“It’s not that digital viewers come from Mars and TV viewers are from Venus”: Sudhanshu Vats, Viacom18

Viacom18 launched its subscription video-on-demand offering Voot Select and Vats feel success somewhere else won’t guarantee victory in India.

When you drive along the Western Express Highway in Mumbai, you will witness the intense competition in the digital video-on-demand (VOD) space in India. Hoardings scream at you - the new ‘Original’ that Netflix, Amazon, Hotstar, ALTBalaji, Zee5, SonyLIV, Ullu… is streaming on their platform. It looks like all these platforms are running short of billboards. All this is to get an access to the consumer’s credit/debit cards, or wallet. The VOD platforms want you to subscribe to their premium service and now, there is a new one - Viacom18’s Voot Select.

India continues to be an ad-led media economy. Paying for content is not something Indians are accustomed to. One could argue this perception by throwing statistics about the rise in the ticketing revenue of films. However, whether Indians pay to watch content, or enjoy the experience, which is more like a family outing, is debatable. Indian television broadcasters are battling the regulator as they are unable to price their channels the way they want. In this ecosystem, there is a fight going on between subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platforms. In FY20, as per consultancy firm KPMG, the OTT video streaming platform’s revenue stood at Rs 2,200 crore. And by 2022, KPMG projects it to reach Rs 4,800 crore.

Recently, the head of Netflix announced that the US-headquartered streaming giant will spend Rs 3,000 crore on developing original content for India. OTT platforms often make headlines with the sheer number of shows they say they will release in a year, which ranges between 30 and 100. Being one of the last ones to enter this race, Voot Select will certainly face stiff competition. Launched in March 2016, Voot claims to have more than 100 million monthly active users, and Viacom18 Group CEO and MD Sudhanshu Vats believes it is a big enough number to start with.

In an interview with afaqs!, Vats speaks about the digital video ecosystem, among other things. He asserts India is an open market and that success somewhere else won’t necessarily guarantee victory in India. “To win India, you will have to win in India,” he says.

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