Regional OTT to hit 50% milestone in India by 2024: MIB Secy Sanjay Jaju

OTT platforms are growing significantly in various regional languages across India. Shri Sanjay Jaju, Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, indicated this in his keynote address at India Digital Summit (IDS) 2024, in Mumbai, today. He pointed out that there were over 60 OTT platforms in India out which 30 per cent OTT Originals were operating in regional languages. The number is expected to go up to 50 per cent this year.

Shri Jaju also said that the media and entertainment sector was a huge sector and played a pivotal role in the Indian economy. “It's been growing phenomenally at a rate of 20 per cent and is approximately INR 2 Lakh Crore. In that, the digital media segment is the second largest sub-segment, and has been showing a growth of approximately 30 per cent -- around Rs. 60,000 Crores -- and the film segment has a 25 per cent growth rate,” he said. Sharing data he added that over 200 films were released on the digital platforms in the last year, including 75 films which were released directly on the digital platform without a theatrical release.

Regarding the growth of the digital gaming industry, Shri Jaju said, “The online gaming industry has been growing by 34 per cent and animation and VFX have close to around 30 percent growth rate, expected to become a $2 billion industry by 2025.”  

Shri Jaju also announced some new initiatives that the government is taking to provide a boost to the media and entertainment sector in India. These include the setting up of a National Centre of Excellence in Maharashtra to create world class media talent and an incentive scheme to attract international projects. He pointed out that, this would help the industry undertake a lot of co-production treaties with multiple countries and create a number of audiovisual co-productions.

Vivek Malhotra, Group CMO & COO, Consumer Revenue, India Today Group moderated the session.

IDS 2024 is being organised by IAMAI in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the Union Ministry of Tourism, UIDAI, Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), Government eMarketplace, In-Space and Skill India Digital. The Summit is Co-powered by Peak XV and WhistleFEED, and Brought to You by META.

Other IDS partners include Aaj Tak, Affle, Agrahyah Technologies, Air India Express, AiSensy, Albatross Media, Asianet News, Atmegame, Australia Trade & Investment Commission, Bharat BillPay, BillDesk, Builder.ai, Careers360, Chalo, Dataeye Asia, DigiBoxx, Ethinos, Fi Money, HERE India, indixital, Infinity Learn, Infobip, Interactive Avenues, ixigo, Jagran New Media, JOJO, Lionsgate, Liqvd Asia, MakeMyTrip, MapmyIndia, Markscan, Neokred, PhonePe, PhysicsWallah, PivotRoots - A Havas Company, Razorpay, Shiprocket, Sinch, Times Internet, Transport Corporation of India, True Balance, ValueFirst, and Zupee.