Times Internet's BoxTV.com reaches 50 million views

The site claims to have 250,000 registered users with more than 25 per cent of them being paid subscribers.

BoxTV.com, the video streaming platform from Times Internet, has released its viewership statistics where it claims to have recorded more than 50 million views in the past four months, with more than 100,000 unique users accessing the website daily on an average.

Times Internet made BoxTV available for public access in February, 2013. The website was launched in September, 2012, though the access to the site so far was possible only on invitation.

BoxTV.com follows a 'freemium model', which means that a part of the content will be available on an ad-supported free-to-user basis, and the rest can be accessed on a monthly subscription. The Indian subscription price starts at Rs 199 per month.

BoxTV states that out of the 50 million views reached, roughly 15 per cent was from paid users. BoxTV showed a growing interest for premium content from genres like romance (17 per cent), action (16 per cent) and drama (15 per cent). The remaining 52 per cent comprised interest in genres like thriller, history, comedy, suspense, family, children and crime. Users have spent an average of 27 minutes per visit.

In top languages, 62 per cent of premium subscribers consumed Hindi content, followed by 20 per cent for English and 17 per cent for regional content, which is largely led by Tamil and Telugu regional video consumption. The domestic content demand is driven by cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.

In the four months of its operations, the maximum searches done on the website went to 'Amitabh Bachchan', followed closely by 'Cricket', 'Sex' and 'Adult'.

The site claims to have around 250,000 registered users so far with more than 8,000 new sign-ups every day. Till date, Box TV says that it has had more than 25 per cent of its users paying at some point, since it is a monthly subscription.

As far as monetisation for the platform goes, except during Pepsi IPL, which was a separate sales process, BoxTV has not done any brand partnership as yet. However, the company claims be actively discussing interesting ideas and concepts with advertisers.

"We are very excited to get such great response from our users and are constantly looking at ways to expand our content library and product features. As part of our commitment to growing the digital video industry in India, we have started releasing the BoxTV viewership patterns. Over time, we will release more of these that will help us and everyone in the industry - content partners, advertisers, platform owners - to understand the needs of the Indian digital audience and address them more effectively," comments Pandurang Nayak, business head, BoxTV.com.

BoxTV.com currently offers over 17,000 hours of popular content from Hollywood, Bollywood, regional cinema and English TV shows. The portal has content tie ups with studios like Sony Pictures Television, Disney UTV, Celestial Entertainment, UTV Motion Pictures, Shemaroo Entertainment, Rajshri Entertainment and Everymedia Technologies.