new and interesting experience for everyone and these platforms earned huge money through subscriptions. KPMG in its recent report ‘India’s Digital Future’ disclosed that the paid subscribers of the OTT platforms increased by 35% in the past one year. The OTT industry has grown over film industry in the year 2020 in India. The IBEF (India Brand Equity Foundation), a Trust established by the Ministry of Commerce detailed the distribution of income amongst all entertainment mediums. According to its report in the year 2020, television earned 77.8 thousand crores whereas OTT earned 21.8 thousand crores and predicted further that by the end of the year 2022, television will earn 76.9 thousand crores and OTT will earn 33.8 thousand crores. Thus, the income of television will decrease whereas OTT income will grow significantly. The estimation of entertainment industry after two years would be something like the chart below.   

Television – 44.4%, Print- 17.5%, OTT- 12.5%, Films- 10.5% and Others including Radio and Music- 15.1%. Senior reputed film critic Anupama Chopra says that, “Henceforth people will go to cinema halls only for big panorama film and not for family drama or relationship oriented films. They have a choice now. “

The advertisement revenue will also witness paradigm shift. The revenue percentage generated in the year 2020 was as below:

Television: 36%, Print: 27%, OTT: 27%, Films: 2% and Others: 8%.

The experts say that as of now the advertisement revenue distribution for every 100 rupees spent is that 60 rupees go to television, 30 rupees to digital and 10 rupees to other mediums. It will definitely change in the next three years and the OTT will get 60% of the revenue. The content writers are also having a field day along with the actors and creative artists are now getting work and exposure. According to Anupama Chopra there is a huge demand of content writers now long after the famous writer’s duo Salim-Javed. With the onset of the second phase of pandemic, some big budget films which were scheduled to be released in March have been postponed giving way to the OTT platforms. The OTT users are making big difference in entertainment industry and more and more people including top-notches of the industry are looking forward to it to reach to the viewers.