‘OMTV is a default destination for stories of Sanatan culture’

OMTV is a new OTT platform for spiritual content. It is a default destination for religious, mythological or historical content, says Nitin Jai Shukla, Founder & MD, OMTV.  He believes that the platform has scalability to become the biggest mass audience base considering the society and culture we come from.

“We are in a niche genre of spirituality and religion which is one-of-its-kind and first in the genre. This has scalability to become the biggest mass audience base considering the society and culture we come from. A large part of India watches religious content but they don’t have a default destination and we believe that the supply will create its own demand,” he says in an interview with Adgully. Excerpts:

What is the inspiration behind launching OMTV? How has been the response from the market?

India has always been a very religiously inclined nation and I see a void in the spiritual content space. This is both for the youth and for older generation. The next-generation is asking questions, and in the absence of giving the right answers, they are moving away from our culture. Discussing religion is not cool and following it is very complicated. But the power of religion is such that now with scientific proofs, the younger generation is intrigued and want to know more about it. Storytelling has been the best way of communicating any thought and OMTV does just that. Apart from knowledge shows, we thought why don’t we tell stories and make religion cool. When all doors are closed, we turn to spirituality and that’s true for every religion. India being the land of thinkers and philosophers should have a default destination for this need for cultural content. We will speak in the language of the youth and tell ancient stories in contemporary manner so that the knowledge which is needed today should be imparted and practised right now. The youth needs gita gyan today to fight with so many insecurities and uncertainties of the future.

The older generation is not tech-savvy and relied mostly on TV sets. Now with technology intruding this segment as well they also want to watch content on phones. Till now there has been no default destination for religious, mythological or historical content; everything is scattered and it becomes very confusing for older audiences to search for options to watch such content. To give you an example, if someone has to watch a Rath-Yatra of Jaggannath Puri where will you watch? For the older Ramayana or Vikram Vetal, Mahadev or Mahabharat, I don’t think any OTT comes to our mind; the best possible name would be YouTube or DD or news channels and a very few bhakti channels.

While we are creating and growing our platform with such a content strategy, the response has been amazing. Whoever has sampled the content has liked the approach. We are far away from typical bhakti space and the presentation of ancient stories in a modern setup is liked by all. Within the film industry, whoever has seen the vision with future plans of OMTV has given us a thumbs-up.

What is your USP? Do you think niche OTT platforms like OMTV have a market of its own in India?

OMTV is a default destination for stories of Sanatan culture. This includes Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhisim and Sikhism.

It's an attempt to make the citizens of this country aware of the scientific knowledge, science behind rituals and customs, and the deep philosophy embedded in every action through various programmes. If there are mythological films and shows that captured viewers’ imagination at one point of time, there are wisdom nuggets disseminated by elders in their talks, whose experience itself commands respect, in a show named aptly “The Chair”.

On one hand, if there is a programme debating on “Aastha or Andhvishwaas”; there are small nuggets of information in “Gyaan Yaan”. While there is an attempt to enthral the audience with music and bhajans, there is also an attempt to bring in the everlasting philosophy of “Gita” through simple stories of day to day life.

OMTV is global. We are available in 159 countries and the Hindi content space is our main market. Soon, we will have our content dubbed in other regional languages as well.

Yes, we are in a niche genre of spirituality and religion which is one-of-its-kind and first in the genre. This has scalability to become the biggest mass audience base considering the society and culture we come from. A large part of India watches religious content but they don’t have a default destination and we believe that the supply will create its own demand. Whenever we have seen such content being put on Indian TV or films, the audience has not only loved them but have made them the biggest money spinners of all time. For example, we had Ramayana re-runs during the pandemic; it was the highest viewed show on a single day in world history. After Jai Santoshi Maa, I think Bahubali came in this genre at such a scale and became the biggest hit of the century. Any satellite channel will have some or the other mytho show as a flagship show in their launch strategy. So there is a huge demand for such content and surprisingly no one has created a platform till now. We would want to become what “Bisleri” is in mineral water space.

What about the prime target audience of OMTV? Are you targeting the international diaspora audience as well?

