INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY - OTT PLATFORMS IN INDIA by Atish Ranjan Das

OTT Platforms in India 

  Source: Wikimedia common

The first OTT platform to be launched in India was BIGFlix by Reliance Entertainment in the year 2008. In 2010 the first OTT mobile app called nexGTv was launched by Digivive which provided customers with both live TV and online content, also it was the first app to live stream Indian Premier League in 2013 and 2014. 

But, OTT platform gained popularity with the launch of Ditto TV (ZEE) and Sony Liv (Sony).

Rise of OTT Platforms in India 

The main rise of OTT Platform happened with the COVID – 19 outbreaks, National Lockdown was imposed from March 2020 to fight the infection and people started to experience a lot of leisure time with the unexpected halt in their daily live. India witnessed a significant growth in OTT as it emerged as a threat to Television. People were bored with daily life having nothing to do nut remain self-quarantined, so to pass time Indians started to watch different web series (mostly foreign) in Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Sony Liv. 

% of increment in OTT viewers
 Picture source:  Google images 

Eros Now is the largest OTT content provider in India. It has more than 12,000 films, 1,00,000 music albums and 100 TV shows. Also, " Hoichoi " is the first regional language oriented OTT platform in India, covering contents in Bengali. It has 200 Bengali movies, 30 shows and 12 original movies. Hoichoi also has dubbed content from English, Hindi and Arabic. Hoichoi has also entered in Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates.

Is OTT platform a threat to Television? 

With the heavy popularity of OTT Platform, it is right to say that the popularity of Television is fading away. People nowadays are very much on the move and no one is expected to settle for less, same goes for entertainment. Our generation lacks the time and desire to sit in a same place for hours and watch TV. Instead people can watch OTT contents in phone and tablets, even in laptops. The entertainment needs of the current generation are being fulfilled by the OTT Platforms Not Television. Even we can watch sports and news in OTT platforms which is completely replacing the needs for TV. In the near future, we can see Indian audience turning their back away from TV due to the heavy growing popularity in Online Video Contents. 

 Picture source: Google images 

Some popular OTT Platforms in India are: 

• Amazon Prime 
• Hotstar 
• Netflix 
• Voot
• Alt Balaji 
• Eros Now
  

  

  
   Picture source: Google images