7 reasons why OTT service platforms are the favorites among youth?

It’s not been too long before that the On-demand video streaming platforms have been introduced, and various applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and various other national and regional have already become the favorite destination of entertainment among the young generation. Recently with the lockdown in effect, the use of these applications has only increased. But has it become a replacement for the cable business? Is there any chance that people will stop watching television and watch the shows of these applications instead?

 

How the On-demand streaming services began in India?

The first of its kind OTT was introduced in the year 2008 in India when Reliance launched BIGFlix. It is an on-demand movie service which allows users to watch and download their favorite movies. An OTT, over-the-top service uses the internet to provide content to its viewers instead of the traditional cable/broadcast provider.

One of the major players of current market, Hotstar was introduced in the year 2015 is a subsidiary of Star India. With the announcement of it to be showing the Indian Premiere League, the platform soon gained momentum. Seeing India’s potential market in OTT, American streaming service Netflix also started its journey in the year 2016. Along with these two, the other key players are Amazon Prime, Eros Now and Sony Liv.

 

The growth of the On-demand platforms

The demand for the Over-The-Top services have been rising steadily. Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Netflix being the top favorites among the platforms with millions of paid subscribers. While Hostar is reportedly enjoying 8 million subscribers in India, while Amazon Prime has about 10 million subscribers. The added advantage that these digital platforms gives makes it easier for them to lure the Customers. For example, Hotstar along with movies and shows also allows viewers to watch sports like IPL and EPL which has a huge fan following. Amazon Prime on the other hand, provides users to get a single day delivery for their buyers apart from the shows and movies available on their platform.

 

Why the OTT media services are becoming so popular?

So why these platforms are growing so fast?

• The daily soap serials does not attract the youth anymore where there is a lot of family drama with less story and no action or thrill, and the same serial goes on for years. The youth will rather see something which have some suspense in it and a real story. With the OTT platforms bringing in short and suspense along with action packed stories makes it more appealing to the younger generation.
• With the digital world becoming accessible to everyone through the internet, the digital platforms provides access to the foreign shows as well which the viewers see trailers and discussions happening on different social media, which were otherwise unknown to the television viewers. One of such biggest foreign show is Game of Thrones which has a big fan following in India.
• With students and office goers, time is a big factor wherein they can’t change their timings based on the timings of the tv serials.  The OTT platforms on the other hand, gives users the advantage to watch ant show at any time and they don’t need the viewers to watch them at a specific timings and miss the actions.
• With the television showing multiple advertisements that adds up to the range of 10-12 mins tests the patience of the viewers. As the attention span decreasing, the young viewers prefers the option of OTT platforms that displays very little or no ads.
• The benefit of skipping some boring scenes or skipping an entire episode really gives an edge over the television content where there is no such option to skip; you have to either watch the full episode or wait for the next day to watch a new one.
• With most of the OTT platforms giving the users a package of shows and movies, and sometimes live sports as well makes them a package deal of entertainment with comparatively lesser costs than the cable operators.
• The most beneficial advantage of the OTT platforms is its integration with mobile and tablet applications where users can always watch their favorite shows or movies anytime and anywhere, not just home. They also have the option to download them and watch them later in trains or flights.

Future of the OTT platforms

With the lockdown in place due to Covid, demand for Over The Top platforms have increased and the fact that the producers have started choosing these platforms to even release films like Gulabo Sitabo is a huge boost for the on demand online services. The prospects looks quite good and hopefully in normal situations also, new films might be released on these OTT platforms in the future.

Conclusion:

With India’s youth becoming tech savvy, the Over-The-Top demand services have become the popular entertainment destination for the youth of India. These will only increase in the coming years and have been quite competitive in the markets with various regional platforms launching and joining the race.

Who could say that these platforms might someday overtake the viewership of television! Although that might seem unrealistic in the near future, but once the OTT platforms starts to bring in more variety of contents for the older generation as well under its umbrella, it surely will become a reality.

Afterall, it is always good to have a competition in the market. Who knows, this will force the makers of the television shows to bring in better and fresh concepts for the television audience as well in order to survive with the digital platforms in this demanding entertainment market.

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