OTT Platforms

Recently, a report was released by SBI Research, which said that the OTT (Over-The-Top) market is set to become a Rs 12,000-crore industry by 2023, up from Rs 2,590 crore in 2018.

Findings

• The OTT market is anticipated to expand by 36% annually, from Rs 2,590 crore in 2018 to Rs 11,944 crore in 2023.
• With over 40 players and original media content available in all languages, OTT has already reduced the revenue and share of the entertainment business by 7-9%. It is also steadily expanding.
• In the country, there are already over 45 crore OTT users, and by the end of 2023, this number is predicted to increase to 50 crores.
• The pay-per-view market had 3.5 million subscribers in 2018 and is projected to reach 8.9 million this year and 11.7 million in 2027.
• A pay television or webcast program called "pay-per-view" enables customers to purchase events to watch on a private telecast.

Growth Drivers:

Affordably priced high-speed mobile Internet, a doubling of Internet users, a rise in the use of digital payments, and lower prices provided by international players are all contributing factors to this rapid growth.

Theatres were totally closed during lockdowns organized by Covid.

Implications:

• With the exponential growth of multiplexes since the early 2000s in metro/urban regions, this could result in a repetition of the unexpected death of the VCR/VCP/DVD industry that thrived in the 1980s.
• It should be emphasized that the exponential growth of video cassette recorders and players (VCRs/VCPs) throughout the 1980s marked a first-ever challenge to the conventional ways of watching movies.
• Since more than 50% of people use OTTs for more than 5 hours per month, the rise of OTT is predicted to reduce the earnings of movie theatres.
• It is anticipated that OTT platforms' entry into the fields of health, fitness, and education would further secure their future.
• The audience has started to recognize it as more than just a form of entertainment, and it has opened up new opportunities for content providers.

About OTT platforms

• Over-the-top platforms, sometimes known as OTT, are audio and video hosting and streaming services that initially served as content hosting platforms before expanding to produce and disseminate their own short films, features, documentaries, and web series.
• These platforms provide a variety of content, and they employ artificial intelligence to recommend to users the material they are most likely to watch based on their prior platform usage.
• Most OTT platforms often charge a monthly subscription fee for premium material that is typically not available elsewhere while offering other content for free.
• Premium content is typically created and promoted by the OTT platform in collaboration with reputable production companies that have a history of creating feature films.
• Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, and CuriosityStream are among examples.

laws regulating OTT platforms

• The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, which govern OTT platforms, were announced by the government in February 2022.
• The regulations establish a three-tier grievance resolution process and a Code of Ethics for OTT platforms, together with a soft-touch self-regulatory architecture.
• Every publisher needs to establish a grievance officer with a base in India who would take complaints and resolve them within 15 days.
• Every publisher must also sign up to join a self-regulatory organization. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will require such a body to register before it can address complaints that the publisher has not resolved within 15 days.
• The third-tier Oversight Mechanism is made up of the Ministry of Information Broadcasting and the Inter-Departmental Committee it established