Google aims for premium content

YouTube is increasing its library of long-form content and is eyeing Bollywood tie-ups

Global search giant Google will begin offering pay-per-view content for its US viewers by this year end, but Indian users might have to wait for a while. However, there is something in the offing — Google is gearing up its premium content aggregation in India.

The total view of premium content from India has increased by almost 350 per cent globally, on a year-on-year basis (Q2, 2010 compared to Q2, 2009). Active videos have grown 440 per cent and new video uploads have gone up by 300 per cent. Google does not provide the break-up for video uploaded, but maintains that the growth has been phenomenal.

For Google India, activity went up a notch after the success of live streaming (simulcasting) of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches on YouTube. Live streaming raked in 55 million views and touched a subscriber base of 93,000. While IPL was one of the biggest success stories, Google recently tested the simulcasting segment with Cinemaa Awards on Maa TV — receiving approximately 170,000 views.

“After the sports category, Bollywood is the segment where we have been able to do such innovative stuff. Moreover, while the business models remain advertisement supported, some of the programming is really innovative,” said Gautam Anand, director content partnership, Asia Pacific YouTube.

Google has a network of 10,000 partners globally that includes Indian players like ZeeTV, Sony Entertainment Television, Yash Raj Films and Turner, among others.

YouTube, a popular platform for running campaigns, trailers and short format videos, is fast becoming popular with its long-form content, celebrity channels, and simulcasting programmes.

For instance, when Studio18 produced the Bollywood flick Striker — the first Hindi movie to have a world premier on YouTube — it received 1,185,433 views.

“I think there is a huge opportunity in this segment as more and more low-budget films are released. They want to tap the on-line segment. This also addresses the piracy issue to some extent. I think what we are seeing in India is different business models. As we interact and talk about the paid products we will see more and more such products,” said Anand.

As part of its long-form content, Google has over 100 titles in the Bollywood category that are available for free and is ad-supported. In geographies like the UK and the US Google has started paid content, but in India, Anand believes, it will be advertisement-supported revenue for the time being.

“We have launched long-form content for the US and the UK markets but the users have to pay to access the services. In India distribution of content is a challenge. So while it is now free to use and ad-supported in future the model will change,” he said.

Other than new releases in full-form content, YouTube has a classic segment that features films like Amar Prem and Half Ticket.

Anand said even the general entertainment channels (GEC) are catching on this web trend. “Other than simulcasting and long-form content, the GEC’s are pulling out old content on the Internet, thus monitising their intellectual property by an ad-supported model,” he said. B R Chopra’s Mahabharat is available on YouTube.

Regional cinema is another area that is doing well on the web, but is still to catch up with the rest. “The trend of consumption of content that is device agnostic also steams this adoption as more and more innovations happen in the technology segment. Apple’s iPad and Google’s Android is an apt instance. Besides some of the technology that we are using will help us provide content that users want,” added Anand.