Let me give you a character sketch of my prime target audience who will subscribe to our channel. He is a 25-35 years’ old middle-class working guy. He lives with his family: wife, two kids, probably mom and dad. He wants to give best to his family, hence he is working hard to provide all basic amenities and annual holiday to his family. Since he can't give time to his kids and parents, probably he has given his old phone to his father and mother to watch YouTube videos. He doesn’t have time for his kids and thinks that he is missing out on Sanskar. Wife is busy with daily chores. He will take the subscription of OMTV for his kids as whatever he watches, he will have some Gyan and Garv about the culture. His parents can watch something bhakti and spiritual as that’s their keen interest. For him and his wife they can watch some great web series for entertainment.

If I filter the above description, then we have 500 million+ subscribers. This is the target population, including India and abroad, for all Sanatanies. I have not included rural India and only people who have a smartphone and who can consume Indic content. Even if we get 10% of the total audience, we are talking about 350 corre of revenue per year.

My go-to market is the mass of India and the international diaspora. The NRIs are more connected to their roots than the Indians living here. They would want their children to learn about India and the culture. This app provides the information and also the entertainment factor.

What are your plans for expanding the subscriber base, reaching a wider audience, audience engagement, etc.?

We have very robust plans for expansion and also to acquire a wider subscription base. Our marketing head, who had launched the satellite channel Star Movies, has a wide experience in this domain. She has made very effective and sharp marketing plans. We have direct deals planned with Google India which will provide us the right target demographics for our app downloads. We have plans with Dailyhunt user-base data to reach out their audience base. We have our SMS and digital partners for performance marketing which is just waiting for our go-ahead to activate the plan. We are going full bullish on the influencer marketing and also the digital base of Facebook which has the largest audience base.

For branding, we are finalising a deal with the biggest newspaper brand in India. We have our mock-ups designs for the launch campaign in place. All this will be activated with the launch of our big-ticket show which is ready with us. The first season is shot and ready for telecast and for the next two seasons, writing is done. You will see a lot of OMTV campaigns running on the digital space to reach out to a wider audience base.

How do you plan to monetise? What is your content strategy? Do you use a blend of your own productions and acquiring/ commissioning content?

We are a free app right now and with completion of one year and launch of our next big-ticket show we will go for the freemium model of monetisation. The subscription will be for 294/year and non-SVOD users will have to watch ads to view premium content.

We will be acquiring a lot of content which has been made till now in this space, both TV shows and films. The deal is in place with Ultra and Shemaroo as they have the biggest film and TV library when it comes to acquiring content. Commissioning content is something which we will be going ahead with very soon.

Is the regional OTT the way going forward? What are the key trends you have witnessed? Do you think OTT will eventually supplant the television medium or it will co-exist?

The emergence of regional content viewership has been exponential in recent times. There are so many regional OTT channels which have come and some of them are really doing great with their content strategy. Some of the most successful films and web series have been in a vernacular language as OTT is breaking the language barrier. If the content which I like is available in my language, I would be interested in watching it more, as compared to other Hindi/English shows.

The content viewing behaviour has become such a personalised thing. It’s no more a family viewing affair. So content strategy for an OTT will have to be made in such a manner that the platforms have to revamp and go more regional and local if they want to reach out to a wider audience base. If we can watch “Money Heist” in Spanish and with English titles then we can definitely watch Punjabi content or Tamil content with English subtitles. The only requirement here will be that the content has to be engaging.

OTT will co-exist. Nothing goes out of fashion or habit in India. We have takers for everything, whether it is radio, TV, cinema or OTT and next is Metaverse. The technology will change but storytelling will remain as the most decisive factor for entertainment. A good theatre show can surpass a film and a good radio show can surpass a popular TV show. Now with the rise of podcast and radio platforms on the web they are giving a tough fight for audience attention in the content consumption space. So, technology will change and evolve and at the end it’s all about who is the better storyteller. With historical and mythological genres the best part is all the stories are already written and have been accepted by generations to generations and hence it’s all about good execution, for which OMTV is all prepared and to come up with good compelling stories with great execution plans. The journey has just begun.

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