Streaming's rush for reach: Platforms tap smaller cities with mass content

India had 125 million OTT subscribers in 2024, that amounts to a reach of about 375 million viewers

The “linearisation” of streaming has begun in earnest. On April 1, Netflix will start streaming the World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, in India. This staged, somewhat exaggerated, promotional wrestling drew about 50 million Indians in 2019. Netflix is banking on this “sports entertainment” show, among others, to ramp up its reach (47 million currently) and subscribers (15 million) in the country. Its core remains premium shows such as Delhi Crime or Black Warrant. But the last two years have seen it bring in The Great Indian Kapil Show, Maamla Legal Hai, The Greatest Rivalry — India vs Pakistan, and WWE in its attempts to reach the masses.  

Amazon, meanwhile, is expanding content and pricing options across the board to reach every language and income class. Amazon Prime Video began offering other OTT brands such as Lionsgate and manoramaMAX on its platform in 2021. The tally is 25 now. It also offers 8,500 movie titles on rent. In September 2024, it acquired MX Player from Times Internet. Amazon MX Player unveiled a slate of 100 new shows last month with a guarantee that the service will remain free. 

SonyLIV, home for cerebral shows such as Rocket Boys and Freedom at Midnight, is using non-fiction fare like Shark Tank and Million Dollar Listing to get to more people. The recent season four of Shark Tank has seen its reach double across 42 tier 2 towns. 

  Another large OTT has been (reportedly) asking producers to cook up 100-episode shows instead of a 7-10 episode series. Many now stagger episodes in a new season to keep the audience coming or they drop the latest in a show at a fixed time, to encourage appointment viewing, a la TV. Note that habit and appointment make for good advertising rates, much like TV. 

The irony is hard to ignore. As the Indian streaming market moves to its next phase of growth, it is becoming exactly like broadcasting. Growth is about more languages, massy programming, cheaper product variants and plenty of free stuff. 

Much of this, however, is inevitable. In 2024, India’s entire streaming video business was worth around Rs 35,600 crore, with over Rs 18,000 crore spent on producing shows and acquiring films. Not surprisingly, no service — except perhaps YouTube — made money.

  Eight years after SVoD or subscription video-on-demand took off, the top end of the market is spoken for. India had 125 million OTT subscribers in 2024, according to Media Partners Asia data. That amounts to a reach of about 375 million viewers. If streaming has to make money in India, it needs to reach all the screens that Indians are on — the 650 million on smartphones, 900 million on television, 200 million on connected TVs. These figures are not discrete, there is a lot of overlap among them. If you take 900 million as the base market, streaming has a long way to go. YouTube, the largest service, reached 454 million people in December 2024, according to Comscore data. Meta’s Instagram was at 324 million. At a distant number three is JioHotstar (JioCinema+Disney+Hotstar) with 188 million unique visitors. All the others, Zee5, SonyLIV, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix are in the 20-50 million range. 

  Clearly, the top-end metro market is maturing. It is time to go lower down the pyramid into the middle and lower tiers. This is free, ad-supported and user-generated content territory. This is where Google’s YouTube, Meta’s Instagram, and the state-controlled DD Freedish, with free channels like Dangal and Goldmines, rule. Much of this then explains the emphasis on free and the obsession with popular themes. The Greatest Rivalry — India vs Pakistan is the kind of show you might want to see as a filler on a sports channel. Ditto for the WWE. But if you know that for Netflix, the fastest growth in new subscribers, has been coming from its basic pack priced at Rs 199 a month, these moves make sense. Note that this is a global reality. Every major SVoD service has introduced an ad-tier. Last year, 24 per cent of SVoD revenues in America came from the ad-tier, according to an Omdia report.

  This raises the question: Will premium programming get watered down on pay OTTs? Programming budgets have been stagnant for two years now. As the same budget is stretched over more shows, worries about quality are real. 

They may be misplaced for one simple reason — the context has been set. Indian broadcasting never saw its “HBO” moment with premium shows such as Game of Thrones or Succession because price regulation on TV completely stifled it. On streaming, the contextual experience, the one which sets the benchmark, has been good original programming. It is shows such as Paatal Lok (Amazon Prime Video) or Scam (SonyLIV) that get new, paying subscribers. It is the promise of shows such as Squid Game that has ensured the success of the ad tier that Netflix has introduced in 12 markets across the world (excluding India) in 2022. A basic quality of storytelling is non-negotiable. 

  Take a look at the originals Amazon MX Player unveiled earlier this year — Bhay, Mitti, Who’s Your Gynac. They look and feel like well-written and cast shows, albeit with different production values. The Viral Fever or TVF has some of the most successful shows — Panchayat, Gullak — on streaming. But many of its big hits, Kota Factory, for instance, began on YouTube in 2019 because they were low-cost and the big OTTs didn’t want them. But not all services can or want to take a series that cost a crore an episode. A good story, told at the right cost, will work. Vijay Koshy, president TVF, compares the firm to a Maruti car; “It is not fancy but it does its job, is reliable and cost effective.” 

  That is what the business needs to hit scale and profitability. 

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