OTT wave: Should TV reinvent its content strategy?

We all watched with awe as streaming platforms burst into the scene, wooing audiences with intelligent, engaging, and edgy content. In spite of this streaming revolution, the TV medium continues to remain impervious to change, as if stuck in a rut, rather a time warp, by dishing out run-of-the-mill shows and hackneyed soap operas. Yes, TV continues to enjoy mass appeal. But, how long is the question. Isn’t time for the TV to reinvent itself by making a paradigm shift in content strategy to keep pace with the OTT in this fast-evolving entertainment superhighway?

As we bid adieu to another World Television Day, Adgully is throwing this question to the Indian broadcast industry. The inescapable fact is that TV cannot remain complacent for so long in the face of this digital wave. That’s the overriding mood among the industry insiders, because OTT will be posing considerable competition to the television medium in the days to come.  

Pitaara TV director Sandeep Bansal, who has recently launched the multiregional OTT platform called Chaupal, is of the view that television not only needs to change its content strategy but also the distribution and marketing strategy to attract more audiences in the present scenario.

On TV vs OTT, he said that television content or soap operas are still very popular among the majority audiences and there is enough market for both the market players (OTT and linear satellite) to coexist. He further added that television caters to the needs of wider audiences which makes it a challenge to break the set patterns. Asked about wooing younger audiences on TV platforms, he emphasised that TV needs an overall reinvention to entertain the young minds and inspire them to explore content without boredom.

Indeed, TV continues to hold its sway as the quintessential medium of the masses with deep penetration.

ABP Network CEO Avinash Pandey is sanguine about the future of TV as a medium.

“As per a recent MoMAGIC survey, 55% of Indians prefer OTT platforms while 41% of them still prefer the OG DTH services. This is certainly a considerable difference for some obvious reasons like convenience, on-demand video delivery, and low mobile data pricing. However, I believe that we still have a significant number of viewers who have been loyal and can only relate to DTH or other cable services. Moreover, there is a big portion of the country which is still without television. Hence, there is still possibility for development in TV penetration, this is where intervention is required that will yield benefits in the TV’s favour,” says Pandey.

According to him, TV should incorporate flexibility and convenience to the audience.  

“I believe the changes TV needs to incorporate can be in terms of convenience, what OTT platforms provide you is the convenience to watch a show anytime of the day. TV needs to provide the same flexibility to the audience who should be in charge of what they want to watch and more importantly, what time of the day they would like to watch it. This is in contrast to the old linear television programming approach, in which viewers had to wait for their favourite programmes to air at a set hour,” he explains.

Further, says Pandey, in terms of content, the GEC really needs to step up. There is a reason why people prefer watching a web series over a daily soap; the web series are more contemporary in nature. “The same old themes and formats bore audiences. They want to see something that is new and exciting,” he says.

So, how can TV woo the younger audience who are more inclined towards binge-watching OTT content?

Young people, according to Pandey, find it difficult to stick to a strict time schedule imposed by television. Television is primarily a household device, whereas the cell phone is a personal gadget. “The current generation wants hands-on content to consume; they want to be delighted by stories written specifically for them and consumed on the gadgets, at the time and location of their choosing,” says Pandey.

Moreover, the fact of the matter is that 74% of OTT subscribers join only for a particular series; people are switching in accordance with their preferred content, he says. Hence, content will always be at the heart of the viewership. He agrees that TV needs to aggregate the OTT platform viewership trends and keep up with the pace by developing more relatable and less melodramatic content. “Moreover, as I have already mentioned, the flexibility in terms of choice of timing has given OTT a firm foothold in terms of audience traffic. Similarly, TV needs to offer its audience the same convenience and flexibility. The broadcasters and TV as a whole need to learn about the differences in generational behaviour, as these variances are crucial. Understand the impact of technology on each person's watching habits in order to develop and implement personalised marketing tactics,” says Pandey.

According to Karan Taurani, senior VP at Elara Capital, TV actually cannot keep pace with OTT, because both have a very different target audience and content strategy.

Explaining why Taurani says: “While OTT has Gen-Z, TV has a family audience. It’s a mix of mid-age, underage groups. Therefore, the content strategy is different on multiple aspects, such as creativity, freedom, scale, cost of production, etc. The content cost is also different when compared to OTT. I think TV is more of a mature medium which I believe will not die down or have a severe negative impact. It can’t be written off. It will be part of the ecosystem. Because of its massive nature, a lot of advertisers advertise on TV.”   

Over the next three to five years, he says, you may see the number of eyeballs or impressions coming down in certain genres because of this OTT wave. That’s part and parcel. However, TV as a medium will remain. “As far as OTT is concerned, the content cost is very high. And there is freedom of creativity with less amount of regulation and censorship. In fact, there is no censorship on OTT as compared to TV,” he says.  

Should TV be repackaging the content?

“I don’t think they can repackage, because the only way of repackaging is getting that bold content which they can’t show because of censorship and investing in TV shows, which they will not do because these TV channels have their own OTT apps. So rather than investing that much amount of money in TV wherein they can’t monetize that content, they would rather invest in OTT, because in OTT they get to monetize in the form of advertising or subscription. That difference is always there between TV and OTT. Nonetheless, certain genres are very friendly for TV like sports and news. People prefer watching sports events on large screens rather than on their mobile phones. Apart from this, there are some marquee TV shows like Big Boss, ABC, Sare Gama which are still family-watching shows. These shows have a recall,” says Karan Taurani.

Taurani feels that TV has a large audience, and is deeply penetrated. Certain genres will outperform and certain will underperform. TV has a huge share and it will remain so for at least the next three to five years.  

While he agreed that in urban markets a lot of cord-cutting is happening, which was expected, however, cord-cutting will not be as intensifying as it happened in the US, where the cable charges are very high compared to India.

 “We will see more cord shaving than cord-cutting. People will become selective in the channels they are paying for. The impending tariff order will have a huge negative impact. I think ala carte is the way to go. It is a transition stage. Since this digital wave started four years ago, we haven’t seen a single TV channel getting launched. We rather saw English channels getting shut down. English content has moved to OTT for various reasons; one of the reasons being that the target audience is youth-driven,” Taurani concluded.