OTT platforms turn to daily TV-style shows to boost audience engagement

To boost audience stickiness and engagement, over-the-top (OTT) services are now experimenting with bringing audiences to their platforms on a daily basis with long-running shows by adopting the television-style daily soap operas.

 

The move comes as the OTT platforms release all the episodes of their original series at once and the audience consumes it in a single sitting. To increase audience engagement, some of the platforms have now started weekly releases of select episodes of a series.

 

“One of the objectives that we have for JioHotstar is to ensure that we have more and more engagement and how do we get consumers to come to us on a daily basis than (again) come and watch us just on a weekend,” said Kevin Vaz, chief executive officer (CEO), entertainment, JioStar, in the company’s recent earnings call.

 

He added that in Tamil Nadu, JioHotstar had launched Heartbeat, which was one of its top-rated shows, consisting of 100 episodes, with daily release of episodes.

 

“We saw consumers coming to this platform for 100 days on a daily basis, and for us, that is something that we like to also pivot with to make sure that we have stickiness on this platform,” he said, adding that the company plans to replicate similar shows across other markets.

 

This comes at a time when the streaming platforms are focusing on profitability and increasingly expanding through the advertising-video on demand (AVOD) model to enable advertisements as another revenue stream. Major platforms like Prime Video India and JioHotstar are already operating in hybrid models, while Netflix India remains a pure-play subscription video on demand (SVOD) platform.

 

While JioHotstar is also focusing on retaining audiences on its platform post the live streaming of the Indian Premier League (IPL), other platforms like Balaji Telefilms’ Kutingg is trying to bring binge-watch shows to their platform similar to the television format. On the other hand, Netflix India has been adding mass-audience content like The Kapil Sharma Show and CID to its platform.

 

Similarly, for Amazon MX Player, which operates on an advertising-supported model, it's a content strategy curating formats that drive entertainment and habitual engagement.

 

Amogh Dusad, director and head of content, Amazon MX Player, said that while binge-watching, especially in scripted shows, continues to be the most immersive way to connect, the platform has seen strong results with weekly drops on shows like Hip Hop India and its latest music reality format, iPopstar.

 

“Daily (episode) drops on Playground, Rise & Fall, and Battleground have shown how serialised storytelling can deepen engagement and drive consistent viewing behaviour. As we move forward, our focus is on expanding the diversity of our offerings, ensuring Amazon MX Player remains the go-to destination for consumers across different use cases and moods, not just across genres like reality, crime, youth, and music, but also across formats, ranging from short-form stories to web series, long-running dramas, and movies,” Dusad added.

 

Regionally too, streaming platforms are shifting focus towards making OTT platforms a viewer’s go-to choice for entertainment rather than TV.

 

“We had announced Hoichoi TV Plus (a new segment in Hoichoi) a few months ago, where the idea was to release things at regular intervals, and that’s only to build a customer habit too, having a little bit of a TV habit to tune into the app,” said Vishnu Mohta, co-founder, Hoichoi, a subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming platform that focuses on Bengali-language content. This segment's new content slate is expected to launch in January.

 

Mohta added that while the exact plan is not yet decided, the platform is considering keeping the first 10 episodes of its long shows with about 30 to 40 episodes free to allow it to penetrate Tier-II, III cities. He noted that several platforms have started similar experiments on having content between TV and web series for daily engagement.

 

Meanwhile, Uday Sodhi, co-founder, Kurate Digital Consulting, a digital consultancy firm, said that as the audience base of OTT-only and OTT and TV homes increases, the platforms will have to move towards more television-like content.

 

“Prime Video is also trying to experiment with shows like Two Much with Kajol & Twinkle, while Netflix adding The Kapil Sharma Show are basically steps by streaming platforms to feed the audience on a regular basis,” Sodhi said, adding that the streaming platforms will further experiment with more such content in the coming years to get daily viewers, as after a certain period, new customer acquisition becomes very difficult.

 

“The only two ways of increasing the user base are one, bundling the subscription with other products, and two, giving a low-priced product bundled with advertising,” he said.